Doug Ibold, Film Editor for Dick Wolf Shows, Dies at 83

Mike Barnes
·2 min read
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Doug Ibold, the Emmy-nominated film editor whose 20-year collaboration with producer Dick Wolf included cutting the pilots for Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU, has died. He was 83.

Ebold died Nov. 8 of cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his family announced.

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Ibold also was a film editor on the first six seasons of Magnum, P.I. from 1980-85 and worked on such other Donald P. Bellisario productions as Quincy M.E., Quantum Leap, Tequila and Bonetti and the 1995 pilot for a drama series called Crowfoot.

After collaborating with Wolf on Miami Vice in 1985-87 and on the 1997 NBC crime series Players, Ibold edited the 1990 L&O pilot “Everybody’s Favorite Bagman” and the 1999 L&O: SVU pilot “Payback.” (He would handle dozens of SVU episodes through 2005.)

At the 2012 Eddie Awards, Wolf presented him with a Career Achievement Award (he served as an American Cinema Editors board member for nearly two decades). “I loved being part of the final storytelling process,” he said in his acceptance speech.

Born on Jan. 23, 1940, in Cincinnati, Edward Douglas Ibold was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating from Florida State University and serving with the U.S. Army through 1965, he landed a job at WTVT-TV in Tampa/St. Pete.

He wound up being the CBS pool camera operator on the aircraft carrier USS Wasp taking live shots of the Gemini 6 and 7 space capsule landings, and in 1972, he was an assistant editor and operator on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1972 telefilm, Imagine. (He later appeared on camera in the 2018 documentary John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky.)

Ibold received his Emmy nomination for editing the 1992 miniseries Drug Wars: The Cocaine Cartel, executive produced by Michael Mann.

He also worked on such TV series as B.L. Stryker, Walker, Texas Ranger, Xena: Warrior Princess and Tour of Duty, as well as films including Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1973), Off Limits (1988) and The Break (1995).

An excerpt from his ACE Award Tribute Book article said that a “restless spirit and boundless curiosity propelled him throughout his successful career and made his list of accomplishments more varied than usually found on the résumés of primetime television editors.

“From jazz bass player to commercial director to rock ‘n’ roll cinematographer and eventually to editor, Ibold always had his finger on the pulse of his time and managed to stay engaged and relevant as years went by.”

Survivors include his brother, Robert. A celebration of his life will take place in a few months. Donations in his name can be made to the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

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