Hal Ashby
Hal Ashby | |
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Born | William Hal Ashby September 2, 1929 Ogden, Utah, U.S. |
Died | December 27, 1988 Malibu, California, U.S. | (aged 59)
Occupations |
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Years active | 1956–1988 |
Spouses |
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William Hal Ashby (September 2, 1929 – December 27, 1988)
Before his career as a director Ashby edited films for
Early life and education
Ashby was born September 2, 1929, in Ogden, Utah, the youngest of four siblings born to Mormon parents Eileen Ireta (née Hetzler) and James Thomas Ashby, a dairy farm owner.[4][5] Ashby's parents divorced in 1936, after which his father remarried.[6]
Following the divorce, Ashby and his siblings lived with their mother, briefly in Logan, Utah, before relocating to Portland, Oregon, where his elder brother took a job in the timber industry.[6] His mother, a cooking enthusiast, opened a restaurant in Portland.[6] After several years in Portland, the family returned to Ogden, where Ashby primarily lived with his father.[7] When Ashby was 12 years old, his father committed suicide.[8]
Ashby subsequently dropped out of high school.[citation needed] Ashby-approved studio biographies concealed this, falsely stating that he graduated from Utah State University (situated in nearby Logan, Utah) to ensure he fit into the social milieu of college-educated peers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.[citation needed] Ashby was married and divorced by the time he was 19.
Career
1967-1978: Breakthrough and stardom
As Ashby was entering adult life, he moved from Utah to
At the urging of mentor
Over the next ten years, Ashby directed several acclaimed and popular films, many were about outsiders and adventurers traversing the pathways of life. They included the off-beat romance
In June 1973, Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz hired Ashby to direct One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, after the original director Miloš Forman became unavailable due to the reimposition of censorship in his native Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and after Forman's initial replacement Richard Rush was unable to secure studio funding.[12][13] Ashby was responsible for casting Jack Nicholson as R.P. McMurphy, but this resulted in a nine-month delay during which Forman fled to the United States and was rehired as director.[12]
Aside from Shampoo, Ashby's most commercially successful film was the
1979-1988: Later films
Because of his critical success and dependable profitability, shortly after the success of Coming Home, Ashby was able to form a production company, Northstar, under the auspices of
Following Being There, Ashby was provisionally set to reunite with Sellers and Terry Southern on Grossing Out, a black comedy inspired by the actor's chance meeting with an international arms dealer on an airplane. Although Southern (who had not had a screenplay go to production in a decade) was rejuvenated by the prospect of working with the duo and produced a script that was said to be on par with his 1960s oeuvre, the project went into development hell after Sellers' sudden death from a heart attack in July 1980. During this period, the productions[16] of Second-Hand Hearts and Lookin' to Get Out[17]—the latter a Las Vegas caper that reunited him with Voight and featured Voight's young daughter, Angelina Jolie—was plagued by the increasingly strained relationship between Ashby and Lorimar. Filmed in 1979, Second-Hand Hearts only received a poorly reviewed limited release in 1981 before being pulled from circulation for nearly thirty years. Belatedly released in October 1982, Lookin' to Get Out earned a little under $1 million in returns and rentals on an estimated $17 million budget. During this period, Lorimar executives grew less tolerant of his increasingly perfectionist production (811,000 feet of film were used shooting Lookin' to Get Out) and editing techniques; a montage in the latter film set to The Police's "Message in a Bottle" took six months to perfect but proved to be logistically unusable due to a Lorimar agreement with the American Federation of Musicians.
Initially set to helm
The Slugger's Wife, with a screenplay written by Neil Simon, was a critical and commercial failure. Ashby (whose cocaine use had accelerated throughout the shoot)[15] was fired after delivering a 20-minute rough cut of the beginning of the film that included almost no dialogue. When the Oliver Stone-written 8 Million Ways to Die fared similarly at the box office, Ashby's post-production process was considered to be such a liability that he was fired by the production company on the final day of principal photography.[15]
Attempting to turn a corner in his declining career, Ashby stopped using drugs, trimmed his hair and beard, and began to frequently attend Hollywood parties wearing a navy-blue blazer so as to suggest that he was once again employable. Despite these efforts, he could only find work as a television director, helming one of three
Personal life and death
Longtime friend Warren Beatty advised Ashby to seek medical care after he complained of various ailments, including undiagnosed phlebitis. He was soon diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that rapidly spread to his lungs, colon, and liver. Ashby died on December 27, 1988, at his home in Malibu, California.
