Toby Yates, son of ‘Bullitt’ director Peter Yates, passes away at 61

The late Toby Yates, a 40-year Hollywood film editor and the son of Oscar-nominated producer and director Peter Yates, passed away. He was sixty-one.

Yates's family declared his passing on November 17 in Los Angeles following a stroke.

Yates edited director Karen Moncrieff's first feature, Blue Car (2002), and then worked with her on The Dead Girl (2006) and The Trials of Cate McCall (2013).

In addition, he edited the films The Moon and the Stars (2007) for filmmaker John Irvin (for which he won the Milano International Film Festival's Best Editor Award), The Midnight Meat Train (2008), and No One Lives (2012) for director Ryûhei Kitamura.

His most recent editing project was the Damian Harris-directed film Brave the Dark (2023).

Born in London on September 18, 1962, Toby Robert Quentin Yates grew up both there and in New York City. In high school, he pursued studies in cinema and editing, working under Roy Lovejoy (2001: A Space Odyssey, Aliens) as an apprentice editor and then an assistant editor.

Yates pursued cinema studies at Columbia University School of Arts after graduating from Saratoga Springs, New York's Skidmore College, where she also earned the inaugural MTV Student Award for directing. After that, he directed for the stage in Los Angeles and London.

He edited Cleopatra's Second Husband, his first independent film, and Brown's Requiem (adapted from James Ellroy's first novel) in 1998.