Editing Joseph Losey

{{Short description|American theatre and film director (1909–1984)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2014}}
{{infobox person
| name               = Joseph Losey
| image              = File:Joseph Losey 1965 (crop).png
| caption            = Losey in 1965
| birth_name         = Joseph Walton Losey III
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1909|01|14}}
| birth_place        = [[La Crosse, Wisconsin]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1984|06|22|1909|01|14}}
| death_place        = [[London]], England
| alma_mater         = [[Dartmouth College]]<br/>[[Harvard University]]
| occupation         = {{hlist|[[Film director]]|[[theatre director]]|[[Film producer|producer]]|[[screenwriter]]}}
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage |[[Elizabeth Hawes]] |July 24, 1937 |1944 |end=divorced}}
* {{marriage |Louise Stuart |1944|1953 |end=divorced}}
* {{marriage |[[Dorothy Bromiley]] |1956 |1963 |end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Patricia Mohan|September 29, 1970}}
}}
| children           = 2, including [[Gavrik Losey|Gavrik]]
| awards             = [[#Awards and nominations|See below]]
| years_active       = 1933–1984
}}
'''Joseph Walton Losey III''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|oʊ|s|i}}; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American  film and theatre director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in [[Wisconsin]], he studied in Germany with [[Bertolt Brecht]] and then returned to the United States. [[Hollywood blacklist|Blacklisted]] by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. 

Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by [[Harold Pinter]]: ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963) and ''[[The Go-Between (1971 film)|The Go-Between]]'' (1971).<ref>Sanjek, 2002: “The artistry and effort illustrated in particular by the trilogy that Losey produced along with Harold Pinter – Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1970) in addition to The Servant (1963).</ref><ref>Maras, 2012: “[H]is three films with Pinter, and The Servant in particular, are aesthetically assured and unsettling works and well worth watching.”</ref> His 1976 film ''[[Monsieur Klein]]'' won the [[César Award]]s for [[César Award for Best Film|Best Film]] and [[César Award for Best Director|Best Director]]. His other notable films included ''[[The Boy with Green Hair]]'' (1948), ''[[Eva (1962 film)|Eva]]'' (1962), ''[[King & Country]]'' (1964), ''[[Modesty Blaise (1966 film)|Modesty Blaise]]'' (1966), ''[[Figures in a Landscape (film)|Figures in a Landscape]]'' (1970), ''[[A Doll's House (1973 Losey film)|A Doll's House]]'' (1973), ''[[Galileo (1975 film)|Galileo]]'' (1975), and ''[[Don Giovanni (1979 film)|Don Giovanni]]'' (1979). 

He was also a four-time nominee for both the {{Lang|fr|[[Palme d'Or]]|italic=no}} (winning once) and the [[Golden Lion]], and a two-time [[BAFTA|BAFTA Award]] nominee.  

== Early life and career ==
[[File:LoseyArch.JPG|thumb|Losey Memorial Arch (1901) was erected by the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in tribute to Losey's grandfather, a prominent attorney and civic leader<ref name="La Crosse Library"/>]]
Joseph Walton Losey III was born on January 14, 1909, in [[La Crosse, Wisconsin]], where he and [[Nicholas Ray]] were high-school classmates at [[La Crosse Central High School]].<ref name="La Crosse Library">{{cite web |url=http://archives.lacrosselibrary.org/blog/filmfreaks-nicholas-ray-and-joseph-losey/ |title=FilmFreaks: Nicholas Ray & Joseph Losey |last=Brouwer |first=Scott |publisher=La Crosse Public Library Archives |access-date=2016-09-22}}</ref><ref name=nytobit>{{cite news | last=Apple | first=R.W. Jr. |title=Joseph Losey, Film Director Blacklisted in 1950s, Dies at 75 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/23/obituaries/joseph-losey-film-director-blacklisted-in-1950-s-dies-at-75.html |access-date=April 3, 2013 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 23, 1984}}</ref><ref name=brody>{{cite magazine |last=Brody |first=Richard |title=DVD of the Week: Joseph Losey's "Mr. Klein" |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2012/11/dvd-of-the-week-mr-klein.html |access-date=April 4, 2013 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=November 8, 2012}}</ref> He attended [[Dartmouth College]] and [[Harvard University]], beginning as a student of medicine and ending in drama.<ref name=archer>{{cite news |last=Archer |first=Eugene |title=Expatriate Retraces his Steps |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1964/03/15/106946450.pdf |access-date=April 3, 2013 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=March 15, 1964}}</ref><ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 20</ref>

