Tucker Wiard, Film Editor on ‘Murphy Brown,’ ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ and ‘Alice,’ Dies at 80

Tucker Wiard, a five-time Emmy-winning film editor who worked on The Carol Burnett Show, Alice and all 10 seasons of the original Murphy Brown, has died. He was 80.

Wiard died Sunday in Los Angeles of complications from heart failure, his wife, Nancy Bradley Wiard, a former producer on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, announced.

Wiard also cut episodes of such comedies as All in the Family, Good Times, Night Court, Charles in Charge, My Sister Sam and The Drew Carey Show before he retired in 2009.

Wiard earned eight of his 12 career Emmy noms for his work on CBS’ Murphy Brown, winning in 1989 for its pilot episode, “Respect,” and for a 1991 installment, “On Another Plane.” From 1988-1998, he cut 160 episodes, including the original finale, of the Candice Bergen starrer.

He worked on CBS’ The Carol Burnett Show from 1976-78, winning his first Emmy for the variety show’s final episode. And he did the last three seasons of CBS’ Alice, starring Linda Lavin, from 1982-85, cutting the last episode of that sitcom, too.

Asked in a 2011 interview for the TV Academy Foundation website The Interviews what an editor looks for when it comes to comic timing, Wiard said, “it’s beats, and you have to watch for laughs. Plus, an actor’s eyeblinks can sometimes give you cues as to when to cut.”

Born in Detroit on Nov. 10, 1941, and raised since age 2 in Lansing, Michigan, Tucker Lee Wiard graduated from Sexton High School in 1959 and Michigan State University in 1962.

In the U.S. Army, he was a member of the famous Pershing Rifles drill team and designed and built a studio and remote videotape department while serving at Fort Benning in Georgia.

He moved to Los Angeles in November 1968 to join the videotape department at CBS, where he landed on The Red Skelton Hour as a video tape editor the next year.

Wiard also received Emmys in 1979 and 1982 for the four-episode WGBH miniseries The Scarlet Letter, starring Meg Foster, and for a 30th anniversary American Bandstand special, respectively.

In addition to his wife, survivors include his sister-in-law, Mary; brother-in-law James; and nephews Jeffrey, Alexander and Matthew. Donations in his memory can be made to Bichon FurKids.