Emmy and Oscar Nominee Who Worked on Iconic Movies Dead at 76: Family Confirms Death of Thomas Causey

An Oscar and Emmy nominee has died.

Sound mixer Thomas Causey, known for his work in iconic films such as Halloween and The Thing, passed away on Jan. 11. He was 76.

His daughter-in-law, Crystal Causey, told The Hollywood Reporter that he died in Cathedral City, California, after a long illness. Born in New Orleans on Dec. 5, 1949, and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Thomas Dewitt Causey Jr. discovered his love of movies while taking film classes at the University of New Orleans. Causey attended French features at the Gentilly Theatre before eventually deciding to take a course in Paris focused on directors of French New Wave, meeting Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda, and François Truffaut.

While Causey was initially hired as a driver for a sound crew in New Orleans working on the British film Fear Is the Key in 1972, he broke his arm and couldn’t drive. However, the sound team kept him on so he could tell stories about the Crescent City and pick a restaurant for dinner. By the time filming wrapped, he fell head over heels for filmmaking. After his father loaned him $5,000, Causey purchased a Nagra recorder, Sennheiser microphones and cables, working on movies that came to the Big Easy and on live albums for local jazz musicians.

Causey ultimately moved to Los Angeles in 1977 when he was 28, where he began working as a location mixer for films and TV shows. He would go on to receive an Emmy nomination in 1982 for Outstanding Achievement in Film Sound Mixing for the NBC television movie Fire on the Mountain, starring Buddy Ebsen and Ron Howard. In 1991, Causey received an Oscar nomination for Sound, along with Chris Jenkins, David E. Campbell, and D.M. Hemphill, for the crime-action film Dick Tracy.

According to his IMDb, Causey has a whopping 88 credits, working on 11 films for John Carpenter and eight starring Adam Sandler, as well as several Star Trek movies. Notable projects include I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Click, The Benchwarmers, Raising Helen, Star Trek: Nemesis, Jurassic Park III, Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves!, Star Trek: Generations, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Big Trouble in Little China, Twilight Zone: The Movie, the first three Halloween films, Dallas, Creature From the Black Lake, and many more. Causey’s final credits are Sandler’s 2008 films, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and Bedtime Stories.