The labored breathing that drifts through the vacuum of space in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey took months to get right, and the uncredited assistant editor who helped record it, John Grover, said afterward: "I spent six months of my life with that idiot," recalling the demands Kubrick placed on him, according to the Yahoo Entertainment report of his death. Grover, who went on to edit six James Bond films across the late 1970s and 1980s, died on September 28, 2026, at his home in Buckinghamshire, England. He was 87.

He came to editing from the bottom. After National Service, Grover started as a numbering boy in the cutting rooms of MGM's Borehamwood studios, the most junior job on a film crew, and worked his way up through second assistant, first assistant and assembly editor under editor Ernie Walter. By the mid-1960s he was cutting some of the era's biggest productions without a screen credit to show for it: Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965) under editor Norman Savage, John Frankenheimer's 65mm racing picture Grand Prix (1966), Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the musical remake Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969). Of the Lean shoot, he said: "That was a fantastic experience working with David Lean, of course it was, but it was bloody hard work!"

Grover's Bond run began in 1977 as first assistant editor on The Spy Who Loved Me, then assembly editor on Moonraker (1979). When John Glen, the editor on both films, moved into the director's chair, Grover inherited the top editing job, cutting For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983, as supervising editor), The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), his sixth and final Bond picture. In between, he cut two more Roger Moore vehicles, The Wild Geese (1978) and The Sea Wolves (1980), and named Moore his favorite of the actors who played 007: "Loved Roger! Terrific. Absolutely. Such a happy person to be with."

Away from Bond, Grover edited Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985) and Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), starring David Bowie, which he called his favorite among all the films he worked on. He served for years as vice chairman of the British Film Editors and later held emeritus status as an associate governor of the guild. In April 2026, the organization gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cut Above Awards, held at Picturehouse Central in London, honoring a cutting-room career that by then spanned more than six decades. The Televisual trade paper reported the honor, and the British Film Editors' own event listing confirmed the ceremony's date and venue, five months before his death.

Grover is survived by his wife of 62 years, Jenny, his son, Tim, his daughter, Camilla, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

What Grover leaves in the cutting room outlasts any single title. Six Bond films were assembled under his hand on a Moviola and a synchronizer long before digital editing existed, a Kubrick production needed his own recorded breath to sound right, and the guild he served for decades kept him on its governing board into his final year. The tight two-hour-plus runtimes he helped hold to across the Bond films of the 1980s still shape how that franchise is cut.