Ashley Boone Joins Lorimar as a Consultant

Ashley Boone, who recently resigned as president of domestic marketing and distribution at Columbia Pictures, is joining Culver City-based Lorimar Motion Pictures as a marketing and distribution consultant.

The announcement from Lorimar came as a surprise because Boone had been expected to go to MGM/UA to work for Alan Ladd Jr., MGM/UA’s president and chief operating officer and Boone’s one-time boss at the Ladd Co.

Boone’s departure from Columbia Pictures came to light three weeks ago when it was learned that a San Francisco executive search company hired by Columbia was combing the film industry for a person to fill Boone’s spot.

Columbia President Guy McElwaine, in explaining why he’d hired the headhunters, said Boone had decided he did not want to work full time. He added that Boone would probably become a contract consultant to Columbia.

A Columbia spokesman said Friday that the studio’s top marketing job will be filled within the next 30 to 60 days. Meanwhile, marketing decisions are being made by Executive Vice President Bob Dingilian and McElwaine.

Boone, who became one of the industry’s most highly regarded marketing executives while at 20th Century Fox Film Corp. through most of the 1970s, was rumored to have been unhappy with interference from the Coca-Cola Co., Columbia’s parent company.