Nimble administrator set new standards for sporting bodies
Anne Coates, who has died aged 92, won an Oscar for her part in making Lawrence of Arabia one of cinema’s most visually stunning films.
The British-born Coates spent more than 60 years in one of the film industry’s most important but least understood jobs, working alongside such directors as Sidney Lumet, Milos Forman, David Lynch and Steven Soderbergh. Her final credit was on Fifty Shades of Grey in 2015.
A film editor takes raw footage and pieces it together, matching it with sound and music, to create the pace, sequencing and flow of a movie. Oscar-winning film editor Walter Murch once described the job as ‘‘a cross between a shortorder cook and a brain surgeon’’.
Coates worked as a nurse before her uncle, British studio chief J Arthur Rank, helped her find her a film-making job in the 1940s, working behind the scenes on religious films. ‘‘He thought, ‘That’ll cool her down,’ ’’ she said in 2016. ‘‘Didn’t work.’’
Her first credit as a film editor came in 1952 with The Pickwick Papers, a retelling of the Charles Dickens novel. Her most challenging and best-known work came 10 years later, when director David Lean tapped her for Lawrence of Arabia.
Sstarring Peter O’Toole as a British adventurer who led Arab tribesmen in battle on horseback during World War I, it featured shimmering desert vistas, camel caravans and moody close-ups of O’Toole and actor Omar Sharif.
By the time Lean finished shooting, Coates had to make visual sense of more than 50 kilometres of raw footage. She was on a tight post-production schedule because the film was to be shown to the Queen before its public release.
The film was almost four hours long and was considered a triumph of technical film-making. It won seven Academy Awards, including one for Coates.
Perhaps her best-known sequence in the film comes in a scene in which O’Toole tells a British official, played by Claude Rains, of his determination to go to the desert. He lights Rains’ cigarette, then holds the match until the flame almost touches his fingers. When O’Toole finally blows out the match, the scene immediately shifts to a slow, still shot of the sun rising over the horizon into an orange sky.
She had four other Oscar nominations during her career, including Soderbergh’s Out of Sight (1998). She received an honorary Academy Award in 2016.
While making Out of Sight, she befriended its star, George Clooney, telling him her job was ‘‘saving an actor’s performance’’. ‘‘George thought that was funny,’’ she said. ‘‘Jennifer Lopez, who was the female lead, came by and George said, ‘This is the editor, Anne Coates, who is going to save your performance.’ Jennifer did not think it was funny.’’
Coates moved to Hollywood in 1986. Her marriage to director Douglas Hickox ended in divorce. Survivors include three children, Emma Hickox, a film editor, and Anthony Hickox and James Hickox, both directors. – Washington Post
Bill MacGowan had two sports in his life: football and golf. He somehow found time for a brief flirtation with rugby league, but it would be his two sporting loves that dominated a good chunk of his work life as one of New Zealand’s foremost sports administrators – part of a new breed of leaders who moved sport away from being controlled by chairmen and committee members.
His dry humour, sharp wit and ability to keep people on their toes stood him in good stead for the tumultuous world of running sports organisations, as chief executive of New Zealand Football (1995-97 and 1999-2005), New Zealand Golf (2007-10) and the New Zealand Warriors (1997-98).
Current New Zealand Golf chief executive Dean Murphy was groomed to take over the role from MacGowan during the latter’s tenure. He told of a story that seemed to sum up MacGowan well.
Having emerged from a successful meeting to secure a big commercial deal, the pair entered a lift. Murphy expected some sort of pride or happiness from having nailed the deal, maybe even a highfive. Instead MacGowan said: ‘‘I wouldn’t wear that striped shirt again, it looks like your pyjamas.’’
Always keeping you on your toes.
MacGowan needed to be nimble to navigate the myriad issues he would face throughout his career.
His time at the Warriors – then known as the Auckland Warriors – was particularly fraught, with the previous regime having overspent and leaving very little money in the coffers. Add to that the ongoing Super League war, in which the Warriors joined nine teams in splitting from Australian Rugby League to join News Corporation’s new competition, and you’ve got a massive challenge for any administrator. The fact he remained friends with coach Frank Endicott spoke volumes to his ability to manage those situations.
But football was always calling him back. He had played junior football for Birkenhead United, and carved out a handy enough national league career as a senior, starting with Blockhouse Bay. He eventually turned his hand to coaching, twice winning Auckland coach of the year.
Former All Whites captain Rodger Gray played at Waitakere City in the early 1990s when MacGowan was an assistant coach. He remembered a man with a ‘‘driving, needling sense of humour, but never cutting or malicious’’. Someone who always had a wry smile and forever seemed to be wearing glasses.
He once led the team down a jungle path during pre-season training one Saturday morning in the Auckland Domain, only to find what appeared to be the entire homeless population of Auckland sleeping, and none too impressed to be woken by 20 stampeding footballers. It was one of the few times anyone could say MacGowan did not do his due diligence.
His leadership of the 1999 Fifa Under-17 World Cup in New Zealand was exemplary, and it was a natural move for him to then head back to New Zealand Football – or New Zealand Soccer as it was known then – for his longest stint with the national body.
He successfully oversaw the formation of the New Zealand Football Championship, which remains in place today. But in an interview with former All White Michael Utting’s Utter Football radio show in February, he said it was far from plain sailing.
‘‘I remember when we [All Whites] got beat in Adelaide against Vanuatu [in 2004] and the back page of the [New Zealand] Herald was I should be sacked. I didn’t play, I didn’t pick the team.
‘‘The general public like to have a pop at sport administrators because everybody thinks they can do it better, but I think they need to be inside the tent and working with the constraints we’ve got ...
‘‘I ran New Zealand Football twice, ran New Zealand Golf, ran the under-17 World Cup in 1999, all of those things are really exciting from the outside, but from the inside you’re always pushing to find the final dollar to pay the bill.’’
Through all that, almost all who dealt with him held him in high esteem as a great administrator and a first-class bloke.
Not bad for a boy from Scotland who arrived in New Zealand in March 1960 on the second-to-last sailing of the RMS Rangitata.
He was an avid Rangers fan, and finally managed to tick an Old Firm derby off his bucket list on New Year’s Eve 2016, watching his beloved team lose 2-1 at home to bitter Glasgow rivals Celtic, with wife Trish by his side.
Trish, coincidentally, arrived in New Zealand from Scotland on that same boat as Bill a couple of years before him. They were married 31 years ago, with Trish said to be the better golfer, but ‘‘only because she had more time to play’’, according to Bill.
His work also got in the way a tad. Before taking on the role of NZ Golf chief executive in 2007, he said working as general manager of the North Shore Golf Club had seen his handicap balloon from 10.6 to 16.
He would continue to work in consultancy and football right up until July 2017, when he had to resign as Auckland Football Federation chief executive due to ill health.
He died from cancer on May 4. In a fitting tribute, New Zealand Football will make him a life member at its annual congress later this month. – By Liam Hyslop