Schlesinger, John (1926-2003), a British motion-picture director, won international fame with his first American film, Midnight Cowboy (1969), a grim story of two young men trying to survive in the urban jungle of New York City. The film won two U.S. Academy Awards—one for best picture and one for Schlesinger as best director. Schlesinger had earlier made a reputation in England with two films, A Kind of Loving (1963), his first feature film; and Billy Liar (1965). Both were examples of the realistic, low-budget movies that dominated the English film industry during the 1960’s.
John Richard Schlesinger was born on Feb. 16, 1926, in London. He studied at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, where he took up amateur dramatic acting and also began to make short films. From 1956 to 1961, he worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), making documentaries for arts programs, such as Monitor. His documentary Terminus (1961) portrayed 24 hours in the Waterloo railroad station in London and won an award at the Venice Film Festival. Its success encouraged him to make feature films for the cinema. Following A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar, Schlesinger directed Darling (1965), about the jet set life of a London fashion model. Schlesinger followed that film with his interpretation of the English author Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) tells the story of a complex romantic triangle.
After the success of Midnight Cowboy, Schlesinger made several films in Hollywood. Among them were Marathon Man (1976), Yanks (1979), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), Madame Sousatzka (1988), Pacific Heights (1990), The Innocent (1993), and Eye for an Eye (1995).
Schlesinger also directed operas and plays for stage and television. Among his major television productions were An Englishman Abroad (1983) and A Question of Attribution (1991), both with screenplays by the British playwright Alan Bennett, and Cold Comfort Farm (1995). Schlesinger died on July 25, 2003.
