Being shy but determined, I walked around Manhattan’s West 40s where there were buildings filled with editorial services and production companies. I would give my very short resume to anyone who would take it. People (that is, men) were surprised to see a young woman wanting to work in their territory.

“They were usually polite but with a million excuses. They wouldn’t hire women because they didn’t want to watch their language. And because women can’t carry as many cans as a man. And ‘we can’t waste time training women because they’re just gonna get married, get pregnant and leave.’ But I kept at it since I really had no idea what else to do.”

Then one day she “walked into ‘Armand Film Service’ ready to hand over my resume. Someone there assumed I was an actress who walked in the wrong door. ‘The auditions,’ he told me, ‘were next door.’ To which I said, I wasn’t an actress. I was there looking for a job as an apprentice to a film editor. “It turned out they needed a ‘girl’ to cut negative and answer  the phones. So, I finally got a job!

And the next day, on my first day actually touching film, I was shown (too quickly) how to cut A and B rolls of 16mm film. I did what I could and made many mistakes. Luckily, the film was all quick cuts – and the director was just thrilled. He never noticed the missing frames. “I learned from terrible, expensive mistakes because it was film – the real thing! There was no ‘undo,’ so, I learned to do it right!” Lynzee explains that after that, she quickly found more work as “the girl” – a novelty in the industry.

“I later learned there were women working in editorial, but I never knew about any, never saw any and no one ever mentioned any. It took two years to finally bump into another woman in an elevator on 45th Street who happened to be carrying film cans just like me … Hooray! We laughed!”

In the late sixties, she was recommended to Emile de Antonio who had done a fantastic documentary called Point of Order about the Army-McCarthy hearings. He was looking for an editor who was informed and dedicated enough to the anti-war movement to accept a very low salary. So, she got her first big editing job, working seven days a week for a year on the documentary, In the Year of the Pig.

For Lynzee, it was exciting to be working on a film that she felt could be important, educate people and have influence. After that intense experience, she went back to work as an assistant on commercials, not knowing that the first film she edited was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary!

Through the grapevine, she heard of another documentary about Vietnam being produced with a real Hollywood budget. So, she cold called the director, Peter Davis, and suggested he hire her because of her extensive knowledge of Vietnam footage and history. Lynzee recounts the conversation. “He said, ‘You’re right, but I just hired an editor.’ I said, ‘Who?’ He said, ‘Susan Martin,’ who was a good friend of mine. So, he hired both of us and we did the film together!”

That was Hearts and Minds. Peter Davis and his crew had spent a year going all over the globe interviewing people. And, of course, when they finished filming and got to the editing, they had no money left! So once again, it was long hours, seven days  a week, for an entire year – all for dedication to the cause and a very small salary.

“But once again, I was thrilled to be working on something that I believed in, that could be important and make a difference,” relates Lynzee. The film went on to win the Oscar® for Best Feature Documentary.

But, working with such heavy documentary material wasn’t easy for Lynzee. “My heart would break for some of the people in Hearts and Minds,” she says, “because the best moments for our film were often the darkest ones in real life.” This prompted Lynzee to set her sights on Hollywood. “I thought I should work in fiction film where people pretended to suffer – and got paid for it!”

But, once again, she explains, “No one would hire me. They said I didn’t know anything about how to tell a story. But, of course, they were completely wrong! A documentary editor constructs the film from scratch, piecing it together so the story flows elegantly. Documentary editing was all about storytelling!”

One person who did know this was sound editor James Nelson. “Jim and I worked together on Hearts and Minds. His neighbor, Michael Douglas, happened to be looking for (as usual) a cheap,additional editor to work on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Richard Chew [ACE] had already begun editing the film. “So, I went to San Francisco for an interview, and I got the job! I was beyond excited.” They were eventually joined by a third editor, Sheldon Kahn [ACE]. “There was so much wonderful footage with different angles, close-ups and two-shots of everyone and sizes that made it so much fun to cut and to try things. You don’t get that in a documentary.”

Lynzee, Richard Chew, and Sheldon Kahn were nominated for an Oscar and they won the BAFTA®. In the film’s director, Miloš Forman, Klingman found a mentor. “He loved editing and trying everything. A lot of ‘what if we put this here and that there,’ which I loved to do. Sometimes, after watching a scene, he would say, ‘Not bad.’ That was the highest compliment you could receive from him.”

