He also worked on The Godfather and Paper Moon, among many other films.
Hollywood sound engineer Richard Portman died in his home in Tallahassee, FL on Saturday night, his daughter Jennifer confirms via Facebook. He was 82.
“He was an icon of his craft of motion picture sound re-recording, recognized with the highest honors of his field,” his daughter wrote. “He was eccentric, irreverent, and real.”
Portman had an impressive career, working on nearly 200 movies, including sound mixing for Star Wars. He was nominated for 11 Oscars, including nods for his sound work on The Godfather and Peter Bogdonovich’s Paper Moon. Some of his other films included Young Frankenstein, Splash, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Harold and Maude and The Pelican Brief, among many others.
He was also a professor of sound at Florida State University. There, taught director Barry Jenkins whose critically-acclaimed film Moonlight is nominated or Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.
Variety points out that Portman’s father Clem was also a sound engineer who worked on the original King Kong and Citizen Kane.