| Individual or organisational biography | John Richard Schlesinger (1926-2003) has been one of the most versatile of the prominent British film directors.
Schlesinger was born in London on 16 February 1926 and educated at Oxford. He took a keen interest in amateur film-making and played small roles in a number of films such as The Divided Heart (1954). He was then hired by the BBC, where he directed several episodes of the arts programme 'Monitor' (1958-1964) that included studies of Benjamin Britten (1958) and Georges Simenon (1959).
In 1961 he directed 'Terminus' for British Transport Films, a drama-documentary about the life of Waterloo Station, London. It won the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival and a BAFTA award for best short. This led to him being chosen to direct an adaptation of Stan Barstow's novel 'A Kind of Loving' (1962), which was critically and financially successful.
Schlesinger's third film, 'Darling' (1965), entered 'Swinging London' territory wholeheartedly, depicting the life of a woman (Christie) whose sexual life gradually turns her into something of a commodity. In this film, arguably his finest British work [BFI screen online] , Schlesinger told a tragic story.
The success of Schlesinger's films enabled him to secure financial backing from MGM for a lavish adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 'Far from the Madding Crowd' (1967). This led Schlesinger to make the hugely successful 'Midnight Cowboy' (1969) and 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday' (1971), with themes of confused sexual identity in London at the end of the 1960s.
The 1970s saw Schlesinger's largest projects: 'The Day of the Locust' (1975); 'Marathon Man '(1976); and 'Yanks' (1979), a co-production between Joseph Janni and United Artists, with a script from Colin Welland that explored the impact of the American GI invasion of Britain in the latter days of the Second World War with performances from Vanessa Redgrave, William Devane, Richard Gere and Lisa Eichhorn.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Schlesinger was recruited by maverick producer Don Boyd for a daring attempt to make a British financed American blockbuster with a Florida setting and American actors such as Beau Bridges and William Devane. The $25 million budget of 'Honky Tonk Freeway' (1981) was not however recouped.
Schlesinger has alternated between mainstream Hollywood films and British productions, often made for television, such as 'Cold Comfort Farm' (1995).
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| Custodial History | Donated by family after his death. Agreement states can make copies for non-commercial uses and preservation. |