Peter Berkos Cause of Death, Oscar-Winning Sound Effects Editor on ‘The Hindenburg

Peter Berkos, a renowned Universal Pictures sound effects maestro and champion of sound editors, has passed away at the age of 101. Berkos was president of the Motion Picture Sound Editors from 1963-66 and began a successful campaign for his colleagues to gain full membership into the film and television academies and receive credit onscreen and off for their work. He was uncredited for the first 20 years of his career until Car Wash (1976), and the Oscars would eventually revive its dormant competitive sound effects category from 1983 onward.

Berkos worked for Universal on films such as Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958), four features directed by George Roy Hill – Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), the Oscar best picture winner The Sting (1973), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Slap Shot (1977) – Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969), George Seaton’s Airport (1970) and Daniel Haller’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979). For ABC’s original Battlestar Galactica in 1978, Berkos created the synthesized voice for the deadly Cylon Centurions through a vocoder and for the sound of the show’s laser shots. In the mid-1960s, he was tasked with mentoring Steven Spielberg, then 19, in the art of the sound editing.

Peter Berkos, Oscar-Winning Sound Effects Editor on ‘The Hindenburg,’ Dies at 101

Berkos began as an apprentice storeroom clerk at Universal but was promoted to sound editor within two months due to the sheer volume of films being churned out at the studio. On The Hindenburg (1975), Berkos re-created the sound of the zeppelin’s engines by recording a PBY Catalina amphibious aircraft starting up and at full power. However, he struggled to find the right noise for the airship’s groans and creaks as its aluminum frame comes under stress.

On Oscar night, he shared the special achievement Oscar with visual effects artists Albert Whitlock and Glen Robinson. He wanted to thank the Motion Picture Academy for this very special Oscar in recognition of the sound editor’s creative contribution to motion pictures and to Mr. Bob Wise, thank you for the assignment.

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Berkos also received a lifetime achievement award from the MPSE in 1996, won seven of the organization’s Golden Reel Awards, and received an Emmy nomination for his work on the 1972 ABC telefilm Short Walk to Daylight. After retiring in 1987, Berkos turned to writing short stories and novels and published a book of his wife’s poems after her death in 2000. At age 100, he penned his memoir, Vignette of My Life: Book 2.

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