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Last Surviving Member of the Original ‘I Love Lucy’ Creative Team Dies at 89

Nov 26, 2012  •  Post A Comment

The last surviving member of the original creative team behind the classic sitcom "I Love Lucy" has died, reports the Los Angeles Times. Dann Cahn, who was an editor on the show, was 89 and died of natural causes, the story reports.

Cahn pioneered the use of multicamera editing, breaking ground on "Lucy" by using a newly developed editing machine he called the "three-headed monster," the story notes.

The show used a new system with three cameras instead of one, which "allowed an episode to be filmed as though it were a stage play — continuously and in sequence," the article notes. But the editors were overwhelmed with footage and looked to a device that had been created for "Truth or Consequences," a game show.

"It was a Moviola with four heads — three for picture and one for sound," Cahn told Editors Guild Magazine in 2006. "When they wheeled it in, I said, ‘Boy, that’s some monster!’ And the name stuck."

Cahn was the son of Philip Cahn, who co-founded in 1937 what’s now the Motion Picture Editors Guild, the piece notes. Dann Cahn’s son, also an editor, is president of the guild.

Cahn began as a child actor in movies such as "Newsboys’ Home" and then worked as an assistant editor on the 1942 movie "Pittsburgh." While working on the 1951 film "The Lady Says No," Cahn was recommended by a friend for the job of editing "I Love Lucy," a post that Cahn held until the show went off the air in 1957, the story adds.

Cahn’s almost 100 television and film projects include shows such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Police Woman."

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