Losey became a major figure in New York City political theatre, first directing the controversial failure ''Little Old Boy'' in 1933.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-show/little-ol-boy-5475 |title=''Little Ol' Boy'' |website=IBDB.com |publisher=[[Internet Broadway Database]] }}</ref> He declined to direct a staged version of ''[[Dodsworth (novel)|Dodsworth]]'' by [[Sinclair Lewis]], which led Lewis to offer him his first work written for the stage, ''Jayhawker''. Losey directed the show, which had a brief run.<ref name=archer/> [[Bosley Crowther]] in ''[[The New York Times]]'' noted that "The play, being increasingly wordy, presents staging problems that Joe Losey's direction does not always solve. It is hard to tell who is responsible for the obscure parts in the story."<ref>{{cite news |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |title=Fred Stone as a Civil War Senator... |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1934/11/06/93650228.pdf |access-date=April 3, 2013 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=November 6, 1934}}</ref>

He visited the [[Soviet Union]] for several months in 1935, to study the Russian stage. In Moscow he participated in a seminar on film taught by [[Sergei Eisenstein]].<ref>See Michel Ciment: ''Conversations with Losey''. London New York: Methuen, 1985, p. 37.</ref> He also met [[Bertolt Brecht]] and the composer [[Hanns Eisler]], who were visiting Moscow at the time.<ref>See Robert Cohen: "Bertolt Brecht, Joseph Losey, and Brechtian Cinema", in ''"Escape to Life": German Intellectuals in New York: A Compendium on Exile after 1933''. Eckart Goebel and Sigrid Weigel (eds.). De Gruyter, 2012. 142–161, here p. 144 ff.</ref>

In 1936, he directed ''[[Triple-A Plowed Under]]'' on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]], a production of the [[Works Progress Administration]]'s [[Federal Theatre Project]].<ref name=ray>{{cite book |last=McGilligan |first=Patrick |title=Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director |year=2011 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |location=New York |pages=64–65 |isbn=9780062092342 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s-0g_LtOTbUC&pg=PA65}}</ref> He then directed the second [[Living Newspaper]] presentation, ''Injunction Granted''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Atkinson |first=Brooks |date=July 25, 1936 |title=The Play: WPA Journalism |newspaper=The New York Times }}</ref>

Losey served in the [[United States Armed Forces|U.S. military]] during [[World War II]] and was discharged in 1945.<ref name="UPI">[https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/06/22/Joseph-Losey-American-movie-director-dies/5875456724800/ Joseph Losey, American movie director, dies] [[United Press International]]. Retrieved October 27, 2021.</ref> From 1946 to 1947, Losey worked with Bertolt Brecht—who was living in exile in Los Angeles—and [[Charles Laughton]] on the preparations for the staging of Brecht's play ''Galileo'' (''[[Life of Galileo]]'') which he and Brecht eventually co-directed with Laughton in the title role, and with music by Eisler. The play premiered on July 30, 1947, at the Coronet Theatre in [[Beverly Hills]].<ref name="Cohen_149">See Cohen, "Bertolt Brecht, Joseph Losey", p. 149.</ref> On October 30, 1947, Losey accompanied Brecht to Washington D.C. for Brecht's appearance before the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC).<ref name="Cohen_149"/> Brecht left the US the following day. Losey went on to stage ''Galileo'', again with Laughton in the title role, in New York City where it opened on December 7, 1947, at the [[Maxine Elliott Theatre]]. More than 25 years later Losey, in exile in England, would direct a film version of Brecht's play ''[[Galileo (1975 film)|Galileo]]'' (1975).

Losey's first feature film was a political allegory titled ''[[The Boy with Green Hair]]'' (1947), starring a young [[Dean Stockwell]] as Peter, a war orphan who is subject to ridicule after he awakens one morning to find his hair mysteriously turned green.

Seymour Nebenzal, the producer of [[Fritz Lang]]'s classic ''[[M (1931 film)|M]]'' (1931), hired Losey to direct [[M (1951 film)|a remake]] set in Los Angeles rather than Berlin. In the new version, released in 1951, the killer's name was changed from Hans Beckert to Martin W. Harrow. Nebenzal's son Harold was associate producer of this version.

==Politics and exile==
During the 1930s and 1940s, Losey maintained extensive contacts with people on the political left, including radicals and communists or those who would eventually become such. He had collaborated with [[Bertolt Brecht]] and had a long association with [[Hanns Eisler]], both targets of HUAC's interest.<ref name=gardner /> Losey had written to the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]] in support of a resident visa for Eisler, who had many radical associations. They had collaborated on a "political cabaret" from 1937 to 1939, and Losey had invited Eisler to compose music for a short public-relations film that he had been commissioned to produce for presentation at the [[1939 New York World's Fair]], ''Pete Roleum and His Cousins''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Palmier |first=Jean-Michel |title=Weimar in Exile: The Antifascist Emigration In Europe And America |year=2006 |publisher=Verso |location=NY |pages=532, 802n131 |isbn=9781844670680 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2UPrsyu3znkC&pg=PA532}}</ref>

Losey had also worked on the [[Federal Theatre Project]], long a target of HUAC. Losey directed the play ''[[Triple-A Plowed Under]]'', which been denounced by HUAC's antecedent, the [[Dies Committee]], as communist propaganda.<ref name=gardner /> His Hollywood collaborators included a long list of other HUAC targets, including [[Dalton Trumbo]] and [[Ring Lardner Jr]].<ref name=gardner />

Losey's first wife [[Elizabeth Hawes]] worked with a wide range of communists and anticommunist liberals at the radical newspaper ''[[PM (newspaper)|PM]]''. After their divorce in 1944, she wrote about working as a union organizer just after World War II, where "one preferred the Communists to the Red-Baiters."<ref>{{cite book |last=Horowitz |first=Daniel |title=Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique: The American Left, the Cold War and Modern Feminism |year=1998 |pages=129 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |isbn=9781558492769 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=szJCHwWNwp8C&pg=PA129}}</ref> At some point, probably early in the 1940s, the [[FBI]] maintained dossiers on both Losey and Hawes, and that of Losey charged that he was a [[Stalin]]ist agent as of 1945.<ref name=gardner />

In 1946, Losey joined the [[Communist Party USA]]. He later explained to a French interviewer:<ref name=gardner />

{{blockquote|I had a feeling that I was being useless in Hollywood, that I'd been cut off from New York activity and I felt that my existence was unjustified. It was a kind of Hollywood guilt that led me into that kind of commitment. And I think that the work that I did on a much freer, more personal and independent basis for the political left in New York, before going to Hollywood, was much more valuable socially.}}

Losey was under a long-term contract with [[Dore Schary]] at [[RKO]] when [[Howard Hughes]] purchased the company in 1948 and began purging it of leftists. Losey later explained how Hughes tested employees to determine whether they had communist sympathies:<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Milne |editor-first=Tom |title=Losey on Losey |year=1968 |publisher=[[Doubleday & Company]] |location=Garden City, NY |page=73}}</ref>

{{blockquote|I was offered a film called ''[[I Married a Communist (film)|I Married a Communist]]'', which I turned down categorically. I later learned that it was a touchstone for establishing who was a "red": you offered ''I Married a Communist'' to anybody you thought was a Communist, and if they turned it down, they were.}}

