David Cronenberg's wife Carolyn Zeifman has died at the age of 66, due to an undisclosed illness. She was a production assistant on RABID and contributed to the editing of both RABID and FAST COMPANY before giving birth to their son Brandon, who has since become a filmmaker. In 2006, she returned to filmmaking with two documentaries pertaining to the production and promotion of her husband's film A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: ACTS OF VIOLENCE and TOO COMMERCIAL FOR CANNES.
This sad news brings back a rush of personal memories. Back in the day, when I was covering the production of David Cronenberg's 1980s films, he invited me into his home on a few occasions - for interviews, for lunch, for dinner. Carolyn was always a warm, attentive and gracious hostess; attractive, easy-going, very much a homemaker. She told me she had "always known David," even before his first marriage (if I remember correctly, he and her brother had been friends at school). I remember once showing up to do an interview there, and without me saying a word, she intuited that I wasn't feeling well, got something for my stomach, invited me to stretch out on the couch and told David to wait till I felt better. She also liked to poke fun at how he and I found conversation difficult outside an interview context. David once told me that Carolyn was "a natural editor," that he could show her a scene and she would know instinctively when to cut and where to cut to. Of course, the grounding that she, their family and home provided made his finest work possible. What I knew of her was only good, but having known him somewhat better, I suspect she was a more extraordinary woman than most people knew.
My deepest sympathies to David, their family, and loved ones.
(c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
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