John Schlesinger
English film and stage director (1926–2003)
John Richard Schlesinger ( SHLESS-in-jər; 16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003) was an English film, television and theatre director, and actor. He 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 with provocative subject matter, combined with his status as one of the rare openly gay directors working in mainstream films.
Schlesinger started his career making British kitchen sink dramas A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963), and the Thomas Hardy adaptation Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and was Oscar-nominated for Darling (1965) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). He gained acclaim for his Hollywood films The Day of the Locust (1975) and Marathon Man (1976). His later films include Madame Sousatzka (1988) and Cold Comfort Farm (1995). He also served as an associate director of the Royal National Theatre.
Over his career he received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, four BAFTAs, and a Golden Globe. His honours include the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and a BAFTA Fellow. Four of Schlesinger's films are on the British Film Institute's Top 100 British films.
“John Schlesinger” enters the record as english film and stage director (1926–2003). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what John, Schlesinger and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55303. VIAF identifies the subject as 114959169. The Library of Congress control number is n80144634. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2003, 1962 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Schlesinger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.