A niece of J. Arthur Rank, Coates has candidly stated that family influence helped her get her start in the film industry, but a singular talent saw her career as a film editor flourish. After initially working as a nurse at a plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead she entered the film business, before long finding herself a post as an assistant editor at Pinewood Studios.
She worked, for a time, under the supervision of Reginald Mills, and earned her first screen credit as editor on The Pickwick Papers (1952). Other notable credits at this time include The Horse’s Mouth (1958) and Tunes of Glory (1960), before her work with David Lean on his epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962). She also worked on the 1989 restoration.
In demand for a wide variety of projects at this time, Coates worked on such films as Becket (1964), Young Cassidy (1965), Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines (1965), Great Catherine (1968) and The Adventurers (1969). She continued to be hired for high profile projects in the following decade, the likes of 11 Harrowhouse (1974), Murder On The Orient Express (1974), The Eagle Has Landed (1976) and Aces High (1976).
Increasingly sought out by a new generation of directors, she worked with David Lynch on The Elephant Man (1980), Hugh Hudson on Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) and Trevor Nunn on Lady Jane (1986). She cut What About Bob? (1991) for Frank Oz, Chaplin (1992) for Richard Attenborough, In The Line of Fire (1993) for Clint Eastwood and for Steven Soderbergh she edited Out of Sight (1998) and Erin Brockovich (2000). Later credits include Unfaithful (2002), The Golden Compass (2007) and Extraordinary Measures (2010).
BAFTA nominated on four occasions, Anne Coates was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2007 and an Academy Honorary Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2016.
