J. Watson Webb Jr.(1916-2000)
- Editor
- Director
American film editor and scion of two of America's most prominent and
wealthy industrialist families. His mother, Electra Havemeyer Webb, was
the daughter of sugar baron Henry Havemeyer, and his father, J. Watson
Webb, was the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Raised in immense
wealth and educated at Yale University, Webb chose a life quite removed
from that of his family. In 1940, he obtained a job as an assistant
film cutter at Twentieth Century Fox. He showed great talent and was
promoted to film editor, eventually becoming chief editor for the
studio. He retired at 36 and devoted himself to artistic patronage and
charitable works. He took over the Shelburne Museum, which his mother
had founded, and was largely responsible for the immense collection of
American art and arcania it holds. He resigned from the Museum in anger
over its decision to auction off several million dollars worth of art.
He took a great interest in the Boys Republic, a school for troubled
youngsters in Chino Hills, California (where one famous "student" was
Steve McQueen), and left $3.4 million dollars to the school upon his death.
(He left nothing to the Shelburne Museum.) He died in Los Angeles in
2000.