In the 60s and 70s, he pioneered kitchen-sink drama and made bisexuality mainstream. So why did the director end up making Tory ads? Those who knew him best reveal all
M
ichael Childers was a 22-year-old Los Angeles student when a friend set him up on a date with John Schlesinger, a visiting British director nearly two decades his senior. The esteemed film-maker was licking his wounds: his most recent picture, Far from the Madding Crowd, which imbued its 19th-century rural characters with an anachronistic King’s Road style and panache, had flopped stateside.
Childers approached the date with mixed feelings. He adored Schlesinger’s previous movie, the jazzy Darling, starring Julie Christie as a model on the make, and had seen it three times.But he had heard the director described as “mercurial”. His solution was to take a friend along with him to the bar at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for backup. “I thought: This guy might be a total shit,” recalls Childers, now 81, on the phone from Palm Springs. “I told my friend, ‘Two kicks under the table means we’re out of here. One kick means you’re out of here.’”
It didn’t take long for that solitary kick to come. “John was charming and witty, with these twinkling eyes. I knew I could handle this.” Once Childers’ friend departed, the two men weren’t alone for long. “The actor Lee Remick came by to speak to John. She had Frank Sinatra with her. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Sinatra ….’ I thought: This could be a really great life.” And it was: the pair were together until the director’s death in 2003 at the age of 77. To mark the centenary this month of Schlesinger’s birth, Childers is hosting a programme of the director’s work in Palm Springs, called My Husband Makes Movies. At the same time, the UK is getting its own touring season, The Consummate Professional: John Schlesinger at 100,, which aims to revive interest in the man behind the movies.