Influence and legacy
The Last Detail, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, and Being There were all nominated for the Palme d'Or.
American songwriter and guitarist Guthrie Thomas, who coordinated the music in Bound for Glory and acted in the film, called Ashby "one of the finest motion picture directors of the 20th century."
For the 2012
A 2018 documentary about the director was screened at the Sundance Film Festival.[21] The moving image collection of Hal Ashby is held at the Academy Film Archive. The material at the Academy Film Archive is also complemented by material in the Hal Ashby papers at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.[22]
Filmography
Films
As director
Title | Year | Notes |
---|---|---|
The Landlord | 1970 | Cameo: Groom in opening shot |
Harold and Maude | 1971 | Cameo: Man watching model train |
The Last Detail | 1973 | Cameo: Man at a bar |
Shampoo | 1975 | |
Bound for Glory | 1976 | |
Coming Home | 1978 | Cameo: Man doing a peace sign |
Being There | 1979 | Cameo: Washington Post worker
|
Second-Hand Hearts | 1981 | |
Lookin' to Get Out | 1982 | Cameo: Man on television |
Let's Spend the Night Together | 1983 | Concert film |
Solo Trans | 1984 | |
The Slugger's Wife | 1985 | |
8 Million Ways to Die | 1986 |
Other film work
Title | Year | Credited as | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Editor | Other | |||
Friendly Persuasion | 1956 | Yes | Uncredited assistant editor | |
The Big Country | 1958 | Yes | ||
Tokyo After Dark | 1959 | Yes | ||
The Diary of Anne Frank | Yes | |||
The Young Doctors | 1961 | Yes | Editorial consultant | |
The Children's Hour | Yes | Assistant editor | ||
Captain Sindbad | 1963 | Yes | ||
The Best Man | 1964 | Yes | Editorial consultant | |
The Greatest Story Ever Told | 1965 | Yes | Uncredited assistant editor | |
The Loved One | Yes | |||
The Cincinnati Kid | Yes | With Brian Smedley-Aston | ||
The Russians Are Coming,
the Russians Are Coming |
1966 | Yes | With J. Terry Williams | |
In the Heat of the Night | 1967 | Yes | ||
The Thomas Crown Affair | 1968 | Yes | Yes | With Ralph E. Winters & Byron Brandt Also associate producer |
Gaily, Gaily | 1969 | Yes | Yes |
Television
Title | Year | Credited as | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Director | |||
Beverly Hills Buntz | 1987 | Yes | Episode: "Pilot" |
Jake's Journey | 1988 | Yes | Television pilot |
Unrealized film projects
Title | Notes |
---|---|
Three Cornered Circle | Left as director to work on The Last Detail[23] |
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Original director[24] |
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore | Original director[25] |
North Dallas Forty | Original director[26] |
Hair | Original director[25] |
Beyond the Mountain (a.k.a. Zebulon) | Western written by Rudy Wurlitzer[25] |
The Hawkline Monster | Adaptation of the Richard Brautigan novel[27] |
American Me | Original director[28] |
Grossing Out | Planned sequel to Being There[29] |
Tootsie | Original director[30] |
Hand Carved Coffins | Adaptation of the Truman Capote novella[31] |
LaBrava | Adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel[32] |
Vital Parts | Adaptation of the Thomas Berger novel[33] |
Summertime | Remake of the David Lean film[a] |
Awards and nominations
Year | Association | Category | Project | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1966 | Academy Awards | Best Film Editing | The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming |
Nominated | |
1967 | In the Heat of the Night | Won | |||
1978 | Best Director | Coming Home | Nominated | ||
1976 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Director | Bound for Glory | Nominated | |
1978 | Coming Home | Nominated | |||
1979 | Being There | Nominated | |||
1973 | Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | The Last Detail | Nominated | |
1976 | Bound for Glory | Nominated | |||
1978 | Coming Home | Nominated | |||
1979 | Being There |
Nominated |
Notes
- ^ In a 2017 interview with Rosanna Arquette, she explained that during the production of 8 Million Ways to Die, Ashby expressed his interest in doing a remake of the 1955 film Summertime starring Arquette, but wanted to wait until she was old enough to play the part.[34]
References
Citations
- ISBN 0837902258.
