The Forgotten Film Director Hollywood Still Loves

Over the span of nine years, Hal Ashby released five movies that would comprise the highlights of his brief career: The Landlord (1970), his directorial debut, looked at race relations and gentrification. Harold and Maude (1971) tracked the love affair between a 20-year-old man and an 80-year-old free-spirited woman. Shampoo (1975), the story of a promiscuous stylist, played by Warren Beatty, satirized L.A.’s sexual mores. Coming Home (1978) starred Jane Fonda and Jon Voight in a Vietnam War-related romance. Being There (1979) featured Peter Sellers in an excoriation of the American political system.

Soon after, though, Ashby’s star faded. He released a series of duds, made concert films for the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, then died of pancreatic cancer in 1988 before he had a chance to make a comeback. For the past 30 years, the director has been relegated to near obscurity, while his peers from that era, most notably Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, have become pillars of the Hollywood pantheon.