Working on Miloš’ 1979 film, Hair, led to a pivotal moment in Klingman’s personal life. After meeting cameraman Richard Pearce on Hearts and Minds, the two reconnected on location in Barstow, California and were married soon after.

Regarding the actual editing of the musical with Forman, we had better versions of some scenes which broke my heart. There was an executive in charge of post-production at United Artists at that time who decided that he would save the company a little money by not storing the footage when we were done. And that’s what he did – he destroyed it all. It was so infuriating! It still upsets me.

There were many wonderful musical numbers cut out and so many scenes that would be thrilling to see in their full length so that Twyla Tharp’s brilliant choreography could have been fully enjoyed. This was, of course, before the development of DVDs where deleted scenes and alternative cuts can live forever.” Still, it was a memorable way to close out the ‘70s.

The following decade saw highlights like Baby Boom, Gilda Live, True Confessions and her two most important productions: her two children, Remy and Jack. The bond between an editor and a director is huge for the success of any film. It’s to Klingman’s credit that she not only developed that eloquent shorthand with Miloš Forman, but later with Danny DeVito and Jodie Foster.

“Danny DeVito is the most under appreciated director in Hollywood,” she says of the helmer for whom she cut three movies. “He’s a brilliantly imaginative filmmaker, and he shoots a lot of film, which I love to have, so that there are tons of possibilities. He designs shots and transitions beautifully. Plus, he’s a joy to work with.”

She also worked with Jodie Foster on three films. “I was interviewed initially for Little Man Tate, but I had notes on the script that Jodie didn’t like. So, she went with someone else who left and I got to cut the film,” she says. “The producer [Peggy Rajski] was also a woman. I had never worked with all women before and it was a great experience and also very rare.”

The ‘90s proved to be Klingman’s most prolific decade yet. A River Runs Through It, Hoffa, Picture Bride, Outbreak, Home for the Holidays and Matilda all benefited from Klingman’s editing magic. Klingman managed to do all this and raise a family – all while relearning how to do her job all over again with the emergence of computer-based, nonlinear editing.

“I have no nostalgia for film because the Avid makes everything so much easier! With film, when we wanted to recut a scene, we would have to send the cut to the lab to make a ‘dupe’ and the sound would go to the sound house. It would take at least a day (and often more) to get it back. It’s so much more fun to work on an Avid.”

In 1998, she had three films released: Hush, Living Out Loud and City of Angels. The following year, she would have her final collaboration with Miloš Forman with Man on the Moon, a biopic about comedian Andy Kaufman. “Jim Carey played him brilliantly,” says Klingman. “My brothers were friends with Andy growing up in Great Neck, so I knew him personally. Jim Carey did an amazing job.”

But, Klingman isn’t just a talented editor, she has become a mentor and teacher in her own right. Klingman taught editing at USC and has been an Editing Mentor at AFI for many years where she works in the cutting room with her students. She also consults with film students at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.

To her students, Klingman emphasizes the important thing is to remember that editing is a process. There is a famous quote about how editing is never finished, but Klingman shares, “Especially on Hair, [Forman] was obsessive. We had a wonderful version but he wanted to keep going and try more. When you have 500,000 feet of film there’s a lot of ways you can cut it. We would try so many different ways but I felt really interrupted. Try everything, all the time.

I will never feel satisfied until I feel I’ve found the best film that could possibly be made from any footage. When you’re looking for, say, an alternate line reading, don’t just look for that particular line or expression, make sure you’re looking at all your dailies. You will discover new things each time, new moments you never noticed before. Then, know why you’re cutting when you’re making a cut. They should never be arbitrary. Every cut should have a reason.”

Reflecting on her career, she says, when editing, she never lost sight of her main objective. “I’ve always considered myself, when I’m editing, as the audience. I’m picking what the audience is going to see. What do I want to see? What do I want to learn? How do I feel about this character? I felt, as an editor, that was my role.”

In retirement, Klingman admits that she misses the bonds she formed with her assistants and crew. “They’re my family and some of my best friends. What a pleasure it was to see them every day. I sure miss that!”