As Ashby was entering adult life, he moved from Utah to Los Angeles, California, where he pursued a 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" (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", his big break occurred one year later when he won the award for "In the Heat of the Night". Ashby often stated that the practice of editing provided him with the best filmmaking background outside of traditional university study and he carried the techniques learned as an editor with him when he began directing.