Schlesinger, John (1926-2003), British film director, born in London, who began acting while studying at Oxford University. After working with moderate success for a decade, Schlesinger made his reputation directing a documentary for the BBC, Terminus (1961). This led him into films, and his dramas A Kind of Loving (1962) and Billy Liar (1963) are widely regarded as two of the most perceptive and honest studies of working-class life ever made.

An account of a London model, Darling (1965), brought him to the attention of Hollywood, but Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), from the novel by Thomas Hardy, was less successful in the United States. Midnight Cowboy (1969), however, the story of a New York hustler, starring Dustin Hoffman, achieved Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Picture and Best Director. Schlesinger then made Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971), a cool psychological study of a man and a woman who share the same bisexual lover; The Day of the Locust (1975), from the Hollywood novel by Nathanael West; and the paranoid, William Goldman-scripted thriller Marathon Man (1976).

Schlesinger’s later films included a number of commercial failures—not all of them deserved—such as Yanks (1979) and Honky Tonk Freeway (1981). The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), depicting the clandestine activities of the CIA, showed Schlesinger’s ability to rise to the challenge when offered first-class material. He achieved box-office success in 1991 with Pacific Heights, a nightmarish tale of a young couple coping with a psychopathic lodger (played by Michael Keaton). The Innocent (1993), set in Berlin at the height of the Cold War, continued his exploration of how deceit carries over into, and contaminates, the private lives of anyone involved in espionage. Eye for an Eye (1996) was a routine vigilante thriller, starring Sally Field as a woman who becomes obsessed with gaining retribution when her daughter is murdered. Schlesinger also directed a number of award-winning television films, notably An Englishman Abroad (1983) and A Question of Attribution (1991), both scripted by Alan Bennett, and Cold Comfort Farm (1995), which was also released in cinemas. His last film was the comedy The Next Best Thing (2000), starring Madonna and Rupert Everett. He was made a CBE in 1970.