Robert A. Webb

Film Editor

Robert Arlington Webb was born in Springfield, Illinois, on May 27,1911. His family moved to California in the 1920s, where his father and uncles worked in the Hollywood film industry. Brothers Harry Jr. and Jerry, and their brother-in-law, Harmon Jones, were all involved in filmmaking. For years, the Webb family lived at 524 North Bundy Dr. and in various houses nearby. Aside from the work Bob Webb did with the OSS in Germany, he spent a year or more in Burma, circa 1953, teaching a Burmese film crew the essentials of film editing. After returning to the U.S., he worked in New York City for the rest of his life, cutting commercials for various advertising agencies. He died in August 1971.

His nephew is Los Angeles film editor and screenwriter Robert C. Jones (son of Harmon Jones). Author of the Oscar-winning screenplay for Coming Home, Jones has also been honored for his film editing work with Oscar nominations for It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and Bound for Glory.

Ray Kellogg & Bob Webb (foreground) in the
Nuremberg editing room, 1945

(Photo courtesy of
Lieselotte Balte Ashkins)