Editing Hal Ashby (section)

===1967–1978: Breakthrough and stardom===
As Ashby was entering adult life, he moved from Utah to [[Los Angeles]], California, where he pursued a [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyle and ultimately became an assistant [[film editor]] through a long apprenticeship. His career gained momentum when he served as the editor of ''[[The Loved One (film)|The Loved One]]'' (1965), an adaptation of the [[Evelyn Waugh]] novel that involved such New Hollywood contemporaries as screenwriter [[Terry Southern]] and cinematographer [[Haskell Wexler]]. After being nominated for the [[Academy Award for Film Editing]] in 1967 for ''[[The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming]]'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qoGgx3jWDc|title=Grand Prix Wins Film Editing: 1967 Oscars|date=March 18, 2015|via=www.youtube.com}}</ref> His big break occurred one year later when he won the award for ''[[In the Heat of the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJBAFDpop8|title=Hal Ashby winning a Film Editing Oscar®|date=March 5, 2014|via=www.youtube.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/videos-photos/40th-oscars-highlights|title=40th Oscars Highlights|date=September 9, 2014|website=Oscars.org &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences}}</ref> Ashby often stated that the practice of editing provided him with the best filmmaking background outside of traditional university study and carried the techniques learned as an editor with him when he began directing.

At the urging of mentor [[Norman Jewison]], Ashby directed his first film, ''[[The Landlord]]''—an early rumination on the social dynamics of [[gentrification]] in [[Park Slope, Brooklyn]]—in 1970. While his birth date placed him within the [[Silent Generation]], the filmmaker (who had been a habitual [[marijuana]] smoker since 1950), eagerly embraced the [[hippie]] lifestyle, adopting [[vegetarianism]] and growing his hair long before it became ''de rigueur''.

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 ''[[Harold and Maude]]'' (1971), ''[[The Last Detail]]'' (1973), and the social satire ''[[Being There]]'' (1979), with [[Peter Sellers]], giving the star a well-received role after many felt he had lapsed into self-parody. His most significant commercial success was ''[[Shampoo (film)|Shampoo]]'' (1975), a collaboration with [[Warren Beatty]] and [[Robert Towne]] that satirized late-1960s [[Sexual mores|sexual]] and [[social mores]] through the life of a hairdresser modeled after such contemporaneous figures as [[Jay Sebring]] and [[Jon Peters]]. ''[[Bound for Glory (1976 film)|Bound for Glory]]'' (1976), a muted biography of [[Woody Guthrie]] starring [[David Carradine]], was the first film to use a [[Steadicam]].

In June 1973, [[Michael Douglas]] and [[Saul Zaentz]] hired Ashby to direct ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', after the original director [[Miloš Forman]] became unavailable due to the reimposition of [[censorship]] in his native [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic|Czechoslovakia]] after the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]] and after Forman's initial replacement [[Richard Rush (director)|Richard Rush]] was unable to secure studio funding.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/55189 |access-date=2024-01-18 |website=AFI Catalog}}</ref><ref name=":100">{{Cite web|last=Yumpu.com|title=Boxoffice-June.18.1973|url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/31901486/boxoffice-june181973|access-date=2021-06-12|website=yumpu.com|language=en}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":0"/>

Aside from ''Shampoo'', Ashby's most commercially successful film was the [[Vietnam War]] drama ''[[Coming Home (1978 film)|Coming Home]]'' (1978). Starring [[Jane Fonda]] and [[Jon Voight]], both in [[Academy Award]]-winning performances, it was for this film that Ashby earned his only [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director Oscar]] nomination.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1979|title=The 51st Academy Awards &#124; 1979|website=Oscars.org &#124; Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|date=October 5, 2014}}</ref> Arriving in the post-''[[Jaws (film)|Jaws]]'' and ''[[Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]'' era, ''Coming Home'' was one of the last films to encapsulate the modestly budgeted, [[Social realism|socially realistic]] ethos of the New Hollywood era, earning nearly $15 million in returns and rentals on a $3 million budget.