- ^ Glenn Collins (December 28, 1988). "Hal Ashby, 59, an Oscar Winner Whose Films Included 'Shampoo'". The New York Times.
- ^ Rodger Jacobs (September 25, 2009). "Hal Ashby: Hollywood Rebel". PopMatters.
- ^ "Being Hal Ashby – Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences – Kentucky". Scribd.com. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
- ^ "Hal Ashby". Mormon Literature & Creative Arts. Brigham Young University. Archived from the original on May 2, 2021.
- ^ a b c Dawson 2009, p. 10.
- ^ Dawson 2009, pp. 10–13.
- ^ Dawson 2009, pp. 12–13.
- ^ "Grand Prix Wins Film Editing: 1967 Oscars" – via www.youtube.com.
- ^ "Hal Ashby winning a Film Editing Oscar®" – via www.youtube.com.
- ^ "40th Oscars Highlights". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. September 9, 2014.
- ^ a b "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". AFI Catalog. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
- ^ Yumpu.com. "Boxoffice-June.18.1973". yumpu.com. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
- ^ "The 51st Academy Awards | 1979". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- ^ a b c d "Being Hal Ashby" – via Internet Archive.
- ^ "Hal Ashby". www.tcm.com.
- ^ Hughes, Darren. "Ashby, Hal – Senses of Cinema".
- ^ "Jake's Journey" – via mubi.com.
- ^ "Harold and Maude (1971)". Explore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on August 20, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
- ^ "Cyrus Frisch - BFI". Explore.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on August 27, 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2018.
- ^ January 25, Chris Nashawaty; EST, 2018 at 10:38 AM. "Sundance 2018: The best films of this year's festival". EW.com.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Hal Ashby Collection". Academy Film Archive.
- ^ Biskind, Peter (1998) Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. New York: Simon & Schuster.
- ^ Hood, Phil (April 11, 2017). "Michael Douglas: how we made One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The Guardian. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
- ^ a b c Mikulec, Sven. "Hal Ashby's 'Shampoo': The Brazen Comedy that Depicted the End of the Sixties's Innocence". Cinephilia & Beyond.
- ^ "AFI|Catalog - North Dallas Forty". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
- ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (June 4, 2019). "New Regency Acquires Film Rights To 'The Hawkline Monster'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
- ^ "AFI|Catalog - American Me". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
- ^ "Terry Southern's Grossing Out screenplay excerpt". terrysouthern.com. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
- ^ "AFI|Catalog - Tootsie". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
- ^ Jones, Jack (December 28, 1988). "Director Hal Ashby Dies; Made 'Harold and Maude,' 'Shampoo'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
- ^ Howe, Sean (August 13, 2013). "How Martin Scorsese's Elmore Leonard Movie LaBrava Is One That Got Away". Vulture. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
- ^ Oller, Jacob (March 15, 2017). "Read Hal Ashby's Long-Lost Final Script, Written for Marlon Brando". Vanity Fair. Retrieved January 2, 2023.
- ^ Interview with Star Rosanna Arquette (2017). [8 Million Ways to Die Region 1 Blu-ray]. Kino Lorber.
General and cited sources
- Dawson, Nick (2009). Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-813-17334-4.
External links
- Hal Ashby at IMDb
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- The Director's Director – discussion by directors Ashby influenced
- Literature on Hal Ashby
- Hal Ashby in Images Film Journal – Article summarizing Ashby's career in Images Film Journal
- Hal Ashby papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences