SCHLESINGER, JOHN (RICHARD)

born Feb. 16, 1926, London British film and theatre director. After graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, Schlesinger pursued an acting career in television and film. One of his first directorial efforts, the documentary Terminus (1960), won an award at the Venice International Film Festival. Schlesinger's first three feature films, A Kind of Loving (1962), Billy Liar (1963), and Darling (1965), were caustic depictions of contemporary English urban life. His next film, Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), was a romantic drama of the Victorian period, adapted from the Thomas Hardy novel. Schlesinger then won the Academy Award for best director for Midnight Cowboy (1969), which won the Academy Award for best picture for its portrayal of the relationship between two social misfits in New York City. Schlesinger's later films include Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Yanks (1979), and Honky Tonk Freeway (1981). For the Royal Shakespeare Company he directed Timon of Athens (1964), and in London's West End he directed the musical I and Albert (1972). In 1973 Schlesinger was appointed a director of the National Theatre, London.