Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel

Prologue

Prologue  June 2, 1969, the morning of his first day directing, and Hal can’t breathe. He has bronchitis. He can’t talk. All he can do is gasp and point. The doctor comes, checks him over, and tells him he has walking pneumonia, brought on by fear. In the seven months or so since his mentor, Norman Jewison, had told him he would be directing his first film, The Landlord, a nagging doubt had been eating away at him. Over the past ten years, he’d collaborated closely with Jewison, as well as such Hollywood greats as William Wyler and George Stevens, and had keenly watched how they worked. Even after a week of rehearsals, he feared he wouldn’t be able to communicate properly with the actors or get them to give him what he wanted. The rehearsals hadn’t been very conventional: the cast read through the script, talked about the characters, expressed their ideas about the story. Everybody got to know each other, and it was relaxed, just how Hal liked it. Though he hadn’t really addressed the problem at all, he’d hoped the week of rapping with the actors had gotten rid of that little knot inside him. “You’ve got to go to bed,” says the doctor.1 “Hell, no!” Hal manages to say between gasps and tells him to pump him full of any drug he can, to inject anything into any part of his body.2 Just do whatever is necessary so he can go and direct. Hal is terrified and sick, but there’s a part of him that’s buzzing with excitement. It’s been almost fifteen years: he’s made it through eight grueling years as an apprentice editor, he’s worked night and day, putting his job ahead of everything, he’s seen his dedication to the dream destroy two marriages, but he’s won an Oscar as an editor, and now he’s about to direct his first film. He’s right where he wants to be: he’s got a seat with his name on the back, and they’re waiting for him to call “Action!” ...