Tod Maitland, Dennis Maitland, Norman Jewison at the 45th Cinema Audio Society Awards
Production Sound Mixer Dennis Maitland, who collaborated with the likes of John Cassavetes, Barbra Streisand, Sydney Pollack, Paul Mazursky, Norman Jewison, Herbert Ross, Paul Newman, John Huston, Tim Burton, Bob Fosse, Sidney Lumet, and Arthur Hiller, died in New York City on April 1. Maitland was 80.
A veteran of more than 80 feature films and several television productions, Maitland (born in Baltimore on March 31, 1931) was given the Cinema Audio Society’s Career Achievement Award in 2009. Among his feature-film credits are The Prince of Tides, Three Days of the Condor, The Group, Pretty Poison, Husbands, The Hospital, The Pawnbroker, Lenny, Gloria, An Unmarried Woman, …And Justice for All, Outrageous Fortune, Used People, Moonstruck, and Mars Attacks!. Maitland reportedly is credited with introducing wireless microphones to features and with being the first sound mixer to digitally record a film.
Additionally, Maitland also worked as a music mixer for Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, The Beatles, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and the philharmonic orchestras of New York, Boston, Berlin, Philadelphia and Montreal. On Broadway, Maitland was the sound designer for Neil Simon’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue.
Maitland’s children have also been in the sound business: Kim Maitland is a recordist, Tod Maitland is a production sound mixer, Dennis Maitland II is a boom operator/production mixer, and the late Dean Maitland was a sound recordist. [Note: This obit has been amended/corrected.]
Photo: Courtesy of Cinema Audio Society