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Joseph Losey

Overview

Joseph Losey (January 14, 1909 in La Crosse, WisconsinJune 22, 1984 in London) was an American theater and film director.

After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood.

During the McCarthy Era, he was investigated for his supposed ties with the Communist Party and was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses. His career in shambles, he moved to London, where he continued working as a director.

Even in the UK, he experienced problems: his first British film, The Sleeping Tiger, a 1954 film noir crime thriller, did not bear his name originally in the credits as director, as the stars of the film, Alexis Smith and Alexander Knox, feared being blacklisted in Hollywood due to working on a film he directed. He was also originally slated to direct the 1956 Hammer Films production X the Unknown; however after a few days work on the project star Dean Jagger refused to work with a supposed Communist sympathiser and Losey was moved off the project. From 1956 to 1963 Joseph Losey was married to British actress Dorothy Bromiley.

In the 1960s Losey entered a productive partnership with dramatist and screenwriter, Harold Pinter. The two collaborated on three films together: The Servant (1963), Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1970). All three were highly acclaimed and were nominated for prestigious awards. The Go-Between won the Golden Palm Award at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.

Bibliography

* Michel Ciment, Le Livre de Losey. Entretiens avec le cinéaste, Paris, Stock/Cinéma, 1979, 465 p. * Michel Ciment, Joseph Losey: l'oeil du Maître, Institut Lumière/Actes Sud, 1994, 360 p. * Penelope Houston, "Losey's Paper Handkerchief", Sight and Sound, Summer 1966, pp. 142–143. * Gilles Jacob, "Joseph Losey, or The Camera Calls", Sight and Sound, Spring 1966, pp. 62–67.
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This biography says:

...After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood....

That biography says:

* The Servant, directed by Joseph Losey in 1963 portrays an uncredited Graham as a guitarist playing. * Cain's Film, a short directed by Jamie Wadhawan in 1969, features Graham as himself (playing Rock Me), along with Alexander Trocchi, William Burroughs, Feliks Topolski and Shawn Philips, also as themselves...

That biography says:

...During the 1950s, he also starred as a murderer who befriends a young boy in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); Appointment in London (1953) as a young airman in Bomber Command who, against orders, joins a major offensive against the Germans; The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), playing a flight sergeant trapped in a dinghy with Sir Michael Redgrave; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith in fine form, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles; Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then kills them; The Spanish Gardener (1956), co-starring Cyril Cusack and Bernard Lee; Doctor at Large (1957), another entry in the "Doctor series", co-starring Shirley Eaton; A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' classic; The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring Leslie Caron and Robert Morley, not a part of the "Doctor series"; and Libel (1959), playing three separate roles and co-starring Olivia de Havilland...

That biography says:

...He also made an impression opposite Patrick McGoohan in Hell Drivers, as a lorry driver who wouldn't toe the line. In Joseph Losey's Accident, he gave an excellently sustained performance as Charley and in 1970's Perfect Friday, he showed his skill in comedy and romantic acting with a charming performance as Mr Graham, opposite Ursula Andress...

This biography says:

...Even in the UK, he experienced problems: his first British film, The Sleeping Tiger, a 1954 film noir crime thriller, did not bear his name originally in the credits as director, as the stars of the film, Alexis Smith and Alexander Knox, feared being blacklisted in Hollywood due to working on a film he directed. He was also originally slated to direct the 1956 Hammer Films production X the Unknown; however after a few days work on the project star Dean Jagger refused to work with a supposed Communist sympathiser and Losey was moved off the project...

That biography says:

...Over the years, he played in a wide variety of film and television roles, including David Lean's epic Ryan's Daughter, Battle of Britain, Joseph Losey's King and Country, The Troubleshooters, The Family Way, The Wild Geese, Robbery, Sweeney! and Inspector Clouseau, Merchant Ivory's Heat and Dust and Maurice, and up to his final film Rancid Aluminium in 2000...

