Paul Hirsch is an American motion picture editor. A native of New York City, after graduating from Columbia he began to pursue a career in editing. In the late 1960s, while editing trailers in NYC, he was introduced by his brother, Charles, to then unknown filmmaker Brian De Palma. Their collaboration has yielded eleven feature films. In 1978, he won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on Star Wars, along with Richard Chew and Marcia Lucas. He also won two Saturn Awards for Best Editing for Star Wars in 1977 and Mission: Impossible ? Ghost Protocol in 2011. He has edited over 35 feature films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mission: Impossible, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Footloose, Carrie, Falling Down, Phantom of the Paradise, Obsession, Blow Out, The Secret of My Success, Steel Magnolias and Ray, for which he received a second Academy Award nomination in 2005 and the American Cinema Editors' award for Best Edited Feature Film. Hirsch rarely watches movies other than his own more than once. However, he cites that the musical An American in Paris and the science fiction film 2001: Space Odyssey are worthy of repeat viewing. 

November 14th, 1945 in New York City (Age 78)