Rob Young, Oscar-Nominated Sound Mixer of ‘Unforgiven,’ Dies at 76
Rob Young, the Oscar-nominated sound mixer of “Unforgiven,” died June 11 in Albi, France from complications of a fall he sustained during a trip to Morocco. He was 76.
Young was a sound mixer in the feature film industry for nearly 40 years, earning an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Sound for Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Western “Unforgiven.” He mixed sound for other popular projects including “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” and “Jumanji” in the mid-1990s.
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Among his other notable credits were “Catwoman,” “She’s the Man,” “Final Destination 3” “Night at the Museum,” “Jennifer’s Body” and “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
He went on to be nominated by the British Academy for “Unforgiven,” and “William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet” and “Jumanji” and the Geni Awards for “The Grey Fox” and the Golden Reel for “X2.”
Young was raised in a small town in New Brunswick, Canada. He attended technical school in St. John and eventually enrolled at Ryerson University in Toronto where he studied radio and television arts.
While studying at Ryerson, Young worked at Spence-Thomas Productions, a small sound studio that began his career as a sound mixer. He worked under the likes of Patrick Spence-Thomas during his time at the studio and then went on to travel for CTV W5, an investigative news show.
Young was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Cinema Audio Society. He went on to retire to a small village in the south of France where he was writing a novel and screenplay.
He is survived by his wife; Yvonne Wetherall; his sister; Kathy, his children; Brendan (Jane), Michael (Mackenzie) and Gillian (Derek), and his grandsons Isaac, Sebastian and Wilder.
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