1. John Richard Schlesinger was an English film and stage director, and actor.
25 Facts About John Schlesinger
1. 2.
John Schlesinger emerged in the early 1960s as a leading light of the British New Wave, before embarking on a successful career in Hollywood, often directing films dealing frankly in provocative subject matter, combined with his status as one of the rare openly gay directors working in mainstream films.
3.
John Schlesinger won the Academy Award for Best Director for Midnight Cowboy and was Oscar-nominated for Darling and Sunday Bloody Sunday.
4.
John Schlesinger gained acclaim for his Hollywood films The Day of the Locust, and Marathon Man.
5.
John Schlesinger served as an associate director of the Royal National Theatre.
6.
Four of John Schlesinger's films are on the British Film Institute's Top 100 British films.
7.
John Schlesinger had left school at 14 to study at the Trinity College of Music, and later studied languages at the University of Oxford for three years.
8.
John Schlesinger entertained his fellow troops by performing magic tricks.
9.
John Schlesinger's acting career began in the 1950s and consisted of supporting roles in British films such as The Divided Heart and Oh.
10.
John Schlesinger began his directorial career in 1956 with the short documentary Sunday in the Park about London's Hyde Park.
11.
In 1958, John Schlesinger created a documentary on Benjamin Britten and the Aldeburgh Festival for the BBC's Monitor TV programme, including rehearsals of the children's opera Noye's Fludde featuring a young Michael Crawford.
12.
In 1959, John Schlesinger was credited as exterior or second unit director on 23 episodes of the TV series The Four Just Men and four 30-minute episodes of the series Danger Man.
13.
John Schlesinger appeared in Col March of Scotland Yard as "Dutch cook" in "Death and the Other Monkey" 1956.
14.
John Schlesinger directed on stage Timon of Athens for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the musical I and Albert at London's Piccadilly Theatre.
15.
John Schlesinger directed several operas, including Les contes d'Hoffmann and Der Rosenkavalier, both at Covent Garden.
16.
Schlesinger directed a party political broadcast for the Conservative Party in the general election of 1992, which featured Prime Minister John Major returning to Brixton in south London, thus highlighting Major's humble background, something atypical for a Conservative politician at that time.
17.
John Schlesinger said he had voted for all three main political parties in the UK at one time or another.
18.
In 1991, John Schlesinger made a brief return to acting, portraying the gay character 'Derek' in the TV adaptation of The Lost Language of Cranes for the BBC.
19.
John Schlesinger had himself come out during the making of Midnight Cowboy.
20.
John Schlesinger was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 Birthday Honours for services to film.
21.
John Schlesinger underwent a quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering a stroke on New Year's Day 2001, which substantially diminished his faculties.
22.
John Schlesinger died at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on the morning of 25 July 2003, at the age of 77.
23.
John Schlesinger was survived by his partner of over 30 years, photographer Michael Childers.
24.
John Schlesinger was cremated, with most of his ashes interred next to his parents, and the remainder left to be interred with Childers.
25.
John Schlesinger was twice nominated for the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion, and was recipient of the Directors Guild of Great Britain's Lifetime Achievement Award.