Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger died July 27 in Palm Springs, Calif., after a prolonged illness, reports Advocate.com.
The openly gay, Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s work included Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, The Day of the Locust, Darling, Far From the Madding Crowd, Cold Comfort Farm, and Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Schlesinger grew up in Hampstead, England, and studied English literature at Oxford.
Other films directed by Schlesinger include Yanks, An Englishman Abroad, The Falcon and the Snowman, The Believers, Madame Souzatska, The Innocent, Pacific Heights, and Eye for an Eye. Schlesinger’s last feature was The Next Best Thing, starring Madonna and Rupert Everett, about a straight woman and her gay best friend.
Schlesinger is survived by his partner of 30 years, photographer Michael Childers; his brother, Roger Schlesinger; and his sister, Hilary Schlesinger.
The Washington Post reported July 25 on the death of Post Editor Bryant Snapp, Technician David Hancock: ‘Snapp, 36, editorial page copy chief at The Washington Post, and his companion, David Hancock, 45, a computer technician, were killed July 22 in a traffic accident near Toledo, Wash. The Takoma Park residents were vacationing in Seattle and were returning from a trip to Mount St. Helens. Washington State Police said that Seattle landscape architect David K. Ringstrom, 49, driver of the BMW sedan in which the men were riding, also was killed. The BMW collided head-on with a water tanker that swerved into the car’s lane on Route 505, two miles east of Toledo.’
Jed Mattes, a distinguished literary agent, a bright light within gay and lesbian publishing and a long-time gay civic leader, died July 24. ‘Jed had been my literary agent for almost 10 years and was a great friend,’ said writer Michelangelo Signorile. ‘He enriched many lives and will be missed dearly. The cause of his death was complications following a five-and-a-half-year battle against metastatic pancreatic cancer.’
‘You may have seen a recent Advocate profile of Jed, upon the occasion of his receiving the Publishing Triangle Leadership Award,’ Signorile said. ‘Jed also was given a prestigious Lambda Liberty Award in 1997 for his work with the Hetrick-Martin Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth and other gay organizations.’
He began his career as a literary agent at International Creative Management (ICM) where he represented such notables as Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Armistead Maupin. In 1989 he left ICM to open his own literary agency, Jed Mattes Inc., where he represented and nurtured the literary careers of many gay writers and activists, including the late film critic Vito Russo, Olympic diver Greg Louganis, Urvashi Vaid, Log Cabin leader Rich Tafel, author and psychotherapist Betty Berzon, Advocate reporter Chris Bull, Gabriel Rotello and Eric Marcus.