Out Spotlight CVXXVII

John Schlesinger, CBE, director of film, stage, television, and opera. Schlesinger was one of the most influential figures in British entertainment.

Born February 16, 1926 in London, Schlesinger was the oldest of five children. His father a pediatrician, his mother a stay at home mother, Schlesinger and his siblings were raised in a fairly middle class fairly discipline upbringing, with one exception, they were all encourage to everything for themselves creatively. Around eight his discovered magic which fascinated him, and when serving in the Army he had his own magic show, but that all changed when he returned to University.

Schlesinger attended Balliol College, Oxford University becoming interested in serious drama and filmaking while there. He collaborated on two films during his years at Oxford, as writer, co-director, photographer and editing them himself. One of them a short film, Black Legend in 1948. Both were shot on 16mm, but it was the not Schlesinger's first time behind a camera, he was given a still camera as a boy and space in the cellar for a darkroom. Early training for a visionary.

After Oxford, Schlesinger acted in a number of small roles for films. His first real success came in television in the late 50's, when he directed documentary films for the BBC. That led to his first feature film, Terminus, a documentary set in a London train station. From that producer Joseph Janni asked him to direct a series of films that focused on the restlessness of young people coming of age at the beginning of the "swinging sixties." The films were known for the responsive treatment of the young protagonists. The films featured such rising stars as Alan Bates, Tom Courtenay, and Julie Christie.

Darling, made in 1965, starred Julie Christie. It tells the adventures of anti-heroine Diana Scott who uses her sex appeal to achieve fame and fortune. Initially she draws the attention of a television journalist and convinces him to give up his family to be with her. Growing bored, she begins moving and sleeping around in the upper circles of society. She secures increasingly important modeling and acting roles, attracting the attention of the international nobility, but fails to find real love or happiness. is informed by gay sensibilities, not only through the introduction of a sympathetic minor character who is unambiguously homosexual, but also in its casting of the two male leads, Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey.

Darling, received a Best Actress Academy Award for Christie and an Oscar nomination for Schlesinger, as well as 6 BAFTA nominations. It was the beginning of international reputation and prestige for Schlesinger, and it also allowed him to explore controversial themes, including homosexuality, more directly in his films.

A daring innovator, Schlesinger was a significant force in introducing homosexual themes into mainstream British and American films.

Schlesinger's first American film, was Midnight Cowboy (1969), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture despite an "X" rating. It is the only X rated film in Academy history to ever win. It focuses on a relationship between two men, a male hustler (Jon Voigt) and an ailing con artist (Dustin Hoffman). It also features a disturbing scene in which the hustler beats up a client.

Released in 1971, only four ,years after homosexual acts between men in private were decriminalized in Britain, Sunday Bloody Sunday explores a bisexual romantic triangle an older gay man and a divorcee become rivals for the sexual attention of a younger man.

Schlesinger later directed numerous feature films, including The Day of the Locust , Marathon Man, Yanks, Honky Tonk Freeway, The Falcon and the Snowman, Madame Sousatzka, and Pacific Heights. He dealt with homosexuality openly in Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Next Best Thing, and some consider the two main characters in Marathon Man to be implicitly gay.

His last film,The Next Best Thing with Madonna and Rupert Everett, a gay man and a straight woman who are best friends who have child together and what happens when she falls in love with a man five years later after raising their son together. It explores all sides of love friendship family and sexuality, in all stark frankness.

Speaking about Midnight Cowboy's unflattering portrayal of homosexuality,he said that he was against political correctness and the self-censorship it encourages, which would prevent such a film from being made. He did not try to only one side but opened everything to be explored and examined.

Movie directing was not enough he also served, from 1973, as an associate director of the National Theater, London, he made his operatic directing debut at London's Covent Garden with a production of The Tales of Hoffman, starring Placido Domingo was responsible for a number of opera productions at the Royal Opera House. In 1970, Schlesinger was honored by Queen Elizabeth II, who named him CBE (Commander of the British Empire).

He never made a secret of his homosexuality, and he lived quite openly with his partner Michael Childers, a photographer, from the late 1960s until the end of life, spanning over 30 years. But he became publicly "out," when, in 1991, Sir Ian McKellen, the first openly gay individual to be knighted by the British monarchy, was attacked in a public letter from filmmaker Derek Jarman for accepting the honor. Schlesinger was one of the dozen British gay and lesbian artists who signed a respectful response in McKellen's defense.

He underwent a quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering a debilitating stroke in December 2000. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on July 24, 2003 by his partner Michael. Schlesinger died early the following day at the age of 77.