Joseph Walton Losey
(January 14, 1909 - June 22, 1984) U.S.A. - U.K.
Director and producer
Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and belonging to an important family clan, Joseph Losey, after studying medicine at Dartmouth and English literature at Harvard, went to New York and eventually became involved in New Deal theater projects; his concern with using film as a tool for social analysis may be linked to his early theatrical work. Losey also began an artistic collaboration with Bertolt Brecht; in 1947, he directed Charles Laughton on stage in Brecht's Galileo, which he was to film in 1973.
His first important movie was The Boy with Green Hair (1948). While he was filming The Prowler (1951) in Italy he was summoned by the Commitee of AntiAmerican Activities and therefore decided to seek exile in Great Britain.
In the following years he used several pseudonyms (Andrea Forzano, Terence Hanbury, Victor Hanbury, and Joseph Walton) for his films which were of minor quality. He regained his prestige with the thrillers Blind Date (1959), The Criminal (1960) and Eva (1965). From this time on his films were oscilating between top quality like Accident (1967).
Filmography with queer content:
- The Servant (1963)
- King and Country (1964)
- Modesty Blaise (1965)
- Boom! (1968)
- Secret Ceremony (1968)
- La Truite (1982)
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