Hal Ashby

Known for: Harold and Maude (1971), Being There (1979)

Hal Ashby edited In the Heat of the Night (1967) before directing a run of films between 1971 and 1979 — Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Coming Home (1978), Being There (1979) — that constitutes one of the most sustained creative periods in 1970s American cinema. His films share a sympathy for outsiders and an aversion to moral simplicity that placed them at the radical edge of Hollywood filmmaking during the decade. He died of cancer in 1988 and has been significantly reassessed since.