70. Henry still messes me up every time I watch it.
Their story
Elena Maganini was an American film and television editor whose career ran for nearly four decades, from a low budget Chicago independent film cut in her own living room to an Emmy winning Showtime pilot. She was best known for editing John McNaughton's 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial…
Elena Maganini was an American film and television editor whose career ran for nearly four decades, from a low budget Chicago independent film cut in her own living room to an Emmy winning Showtime pilot. She was best known for editing John McNaughton's 1986 film Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the start of a long creative partnership with the director, and for cutting the pilot episode of Dexter, which won her the 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series. She died on October 21, 2026, in Burbank, California, of complications from breast cancer. She was 70.
Maganini was born in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Illinois and went on to study filmmaking at Columbia College Chicago. Her professional start came at Sinnot & Associates, a Chicago production company, where she worked on commercials.
Her first feature credit was Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, McNaughton's stark, unsettling study of a drifter who kills. Money was so tight after filming that the picture was edited on a rented 16 mm flatbed set up in Maganini's living room, and she served as the film's sound editor as well as its picture editor. Released in 1986, the film became one of the most influential and debated American independent films of its era, and its reputation has only grown. In the summer of 2026 a new 4K restoration had its world premiere at Film at Lincoln Center's Scary Movies XIV series.
Henry began a collaboration with McNaughton that lasted for years and often explored crime, sexuality and moral darkness. Maganini edited his horror comedy The Borrower, the Eric Bogosian performance film Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, the Robert De Niro and Bill Murray comedy drama Mad Dog and Glory, Normal Life, the erotic thriller Wild Things with Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Kevin Bacon and Denise Richards, the HBO biographical film Lansky, the comedy Speaking of Sex and the television series Push, Nevada. Beyond McNaughton, her feature credits included Alexandre Rockwell's Somebody to Love, a segment of the anthology film Four Rooms, Next Friday, Louis & Frank, Ed Gein (also known as In the Light of the Moon) and 8mm 2.
In 1996 she edited two segments, set in 1952 and 1974, of the HBO anthology film If These Walls Could Talk, which examined abortion in America across three eras and was directed by Nancy Savoca and Cher. The work earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination for single camera editing of a miniseries or special and CableACE recognition.
The defining moment of her television career came when director Michael Cuesta, who had seen her work with McNaughton, asked her to cut the pilot of Dexter, Showtime's series about a Miami police blood spatter analyst who secretly kills killers. She suggested bringing in editor Scott K. Wallace, a colleague from the Tarzan series, and the two worked on the pilot's dreamlike flashback sequences. Maganini edited six episodes of the first season. The pilot, which premiered in 2006, won her the Emmy at the 2007 Creative Arts ceremony. Explaining her attraction to the show, she said she had always been drawn to dark material, and that Dexter's tension came from a deeply disturbed man trying to present himself as normal.
She worked steadily in television afterwards, on series including The Dead Zone, Eli Stone, Dollhouse, 90210, Scoundrels, Madam Secretary, Good Behavior, Manifest, Clarice and The Cleaning Lady. She was a member of American Cinema Editors, the honorary society of film editors.
Maganini was married to Scott Collins, communications director of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. She is survived by her husband, her daughter Gabriella Coronel and her daughter-in-law Adrienne Coronel. Her death was reported by Variety on November 2, 2026, prompting tributes on social media from film fans, critics and Film at Lincoln Center. A memorial service is scheduled for November 15, 2026, at 1 p.m. at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Her family suggested donations to Columbia College Chicago, Tree House Humane Society or the Stray Cat Alliance.
Elena Maganini rarely appeared in front of a camera, but her rhythms shaped some of the most unnerving American screen stories of her generation, from Henry's cold, observational horror to Dexter's split between charm and menace.
Biography adapted from Variety obituary by Pat Saperstein (2026-11-02); Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) articles on Elena Maganini, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the Dexter pilot and If These Walls Could Talk; Television Aca. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“I have always been drawn to shows that have a dark theme. What's interesting to me about Dexter is that it features a character who is extremely disturbed and yet is trying to present himself as someone normal; he says and does all the right things. When his dark side takes over, you are totally in his psychotic world. The intersection where these two things meet makes for a lot of tension.”
Motion Picture Editors Guild magazine, on editing the Dexter pilot (2006)
“These are ways of making more out of the conversation than the literal stuff they're talking about. That's the kind of thing Michael does to tell the story, and it makes it much more interesting.”
On director Michael Cuesta's visual style in the Dexter pilot, Motion Picture Editors Guild magazine
Photos
1by People Forever
From social media
4Posts by Elena, and posts about them, kept here so they are not lost.