Hughes responded by holding Losey to his contract without assigning him any work.<ref name=gardner>{{cite book |last=Gardner |first=Colin |title=Joseph Losey |year=2004 |publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] |pages=8–11 |isbn=9780719067839 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2dekMDmBz5oC&pg=PA8}}</ref> In mid-1949, Schary persuaded Hughes to release Losey, who soon began working as an independent on ''The Lawless'' for [[Paramount Pictures]].<ref name=gardner /> Soon he was working on a three-picture contract with [[Stanley Kramer]]. His name was mentioned by two witnesses before HUAC in the spring of 1951. Losey's attorney suggested arranging a deal with the committee for testimony in secret. Instead, Losey abandoned his work editing ''[[The Big Night (1951 film)|The Big Night]]''<ref>{{cite book|last=Hoberman|first=J.|author-link=J. Hoberman|title=An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War|url=https://archive.org/details/armyofphantomsam00hobe|url-access=registration|year=2011|publisher=[[The New Press]]|location=NY|page=[https://archive.org/details/armyofphantomsam00hobe/page/174 174]|isbn=9781595580054}}</ref> and left for Europe while his ex-wife Louise departed for Mexico a few days later. HUAC took weeks to try unsuccessfully to serve them with a subpoena compelling their testimony.<ref name=gardner />

After more than a year working on ''Stranger on the Prowl'' in Italy, Losey returned to the U.S. on October 12, 1952. He found himself unemployable:<ref name=gardner />

{{blockquote|I was [in the United States] for about a month and there was no work in theatre, no work in radio, no work in education or advertising, and none in films, in anything. For one brief moment, I was going to do the [[Arthur Miller]] play ''[[The Crucible]]''. Then they got scared because I had been named. So after a month of finding that there was no possible way in which I could make a living in this country, I left. I didn't come back for twelve years.... I didn't stay away for reasons of fear, it was just that I didn't have any money. I didn't have any work.}}

He returned briefly to Rome and settled in London on January 4, 1953.<ref name=gardner />

==Career in Europe==
{{box quote|width=30em|bgcolor=cornsilk|fontsize=100%|salign=center|quote= “As his many interviews reveal, Losey was an artist who thought long and hard about his work, a man of exceptional candor, as ready to judge some of his films harshly as to express his pleasure in others.” - Critics James Palmer and Michael Riley in ''The Films of Joseph Losey'' (1993).<ref>Palmer and Riley, 1993 p. 2</ref>}}
Losey settled in Britain and worked as a director of genre films. His first British film ''[[The Sleeping Tiger]]'' (1954), a [[film noir|noir]] crime thriller, was made under the pseudonym of Victor Hanbury, because the stars of the film, [[Alexis Smith]] and [[Alexander Knox]], feared being blacklisted by Hollywood in turn if it became known they had worked with him. It was financed by Nat Cohen at Anglo-Amalgamated who also financed ''[[The Intimate Stranger (1956 film)|The Intimate Stranger]]'' (1956), where Losey carried a pseudonym as well.<ref name=archer/><ref name="one">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|date=12 January 2025|access-date=12 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-one-1905-56/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Nat Cohen – Part One (1905-56)}}</ref> 

His films covered a wide range from the [[British Regency|Regency]] melodrama ''[[The Gypsy and the Gentleman]]'' (1958) to the gangster film for Cohen, ''The Criminal'' (1960).<ref name=french>{{cite news |last=French |first=Philip |title=Blacklisted but unbowed |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/may/24/joseph-losey-film-director |access-date=April 3, 2013 |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=May 23, 2009}}</ref>

