Glenbrook North grad reels in fourth Emmy nod for work on 'Deadliest Catch'

This never gets old for Alexander Rubinow.

The 1997 Glenbrook North High School graduate has been nominated a fourth time for a Primetime Emmy Award as part of the editing team for Discovery's "Deadliest Catch" reality series.

It's the third straight nomination for Rubinow and the show in the same category - Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program.

In 2015, he won an Emmy, sharing it with series editors Josh Earl and Alex Durham for essentially the same award, Outstanding Picture Editing for Reality Programming.

"It's always exciting every year, and it's sort of a 'pinch-me' moment every year that doesn't feel like it actually happened," said Rubinow, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Dori, and sixth-grade son, Jacob.

"It still doesn't feel real. Even when the nominations came out on July 12, I was studying the list and was thinking, 'Is this real?' It took me a second to realize this is, in fact, true, and I'm nominated for a fourth time.

"I called my mom (Marlene) and my dad (Steve) and my grandmother (Marion Karbin), even, to tell them about it," Rubinow said.

He also has earned nominations for the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards in 2023 and for Best Edited Non-Scripted Series in 2017, according to the internet Movie Database.

This year, Rubinow shares the Emmy nomination with Rob Butler, Isaiah Camp, Alexandra Moore, Ian Olsen, Hugh Elliott and Joe Mikan, a Naperville Central graduate with whom Rubinow also shared the 2021 nomination.

Freemantle and Original Productions' "Deadliest Catch," which debuted in 2005, details the perils faced by crews fishing for crab in the Bering Sea off the Alaskan coast.

Original fishing boat Captain Phil Harris died of complications of a stroke during filming, which Rubinow helped edit in his first season with the program, 2010.

"He's still very much a presence in the series even though he passed away 13 years ago," Rubinow said.

The former Northbrook man was called "one of the main pillars of editors on the show" by producer and New Trier graduate Geoff Miller in a Herald story in September 2021.

Adding nominations for cinematography and sound mixing, "Deadliest Catch" has received 59 Emmy nominations over its 19 seasons.

Each of the 2023 nominations were for the Season 19 premiere episode, "Call of a New Generation." Work on Season 19 ran from October 2022 to this August.

"It's a good introduction for someone who maybe has never seen the show before," said Rubinow, whose numerous credits include "The Curse of Oak Island" and "Bering Sea Gold."

"It starts off with a literal and figurative bang - there's an explosion in the first few moments of the episode, and we follow it with the longtime theme of the series, which is Bon Jovi's song, 'Wanted Dead or Alive,'" he said.

As he scanned the list of nominees, Rubinow saw Glenbrook South graduate Arian Moayed earned his second straight nomination for guest actor in a drama series for "Succession."

Highland Park High School graduate Rachel Brosnahan was nominated for the fifth time in six years as a lead actress in a comedy for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." She won in 2018.

Emmy voting ran from Aug. 17-28, Rubinow said, with the winners to be announced in January. The ceremony typically is held in September, but has been pushed back by the Writers Guild of America strike.

Rubinow will attend one of the two Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies, a branch of the Primetime Emmy Awards, on Jan. 6-7 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. The more familiar, live broadcast ceremony will be televised Jan. 15.

Rubinow still credits the teachers who piqued his interest in his craft, who "gave me a great foundation" in television and editing - the late Betty Moody at Northbrook Junior High, Vince Pinelli and Peggy Holecek at Glenbrook North.

"To work on a show that's been Emmy-nominated is such a great feeling, and to be a part of something that receives recognition every single year and also to have the audience tune in every week and respond to it makes it more fun to work on," Rubinow said.