Born in Vienna, Austria. Zinner fled the Nazis with his Jewish family and moved to the Philippines in 1930. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1940. He worked as a taxi driver and piano player in silent movie cinemas, until he landed a job as an apprentice film editor with 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s. Worked as both music editor and film editor from 1961 until 1968 when he started editing film only. Other notable (non-nominated) film editing credits include WILD HARVEST (1962), THE PROFESSIONALS (1966), IN COLD BLOOD (1967), CHANGES (1969), DARLING LILI (1970), CRAZY JOE (also assoc. prod.) and THE GODFATHER, PART II (both 1974), MAHOGANY (1975), FOXTROT and A STAR IS BORN (both 1976), THE FISH THAT SAVED PITTSBURGH (1979), FOOLIN' AROUND (1980), "The Winds of War" (TV mini-series) and RUNNING BRAVE (both 1983), SAVING GRACE and WAR AND LOVE (both 1985), "War and Remembrance" (1988, TV mini-series), ETERNITY (1989), TED AND VENUS (1991), GLADIATOR (1992), CITIZEN COHN (1992, TV), MOTEL BLUE (1997), A GUN, A CAR, A BLONDE (1998, also co-producer), THE OMEGA CODE (1999), the made-for-TV movies "Dirty Pictures" and "American Tragedy" (both 2000), "Conspiracy" (2001, co-editor) and "10,000 Black Men Named George" (2002, co-editor), and the 2006 feature documentary RUNNING WITH ARNOLD. Zinner directed the 1981 feature THE SALAMANDER, which starred Franco Nero, Anthony Quinn, Sybil Danning and Martin Balsam. His daughter, Katina Zinner, is also a film editor.  Nominated for Film Editing 1972: THE GODFATHER (w. William H. Reynolds)  Film Editing 1978: THE DEER HUNTER  Nominated for Film Editing 1982: AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN 3 nominations, 1 Award