In Remembrance: Robert “Buzz” Knudson

     Robert “Buzz” Knudson, the three time Academy Award winning sound-mixer who made audiences jump with his work on The Exorcist, has passed away on January 21, 2006 in Columbia, South Carolina. He was 80.

     Born in 1926 in Los Angeles, CA, Knudson fought with the Army Air Forces during World War II. Although his father, who worked at a Hollywood studio, was able to get him into the sound union, Knudson choose to pitch for several years in the minor leagues before landing a job at RCA’s Hollywood sound studio in 1952.

     In 1960, Knudson joined the independent post-production sound company Todd-AO, where he would spend the majority of his career. Starting off as an optical transfer recording engineer, by the early 1970s, he had progressed to the position of sound re-recording mixer where he was responsible for combining numerous sound-effects, actors’ dialogue and musical scoring into a motion picture’s soundtrack.

     Among the 85 films Knudson worked on are Shampoo (1975), Airport ’77 (1977), Coming Home , FM (both 1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), An Officer And A Gentleman (1982), Scarface (1983), Trading Places (1983), The Karate Kid (1984), The Color Purple (1985) and Major League (1989).

     Knudson received three Academy Awards over the course of his career for his work on Cabaret, The Exorcist and E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial. He also received an additional seven Academy Award nominations for A Star Is Born (1976), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Sorcerer (both 1977), Hooper (1978), 1941 (1979), Empire Of The Sun (1987) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988).

     From 1982 to 1990, Knudson served as Todd-AO’s president. He later served as a vice-chairman and as a consultant until he retired in 2003.