That biography says:

...Stamp starred in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles' The Collector (1965), opposite Samantha Eggar, and in Modesty Blaise (1966), for director Joseph Losey and producer Joe Janni. Stamp reteamed with producer Janni for two more projects: John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd (1967) starring Julie Christie, and Ken Loach's first feature film Poor Cow (1967)...

That biography says:

*L (Death Note Spinoff) - Director 2007 *Kaidan - Director 2007 *Dark Water - Writer 2005 *The Ring Two - Director 2005 *Last Scene - Director, Producer 2002 *Dark Water - Director, Writer (screenplay) 2002 *Chi wo suu uchuu - Actor 2001 *Sotohiro - Director 2000 *Sleeping Bride (Garasu no nou) - Director 2000 *Sadistic and Masochistic (documentary) - Director, Himself 2000 *Ring 2 - Director, Writer 1999 *Chaos - Director 1999 *Joseph Losey: The Man with Four Names (documentary) - Director, Writer 1998 *Ringu - Director 1998 *Tokyo biyori - Actor 1997 *Don't Look Up - Director, Writer (story) 1996 *Curse, Death & Spirit (video) - Director

That biography says:

*Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) by Jacques Becker *La Reine Margot (1954) *Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958) by Louis Malle *The Lovers (Les amants) (1958) by Louis Malle *Les liaisons dangereuses (1959) by Roger Vadim *The Four Hundred Blows (1959) (bit part) by François Truffaut *Le Dialogue des Carmélites (1960) by Philippe Agostini *A Woman Is a Woman (1961) by Jean-Luc Godard (Uncredited cameo, discussing Jules and Jim) *La notte (1961) by Michelangelo Antonioni *The Trial (1962) by Orson Welles *Jules and Jim (1962) by François Truffaut *The Victors (1963) *The Fire Within (Le feu follet) (1963) by Louis Malle *Bay of Angels (1963) by Jacques Demy *Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) by Luis Buñuel *The Train (1964) by John Frankenheimer *The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) by Anthony Asquith *Mata-Hari (1964) by Jean-Louis Richard *Viva Maria! (1965) by Louis Malle *Mademoiselle (1966) by Tony Richardson *The Immortal Story (1968) by Orson Welles *The Bride Wore Black (1968) by François Truffaut *The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (1970) by Jean Renoir *Monte Walsh (1970) *Nathalie Granger (1972) by Marguerite Duras *Les Valseuses (1974) by Bertrand Blier *Joanna Francesa (1975) by Cacá Diegues *The Last Tycoon (1976) by Elia Kazan *Monsieur Klein (1976) by Joseph Losey *Querelle (1982) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder *La Truite (1982) by Joseph Losey *Nikita (1990) by Luc Besson *The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea (1991) *Until the End of the World (1991) by Wim Wenders *A Foreign Field (1993) by Charles Sturridge *Beyond the Clouds (1995) - Michelangelo Antonioni *The Proprietor (1996) - Merchant Ivory Film *I Love You, I Love You Not (1996) *Ever After (1998) *Cet amour-là (2001) as Marguerite Duras *Love Actually (2003) cameo as woman at Marseilles Airport *Time to Leave (2005) by François Ozon *Roméo et Juliette (2006) *Désengagement (2007)

That biography says:

...Many of his friends were also Communists or were suspected of being so (MP DN Pritt; film director Joseph Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid; actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty organizations that were branded as ‘subversive’ and ‘un-American’ by the US Attorney General...

That biography says:

...He quickly worked his way up the production ladder, as an assistant director he worked with men including Jean Renoir, Abraham Polonsky, Joseph Losey and Charlie Chaplin. He moved into television direction in the 1950s and directed his first feature film, The Big Leaguer, in 1954...

This biography says:

...In the 1960s Losey entered a productive partnership with dramatist and screenwriter, Harold Pinter. The two collaborated on three films together: The Servant (1963), Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1970)...

