Biography
John Richard Schlesinger, CBE, was an English film and stage director, and actor. He won an Academy Award for Best Director for Midnight Cowboy, and was nominated for two other films (Darling and Sunday Bloody Sunday). Schlesinger was born in London, into a middle class Jewish family. His acting career began in the 1950s and consisted of supporting roles in British films and television productions. He began his directorial career in 1956 with the short documentary Sunday in the Park about London's Hyde Park. In 1958, 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. By the 1960s, he had virtually given up acting to concentrate on a directing career, and another of his earlier directorial efforts, the British Transport Films' documentary Terminus (1961), gained a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award. His first two fiction films, A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963) were set in the North of England. A Kind of Loving won the Golden Bear award at the 12th Berlinale in 1962. His third feature fi…
Directed
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Midnight Cowboy (1969) — Director
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Marathon Man (1976) — Director
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Eye for an Eye (1996) — Director
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Pacific Heights (1990) — Director
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The Next Best Thing (2000) — Director
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The Believers (1987) — Director
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The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) — Director
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Darling (1965) — Director
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Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) — Director
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Billy Liar (1963) — Director
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The Day of the Locust (1975) — Director
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Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) — Director
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Cold Comfort Farm (1995) — Director
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Yanks (1979) — Director
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A Kind of Loving (1962) — Director
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The Innocent (1993) — Director
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Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) — Director
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Madame Sousatzka (1988) — Director
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The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1998) — Director
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Terminus (1961) — Director
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Visions of Eight (1973) — Director
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An Englishman Abroad (1983) — Director
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A Question of Attribution (1991) — Director
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Separate Tables (1983) — Director
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Les Contes d'Hoffmann (1981) — Director
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Screen One (1989) — Director
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The Wednesday Play (1964) — Director
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Der Rosenkavalier (1985) — Director
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Monitor (1958) — Director
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Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (1960) — Director
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The Starfish (1952) — Director
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Wakes Week in Blackburn (1957) — Director
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Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (1990) — Director
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The ROH Live: The Tales of Hoffmann (2016) — Director
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Black Legend (1949) — Director
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Sunday in the Park (1956) — Director
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Days in the Trees (1967) — Director
Also appeared in
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Pacific Heights (1990) — Man in Elevator (uncredited)
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Darling (1965) — Theatre Director (uncredited)
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Billy Liar (1963) — Officer in Dream (uncredited)
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The Celluloid Closet (1996) — Self
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The Battle of the River Plate (1956) — Lieutenant, Graf Spee (uncredited)
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The Lost Language of Cranes (1992) — Derek Moulthorp
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The Twilight of the Golds (1996) — Dr. Adrian Lodge
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Golden Globe Awards (1944) — Self - Nominee
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The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955) — Hale
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Visions of Eight (1973) — Narrator
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Terminus (1961) — Passenger (uncredited)
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Seven Thunders (1957) — German Soldier
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Brothers in Law (1957) — Assize Court Solicitor
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Ivanhoe (1958) — Jack Ludlow
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The Last Man to Hang (1956) — Dr. Goldfinger
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The Divided Heart (1954) — Ticket Collector
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Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey (1990) — Self
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Stormy Crossing (1958) — Mechanic
- Film '72 (1971) — Self
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The Buccaneers (1956) — Pigtail
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The Magic of Hollywood... Is the Magic of People (1976) — Self
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Innes Lloyd: The Producer (2025) — Self (archive footage)
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Sunday Night Theatre (1950) — Amiens
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Mythos Hollywood - Das Geheimnis des Erfolgs (1998) — Self
- Location: Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) — Himself
- Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film (2002) — Self (uncredited)
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Hollywood U.K.: British Cinema in the Sixties (1993) — Self
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The Big Screen (1973) — Self
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Black Legend (1949) — The Judge
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The Crowd Around the Cowboy (1969) — Self
- Speaking of Britain (1967) — Self
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Flick Flack (1974)