Losey was also originally slated to direct the [[Hammer Films]] production ''[[X the Unknown]]'' (1956), but after a few days' work the star [[Dean Jagger]] refused to work with a supposed [[Communist]] sympathiser and Losey was removed from the project. An alternative version is that Losey was replaced due to illness.<ref name="rusc">{{cite web |title=R U Sitting Comfortably – Dean Jagger |url=http://www.rusc.com/old-time-radio/Dean-Jagger.aspx?t=1028 |website=RUSC.com |access-date=2 May 2016}}</ref><ref name="senses">{{cite web |last1=Sanjek |first1=David |title=Cold, Cold Heart: Joseph Losey's The Damned and the Compensations of Genre |url=http://sensesofcinema.com/2002/director-joseph-losey/losey_damned/ |website=senses of cinema |date=March 18, 2016 |access-date=2 May 2016}}</ref> Losey was later hired by Hammer Films to direct ''[[The Damned (1963 film)|The Damned]]'', a 1963 British science fiction film based on H.L. Lawrence's novel "The Children of Light".

In the 1960s, Losey began working with playwright [[Harold Pinter]], in what became a long friendship and initiated a successful screenwriting career for Pinter. Losey directed three enduring classics based on Pinter's screenplays: ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963), ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967) and ''[[The Go-Between (1971 film)|The Go-Between]]'' (1971).<ref>Maras, 2012: “ [H]is most acclaimed and influential films—The Servant, Accident and The Go-Between—were made in the 1960s and early 1970s in collaboration with British playwright Harold Pinter.”</ref>
''The Servant'' won three [[British Academy Film Awards]]. ''Accident'' won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award at the 1967 [[Cannes Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Accident |url=http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2777/year/1967.html |work=Festival Archives |publisher=Festival de Cannes |access-date=April 3, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118042459/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2777/year/1967.html |archive-date=January 18, 2012}}</ref> ''The Go-Between'' won the [[Palme d'Or|Golden Palm Award]] at the 1971 [[Cannes Film Festival]], four prizes at the 1972 [[BAFTA]] awards, and Best British Screenplay at the 1972 [[Writers' Guild of Great Britain]] awards.<ref>"IMDb: Awards for The Go-Between" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067144/awards</ref> Each of the three films examines the politics of class and sexuality in England at the end of the 19th century (''The Go-Between'') and in the 1960s. In ''The Servant'', a manservant facilitates the moral and psychological degradation of his privileged and rich employer. ''Accident'' explores male lust, hypocrisy and ennui among the educated middle class as two [[Oxford University]] tutors competitively objectify a student against the backdrop of their seemingly idyllic lives. In ''The Go-Between'', a young middle-class boy, the summer guest of an upper-class family, becomes the messenger for an affair between a working-class farmer and the daughter of his hosts.

Although Losey's films are generally naturalistic, ''The Servant''{{'}}s hybridisation of Losey's signature [[Baroque]] style, film noir, [[Naturalism (arts)|naturalism]] and [[expressionism]], and both ''Accident''{{'}}s and ''The Go-Between''{{'}}s radical [[cinematography]], use of [[Montage (filmmaking)|montage]], [[voice over]] and musical score, amount to a sophisticated construction of cinematic time and narrative perspective that edges this work in the direction of neorealist cinema. All three films are marked by Pinter's sparse, elliptical and enigmatically subtextual dialogue, something Losey often develops a visual correlate for (and occasionally even works against) by means of dense and cluttered ''[[mise-en-scène]]'' and peripatetic camera work.

In 1966, Losey directed ''[[Modesty Blaise (1966 film)|Modesty Blaise]]'', a comedy spy-fi film produced in the United Kingdom and released worldwide in 1966. Sometimes considered a [[James Bond]] parody, it was based loosely on the popular comic strip ''[[Modesty Blaise]]'' by [[Peter O'Donnell]].'

Losey directed [[Robert Shaw (actor)|Robert Shaw]] and [[Malcolm McDowell]] in the British action film ''[[Figures in a Landscape (film)|Figures in a Landscape]]'' (1970), adapted by Shaw from the novel by [[Barry England]]. The film was shot in various locations in Spain.