That biography says:

...It now comprises "over one hundred and fifty boxes of manuscripts, scrapbooks, letters, photographs, programmes, and emails," constituting "an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars of Pinter's work for stage, cinema, and poetry." Among its "highlights" is "an exceedingly perceptive and enormously affectionate run of letters from Samuel Beckett; letters and hand-written manuscripts revealing Pinter's close collaboration with director Joseph Losey; a charming and highly amusing exchange of letters with Philip Larkin; and a draft of Pinter's unpublished autobiographical memoir of his youth, 'The Queen of all the Fairies'," as well as especially-poignant letters from Pinter's "inspirational" Hackney Downs School English teacher and friend, Joseph Brearley...

That biography says:

...Mabuse, Lang directed what many film scholars consider to be his masterpiece: M, a disturbing story of a child murderer (Peter Lorre in his first starring role) who is hunted down and brought to trial by Berlin's criminal underworld. M remains a powerful work; it was remade in 1951 by Joseph Losey, but this version had little impact on audiences, and has become harder to see than the original film...

That biography says:

...Even though he wanted the part very much, Bates was held up filming The Go-Between (1970) for director Joseph Losey and also became a father around that time, so he had to pass on the project, with regrets. The part then went first to Ian Bannen who balked at kissing and simulating sex with another man, and then to Peter Finch, who earned an Academy Award nomination...

That biography says:

...Reed also starred in Paranoiac, and The Damned (1963) , (not the Visconti film, but an earlier English movie directed by Joseph Losey and released in North America as These Are the Damned) . In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, The System, (known as The Girl-Getters in the U.S.)...

That biography says:

...The novel was made into a film by famed director Joseph Losey in 1970, and featured Robert Shaw and Malcolm McDowell in the two main roles. According to the Times, England had been working on a second novel provisionally entitled The Other Woman, but it is unclear whether this book ever saw the light of day...

That biography says:

...Besides highly distinguished filmings of Il barbiere di Siviglia (1972); the noted Joseph Losey Don Giovanni (as Zerlina; 1979); Werther and Carmen (both 1980), she has also been featured as a legitimate actress in Patiño's complex drama Octavia (2002); Paul McGuigan's popular The Reckoning (2003); Alex van Warmerdam's Grimm (2003); Albert Boadella's ¡Buen viaje, excelencia! (2003; playing Franco's granddaughter) and Cuéntame, aka Cuéntame cómo pasó (Spain), originally Por el humo se sabe dónde está el fuego (2006), a TV Episode with title taken from a famous tenor romanza from the zarzuela Doña Francisquita by Amadeo Vives.

That biography says:

...In subsequent years, she performed at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Paris Opera, Sydney Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, San Francisco Opera, Munich and Cologne, adding the Mozart roles of Donna Elvira, Pamina, and Fiordiligi, in addition to Italian roles such as Mimi in La bohème. She played Donna Elvira in Joseph Losey's 1979 film adaptation of Don Giovanni....

That biography says:

...Some of his most important roles have been King Philip in Verdi's Don Carlos; Fiesco; the title roles in Boris Godunov and Attila; Silva; Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen (including the Francesco Rosi film, 1984, with Plácido Domingo and Julia Migenes); the title role in Don Giovanni (including the Joseph Losey film, 1978); Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro; and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte; the title role in Don Quichotte by Massenet; and Scarpia in a recording of Tosca produced by Ardermann and later filmed live from Rome, with Plácido Domingo and Catherine Malfitano, conducted by Zubin Mehta...

That biography says:

...— The Lindsay Anderson film (starring Treacy favorite Malcolm McDowell) is quoted in several songs, including "Paradise Is For The Blessed" and "Not Even a Maybe." * King & Country — The TVPs named a song after this film by Joseph Losey. Several other Losey films are referenced in the TVPs' work, and "I See Myself in You" mentions Losey by name...

That biography says:

...A Friendship of Convenience: Being a Discourse on Poussin's 'Landscape With a Man Killed by a Snake', is a 1997 novel by Rufus Gunn set in 1956 in which Blunt, then Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, encounters Joseph Losey, a film director fleeing McCarthyism.
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