Katherine Hilliker | |
|---|---|
 Katherine Hilliker, from a 1920 publication | |
| Born | Katharine Clark April 25, 1885 Tacoma, Washington, USA |
| Died | December 6, 1965 (aged 80) Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA |
| Other names | Kitty Prosser |
| Occupation | Film editor |
| Spouse(s) | Bill Hilliker Harry H. Caldwell |
Katherine Hilliker (born Katharine Clark, and sometimes referred to as Kitty Prosser) was an American screenwriter and film editor known for her work on films like Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. She was married to fellow writer-editor Harry H. Caldwell, with whom she often collaborated.[1]
Katherine was born in Tacoma, Washington. Her father died when she was young, and she was raised by her stepfather (hence her sometimes being referred to as Katherine Prosser).[2] She attended high school in Savannah, Georgia, before moving to San Francisco to begin a career as a journalist.[2] While working at The Oakland Call, she met her first husband, Douglas "Bill" Hilliker.[2]
Hilliker was a graphic designer who was working in the fledgling motion picture industry, and after the pair married, she took an interest in the medium as well. She went to work as film critic at The New York Morning Telegraph before leaving journalism behind to work as an editor at Universal.[2] She then moved on to work as David O. Selznick publicity chief Vivian Moses's assistant, writing publicity copy on the studio's releases.[2]
By 1916, she was writing and editing films at Select; she later worked at C.L. Chester Pictures Corporation, where she helped put together documentary-style travel shorts. While working at Chester, she met the man who would become her second husband, H.H. Caldwell. She and Clark would work on English titles for foreign releases at Samuel Goldwyn's studio.[2][3] They later worked on titles at Fox (most notably on Sunrise),[4] though their career in Hollywood came to an end with the advent of talkies.[2]
As writer:
As editor:
