Coppola mourns Godfather editor

Peter Zinner with his daughter, Katina, in the 1970s

Film editor Peter Zinner, who worked on the first two Godfather movies with director Francis Ford Coppola, has died in California aged 88.

Zinner, who died of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, was jointly nominated for an Oscar for his work on the first Godfather film in 1972.

Coppola paid tribute to Zinner's "great contribution" to his mob drama.

Zinner went on to win an Academy Award for his work on The Deer Hunter in 1978, which also won best picture.

Coppola told the Associated Press that the music which accompanied the film's final baptism sequence was Zinner's idea.

'Inspiration'

"Peter had the inspiration to add the organ music that pulled the sequence together," he explained.

Zinner's nomination for his work on The Godfather was shared with co-editor William Reynolds.

He received a further nomination for his work on An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982.

Born in Vienna in 1919, Zinner fled the Nazis with his Jewish family and moved to the Philippines in 1930. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1940 and "always wanted to be in film", daughter Katina Zinner, also a film editor, said.

He worked as a taxi driver and piano player in silent movie cinemas, until he landed a job as an apprentice film editor with 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s.

Zinner's other work included 1967's In Cold Blood and 1976's A Star Is Born.

He also directed 1981 political thriller The Salamander, and played an admiral in The Hunt For Red October.

More recently, he worked on a documentary about California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Running With Arnold.