Film editor Sally Menke was found dead 28 September 2010. She’d been out hiking in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park on Monday, when the temperature reached 113o, and her body was found in the park’s Bronson Canyon section. Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said the cause of death has not been determined, but there were no signs of foul play. Born Sally JoAnne Menke on 17 December 1953, in Mineola, New York, she was nominated for Academy Awards for editing Pulp Fiction (1994) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).
Menke graduated from New York University in 1977, and the began her career editing documentaries for CBS. The bulk of her career was due to her long association with director Quentin Tarantino: she edited all of his feature films, starting with Reservoir Dogs (1992) up through last year’s Inglourious Basterds.
Her genre work includes: Grindhouse (2007), Nightwatch (1997), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990).
She is survived by her husband of 24 years, Aldo Luis Parisot, one son and one daughter, and her sister.