Losey also worked with Pinter on ''The Proust Screenplay'' (1972), an adaptation of ''[[A la recherche du temps perdu]]'' by [[Marcel Proust]]. Losey died before the project's financing could be assembled.

In 1975, Losey realized a long-planned film adaptation of Brecht's ''Galileo'' released as ''[[Life of Galileo]]'' starring [[Chaim Topol]]. ''Galileo'' was produced as part of the subscription film series of the [[American Film Theatre]], but shot in the UK. In the context of this production, Losey also made a half-hour film based on [[Galileo]]'s life.{{citation needed|date=September 2015}}

Losey's ''[[Monsieur Klein]]'' (1976) examined the day in Occupied France when Jews in and around Paris were arrested for deportation. He said he so completely rejected naturalism in film that in this case he divided his shooting schedule into three "visual categories": Unreality, Reality and Abstract.<ref name=brody/>  He demonstrated a facility for working in the French language and ''[[Monsieur Klein]]'' (1976) gave [[Alain Delon]] as star and producer one of French cinema's earliest chances to highlight the background to the infamous [[Vel' d'Hiv Roundup]] of French Jews in July 1942.

In 1979, Losey filmed [[Mozart]]'s opera ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', shot in [[Villa Capra "La Rotonda"|Villa La Rotonda]] and the Veneto region of Italy; this [[Don Giovanni (1979 film)|film]] was nominated for several [[César Awards]] in 1980, including Best Director.

==Personal life==
In 1964, Losey told ''The New York Times'': "I'd love to work in America again, but it would have to be just the right thing."<ref name=archer /> He told an interviewer the year before he died that he was not bitter about being blacklisted: "Without it I would have three Cadillacs, two swimming pools and millions of dollars, and I'd be dead. It was terrifying, it was disgusting, but you can get trapped by money and complacency. A good shaking up never did anyone any harm."<ref name=nytobit />

Dartmouth College, his alma mater, awarded Losey an honorary degree in 1973.<ref name=nytobit /> In 1983, the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] did the same.<ref name=nytobit />

Losey married four times and divorced thrice. He married [[Elizabeth Hawes]] on July 24, 1937.<ref>{{cite news |title=Elizabeth Jester Wed |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1937/07/24/94404636.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2013 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=July 24, 1937}}</ref> They had a son, [[Gavrik Losey]], in 1938, but divorced in 1944.<ref>{{cite book|last=Berch|first=Bettina |title=Radical by Design: The Life and Style of Elizabeth Hawes|year=1988|publisher=Dutton|location=NY|page=103}}</ref><ref name = ODNB>{{cite ODNB|title = Losey, Joseph Walton (1909–1984), film director|last = Babington|first = Bruce|date = 2004|doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/61049}}</ref> Gavrik helped with the production on some of his father's films. Gavrik's two sons are film directors [[Marek Losey]] and [[Luke Losey]]. 

Later in 1944, Losey married Louise Stuart; they divorced in 1953.<Ref name = ODNB/> From 1956 to 1963, Losey was married to British actress [[Dorothy Bromiley]].<ref name = ODNB/> They had a son, Joshua Losey, born on July 16, 1957, who became an actor. On September 29, 1970, Losey married Patricia Mohan in [[King's Lynn]], [[Norfolk]], shortly after finishing shooting ''The Go-Between''.<ref>See David Caute: ''Joseph Losey: A Revenge on Life''. London: Faber and Faber, 1994, p. 248.</ref> Patricia Losey went on to adapt [[Lorenzo Da Ponte]]'s opera libretto for Losey's ''Don Giovanni'' and [[Nell Dunn]]'s play for ''[[Steaming (film)|Steaming]]''.

He died from cancer at his home in [[Chelsea, London]], on June 22, 1984, aged 75, four weeks after completing his last film.<ref name=nytobit /><ref name = ODNB/>

In ''[[Guilty by Suspicion]]'', [[Irwin Winkler]]'s 1991 film about the [[Hollywood blacklist]], [[McCarthyism]], and the activities of the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]], [[Martin Scorsese]] plays an American filmmaker named "Joe Lesser" who leaves Hollywood for England rather than face HUAC investigations. The fictional director played by Scorsese is based on Joseph Losey.

