Gerstad retired to Palm Springs, California in 1973[1] and lived there until his death in 2002.

[2] He won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (the "Oscar") twice: for the boxing drama Champion in 1949 and for Fred Zinnemann's seminal Western High Noon in 1952.

Elmo Williams, who was co-editor of High Noon, indicated in his autobiography that Gerstad's credit was a nominal one.

[3] At that time the editorial supervisor (Gerstad) was usually (and often contractually) given superior credit to subordinate editors (Williams), and one responsibility of Gerstad's position was selecting and hiring Williams, who only worked on this one Stanley Kramer production.

[citation needed] In 1997, Gerstad received the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award.