Biographie

Directed 10 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Lee Grant, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Jack Warden, Jon Voight, Jane Fonda, Bruce Dern, Penelope Milford, Melvyn Douglas and Peter Sellers. Grant, Fonda, Voight and Douglas won Oscars for their performances in one of his movies.

Is one of four directors who have directed Academy Award-winning performances in all four acting categories. The others were William Wyler, Elia Kazan and Martin Scorsese.

Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Bud Cort, Jon Voight, Shirley MacLaine and Robert Downey Sr. were among the friends who came to Ashby's home in Malibu as he drew closer to death. Beatty's father had cancer and had been treated at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, and both Beatty and Hoffman were instrumental in convincing the physician-shy Ashby to have surgery there. However, the cancer had spread too far by then and at his request, Ashby was taken back to Malibu to die at home. The main caregiver in his last days was his girlfriend Lynn Griffis, a blonde model from Alabama whom he had met after she had sent him a fan letter. She was relieved for a much-needed rest on the Christmas Eve before his death by Ashby's last ex-wife, Joan Marshall. He had a large bed that had been featured in Bienvenue Mister Chance (1979), and the bed was big enough to allow friends to sit comfortably. In his final weeks, at times he would have several of them to each massage and caress a different body part gently, which was the only relief he got from the terrible pain he was suffering since even morphine would not ease it.

After the release of Harold et Maude (1971), Ashby was approached to direct the film versions of "Hair," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and "The Blue Lagoon." Milos Forman ended up directing the former two projects, while Randal Kleiser ended up directing the latter.

He has directed two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Harold et Maude (1971) and Bienvenue Mister Chance (1979). He has also edited one film that is in the registry: Dans la chaleur de la nuit (1967).