Natural inside London to a Jewish family, he went on to act around television as an actor after graduating from either a Balliol College, Oxford. One of his number one motion-picture show, a documentary Terminus (1960), earned him a Venice Film Festival Gold Lion and the British Academy Award.

His number one 3 moving picture, A Kind of Loving (1962), Billy Liar (1963) and Darling (1965) describe tartly the modern urban way of life within England. Schlesinger's next motion picture was Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's popular novel. Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969) was internationally acclaimed and it won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

His late films include Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Yanks (1979), Pacific Heights (1990), and The Innocent (1993).

Schlesinger besides directed Timon of Athens (1964) for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the musical I and Albert (1972) at London's Piccadilly Theater. From either 1973 he was an associate director of the Royal National Theatre.

Schlesinger underwent the quadruple heart bypass in 1998, before suffering the stroke in December 2000. He was taken off life trend lines at Desert Regional Medical Center within Palm Springs on July 24, 2003 and died early the as punishment day.

Selected films

Midnight Cowboy (1969) Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971) Madame Sousatzka (1988)