Kathy WENNING

Kathy's 2021 Autobiography

Washington Depot, Ct. February 20th 2021

I am sitting in our house, high on a hill, surrounded by woods, looking out at steeples in the distance. Snow hugs the ground and trees. It’s been this way for weeks, reminding me of winters growing up in Westport when, after a big storm, Bruce Wiggins, Katie Hale and I would sled down Catamount Rd. from his house to ours. It was a happy time.

For 13 years this has been our weekend and summer home, but early last March, after 5 weeks in Egypt, South Africa and Namibia, we decided to sequester here, with only the rare visit to a doctor or dentist and our NY apartment. Washington is more rural than Westport ever was, but we ended up here with our countless deer, a red fox, a pair of red-tailed hawks and several resident bears because CT is in my bones.

I moved from Westport in the middle of my junior year; my parents had recently divorced and my mother wanted to be in the city. The difference between Staples and the Dalton School could not have been greater. Growing up in Westport none of us cared what others’ parents did for a living or how much money they had. We were, in the words of Patti Smith, “just kids,” and we chose our friends for who they were. In those days, unlike today, Dalton was homogeneous to a fault. The high school was all girls, money mattered, most lived within blocks of the school, and the math teacher had never heard of set theory…. It was difficult.

From Dalton I went to Bryn Mawr, where I majored in English, and then began graduate school in Art History at the New York Institute of Fine Arts (NYU). Perhaps I was weary of intense academia because I was seduced by a summer job working as a go-for in film. At the time there were almost no women in the field, with the exception of editing, where there were very few. I began in documentaries, edited 2, and hung out with The Band at Woodstock, where a friend with a press pass had paved our way. I entered the world of dramatic films as an assistant on Alice’s Restaurant. Over the next few years I worked as an assistant or sound editor on numerous features, including Slaughterhouse Five, Little Big Man and many others.I also became one of 14 founding members of New York Women in Film and Television, now more than 4000 strong, and served twice in key posts on the Board of Directors.

When I finished editing my first feature, Hester Street, in the spring of ‘74, I met my first husband, Michael Smith, who was likely at Oxford on a Rhodes the same time as Ted Dreyfus and had studied law at Harvard. That fall we moved to London where he began work with the British government on criminal justice reform and the non-custodial treatment of offenders. It was a strange time for me. I hadn’t realized the British film union would prevent me from working, so I dabbled, teaching film at several colleges, ghost writing a book on criminal justice, and getting to know London as I knew NY. We married in ’75, and moved back to the States in ’79. The 5 year absence left me struggling to re-establish myself in the professional world I had left.

In 1980, Warren Beatty hired me as one of the three principal editors on Reds, where I was responsible for the montage sequences and weaving the Witnesses into the film. We had a quarter of a million feet of interviews which we ultimately pared down to 3 plus screen minutes because the “Old People,” as we called them, proved more compelling than the actors…. As was too often the case, we worked 24/7 for over a year. I separated from my husband in the middle of the film, and we were divorced in ’84. When Reds was released, Warren immediately wanted to make a documentary with the remaining footage, but I was worn out and the project was ultimately abandoned. Some 12 features followed, including 3 films for Jim Ivory and Ismail Merchant, The Bostonians, Maurice, Slaves of New York; Longtime Companion; Staying Together; Criminal Justice, and others.

I met my second husband, Michael Dennis, in the spring of ’88. He had briefly practiced and taught law before becoming Toronto’s housing commissioner, where he was responsible for developing landmark affordable housing. He then moved on to become a commercial real estate developer for Olympia and York in NY, where he oversaw the development of the then World Financial Center. At the time we met he was in London overseeing the first phase of Canary Wharf but came to NY once a month as he was still the titular head of the NY office. For a year we flew back and forth and then I again moved to London. This time I could work and edited several features, including a re-make of Ethan Frome. We stayed until the end of ’93; however, before we left I was asked by a television executive for whom I had re-edited several films to take over and “rethink” a troubled project. I was given full authority, it received numerous awards, and for the next ten years I became a film doctor/creative director on failing dramatic projects both in the US and the UK. During this time, on a lark I took a course in historical style, which led to a degree in Interior Design. Had I been younger I would have gone on to architecture school.

In ’99, we moved back to London, where Michael and a partner were developing 2 office buildings in the City, and I tore apart and rebuilt a terrace house in Knightsbridge. In the spring of ’03, before heading home, we rented a house in Provence for 6 months while I tore apart an apartment and e-mailed construction drawings to NY. It was a blessed time filled with bike rides to daily markets, French lessons, the ubiquitous scent of lavender, and many visits from family and friends. We moved back to NY in ’04 and in ’07 we bought the CT house, which I again tore apart and then rebuilt. I have never hung out a shingle, but when people ask, I say, “I do domestic real estate.” In these Covid days I am finally renovating our barn and it’s apartment. Like many, I have become a gardener, and am involved in various local non-profits, serving twice as a trustee of the local library. All of our friends are up here and they are an interesting, nurturing, and accomplished crowd.

A little over 2 years ago, I tripped and broke two vertebrae in my neck. I have never experienced such attentive love, not only from my husband, who sat by my hospital bed 12 hours a day for 3 weeks, but also from our NY/CT friends who visited daily, wrote and called from afar, and continued to do so for months when we got back to the city. I am now completely fine thanks to a great CT neurosurgeon and the wonderful people who surround me.

For the past 10 years I have taken courses in Contemporary Art, Music, Politics, Philosophy, and Literature through NYU and Roundtable Cultural Seminars. These days I take 2 virtual courses in poetry and fiction led by a marvelous professor at Hunter, study drawing at the local art association, and indulge my passion for trees and landscaping. Michael is now buying real estate in the US and has become very involved in alternative energy, acting as chairman of 2 biofuel start-ups. He continues to sit on one of the boards, and has learned he can work quite well remotely, so I foresee that even after Covid the balance of our time will likely be here. We have always traveled, often with London as the jumping-off point, and over the years we have traversed all the continents but one, many more than once. This has been one of our greatest pleasures, and we can’t wait to be off somewhere again. We have been together 33 years, and finally got married 10 years ago at his behest. He promised nothing would change, and it hasn’t. We still play killer Scrabble, and we still make each other laugh.