After Oxford John Schlesinger worked as an actor, playing the occasional
bit part in British films in the fifties. Encouraged and supported by
the BBC he made a number of short arts subjects for the Monitor programme,
but eventually achieved public prominence with a documentary about Waterloo
station, Terminus (1961). His early feature films were part of the sixties
new wave; A Kind of
Loving (1962), Billy
Liar (1963) and Far
from the Madding Crowd (1967) all noted as exemplary film-making.
Skilled at observing contemporary life, Schlesinger's films have always
been imbued with a cynical quality of the moment, a trap that leads
to premature dating. In 1969 he achieved considerable success with his
first American picture, Midnight Cowboy (1969), and consolidated it
a couple of years later with Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971). His subsequent
films like Marathon Man (1976) and Cold
Comfort Farm (1995) showed a very talented directorial mind at work.
