Schlesinger first became interested in film at the age of 11, when he received a 9.5 mm movie camera as a gift. While serving with the Royal Engineers during WW II he made an amateur film, HORRORS, and performed as a magician in the Combined Services Entertainment Unit. When he resumed his education in 1945 he immersed himself in the theater, joining the Oxford University Dramatic Society and soon becoming president of the Oxford Experimental Theatre Company. (He would continue to direct for the stage, in between movie assignments, throughout the 1960s and 70s.)
From 1952 to 1957 Schlesinger worked in England, Australia and New Zealand, appearing in five feature films, acting in nearly 20 plays with various repertory companies and performing on TV and radio. During this period, a chance meeting with director/producer Roy Boulting catalyzed his interest in photography and filmmaking and led to the creation, with theatrical agent Basil Appleby, of a 15-minute documentary, SUNDAY IN THE PARK (1956). The film brought Schlesinger a series of documentary assignments for the BBC. After a stint as a second-unit director, he was commissioned to make an industrial documentary of daily life in London's Waterloo Station. The poignant result, TERMINUS (1961), achieved nationwide commercial distribution and earned him a Venice Festival Gold Lion and a British Academy Award.
Motivated in part by the festival success of TERMINUS, producer Joseph Janni offered Schlesinger his first shot at a feature film with A KIND OF LOVING (1962). The result was a critical and financial success which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival and propelled its director into the front rank of young British filmmakers. In BILLY LIAR (1963), Schlesinger continued to examine the themes of inarticulate ambition and frustrated tenderness he had explored in A KIND OF LOVING. Both films showed the influence of the British Free Cinema movement, with its emphasis on the constraints and restrictions of working-class life. Schlesinger then moved into very different terrain with DARLING (1965), a flashy satire of "swinging London" that certified its lead actress, Julie Christie, as an international star when she won the Academy Award for best actress.
MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) was perhaps Schlesinger's greatest success commercially and critically, winning Oscars® for best picture and best director and launching a long but rather turbulent Hollywood career for Schlesinger. Films such as SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY (1971), THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1975) and MARATHON MAN (1976) all bear witness to Schlesinger's remarkable ability to weave meticulously observed, realistic backgrounds into his complex studies of human relationships.
Schlesinger's later films included THE BELIEVERS (1987), a gripping contemporary horror story starring Martin Sheen and Helen Shaver, MADAME SOUSATZKA (1988), about a London piano teacher (Shirley MacLaine) and her gifted young student, and PACIFIC HEIGHTS (1990), possibly the first thriller to weave its plot around the problems faced by landlords in their attempt to evict a bad tenant.
Other notable (non-nominated) credits include FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967), YANKS (1979), THE FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN (1985), THE INNOCENT (1993), EYE FOR AN EYE (1996) and THE NEXT BEST THING (2000). In the 1980s, he directed three operas for television: "The Tales of Hoffmann," "Der Rosenkavalier" and "Un ballo in maschera."
His sister, who died of an overdose of barbituates in 1963, was actress Susan Marryott. Schlesinger was appointed a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1970.
Nominated for Directing 1965: DARLING
Directing 1969: MIDNIGHT COWBOY
Nominated for Directing 1971: SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY
3 nominations, 1 Award