Film editor who made an important contribution to the work of the directors Terry Gilliam and Richard Attenborough
Lesley Walker, who has died aged 80, edited films as lively and varied as Letter to Brezhnev (1985), a salty romantic comedy about two Merseyside women who fall for Soviet sailors; the thriller Mona Lisa (1986), a kind of Soho spin on Taxi Driver; and a pair of escapist, female-led crowd-pleasers revolving around Greek getaways: Shirley Valentine (1989) and the Abba musical Mamma Mia! (2008).
“It was unusual to have a woman editing at that level when Lesley began,” said her friend and former assistant editor, Sue Kingsley. “She was well ahead of the game there.”
Walker was valued highly by two very different UK-based directors: Richard Attenborough, renowned for prestigious historical dramas, and the anarchic surrealist and former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam.
She first worked with Attenborough on Cry Freedom (1987). The film dramatised the friendship between the South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington), who was murdered in police custody, and the journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), who fought to secure an inquest into Biko’s death and was forced to flee the country.
