John Dunning

Who was John Dunning?

John "Jack" D. Dunning was an American film editor who worked on several large-scale Hollywood movies from 1947 to 1970. He was an editor contracted to MGM Studios.

He first garnered attention when the low-budget war film Battleground became a sleeper hit in 1949, earning critical praise and several Oscar nominations, including one for Best Film Editing.

Dunning worked on the remake of Show Boat; Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar, an adaptation of Shakespeare's play; and the Southern epic Raintree County. In 1959 he won an Oscar for Best Film Editing, shared with Ralph E. Winters, for Ben-Hur.

Dunning then moved to television, where he edited The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

John retired in 1970. John was married to Ruth Dunning. Together they had three children, John Dunning, Robert Dunning and Barbara Dunning. John and Robert Dunning run a winery in Paso Robles, California which Robert began on his father's property in Malibu. Barbara Dunning followed her father into the editing business, working as a freelance editor on films such as Cocktail, Green Card and Die Hard 2.