== Filmography ==
'''Short films'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Notes
|-
| 1939
| ''Pete Roleum and His Cousins<ref name="vanDongen">While Losey has been credited as the director of ''Pete Roleum and his Cousins'', [[Helen van Dongen]] wrote that he was its producer, and that she had directed and edited the film. See {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_HHcig7UukgC&pg=PA121|title=Filming Robert Flaherty's Louisiana Story: The Helen Van Dongen Diary|last1=Durant|first1=Helen|last2=Orbanz|first2=Eva|date=1998|publisher=The Museum of Modern Art|isbn=9780870700811|page=121|quote=A number of published sources list this as the first film directed by Joseph Losey; however, Helen van Dongen recalls 'Joseph Losey was the producer ... It was I who made all the breakdowns and sketches for the changes in facial expressions and movement frame by frame'.}}</ref>''
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1941
| ''Youth Gets a Break''
|-
| ''A Child Went Forth''
| Also producer and writer
|-
| 1945
| ''A Gun in His Hand''
|
|-
| 1947
| ''[[Leben des Galilei]]''
|
|-
| 1955
| ''[[A Man on the Beach]]''
|
|-
| 1959
| ''First on the Road''
| Promotional short for the launch of the [[Ford Anglia|Ford Anglia 105E]]
|}

'''Feature films'''
{| class="wikitable"
! rowspan="2" |Year
! rowspan="2" |Title
! colspan="3" |Contributed to
! rowspan="2" |Notes
|-
! Director
! Writer
! Producer
|-
| 1948
| ''[[The Boy with Green Hair]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|Feature directorial debut
|-
| 1950
| ''[[The Lawless]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1951
| ''[[M (1951 film)|M]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| ''[[The Prowler (1951 film)|The Prowler]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| ''[[The Big Night (1951 film)|The Big Night]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1952
| ''[[Stranger on the Prowl]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|First non-American film
|-
| 1954
| ''[[The Sleeping Tiger]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{yes}}
|
|-
| 1956
| ''[[The Intimate Stranger (1956 film)|The Intimate Stranger]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1957
| ''[[Time Without Pity]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1958
| ''[[The Gypsy and the Gentleman]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1959
| ''[[Blind Date (1959 film)|Blind Date]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1960
| ''[[The Criminal (1960 film)|The Criminal]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1962
| ''[[Eva (1962 film)|Eva]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1963
| ''[[The Damned (1963 film)|The Damned]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{yes}} 
|
|-
| 1964
| ''[[King & Country]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{yes}}
|
|-
| 1966
| ''[[Modesty Blaise (1966 film)|Modesty Blaise]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}} 
|
|-
| 1967
| ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1968
| ''[[Boom! (1968 film)|Boom!]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| ''[[Secret Ceremony]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1970
| ''[[Figures in a Landscape (film)|Figures in a Landscape]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1971
| ''[[The Go-Between (1971 film)|The Go-Between]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1972
| ''[[The Assassination of Trotsky]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{yes}}
|
|-
| 1973
| ''[[A Doll's House (1973 Losey film)|A Doll's House]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{yes}}
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1975
| ''[[The Romantic Englishwoman]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| ''[[Galileo (1975 film)|Galileo]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1976
| ''[[Monsieur Klein]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1978
| ''[[Roads to the South]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1979
| ''[[Don Giovanni (1979 film)|Don Giovanni]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1982
| ''[[The Trout (film)|La Truite]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
|
|-
| 1985
| ''[[Steaming (film)|Steaming]]''
| {{yes}}
| {{no}}
| {{no}}
|
|}

== Theatre credits ==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
!Venue
! Notes
!Ref.
|-
| 1933
| ''Little Ol' Boy''
|[[Playhouse Theatre (New York City)|Playhouse Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Joe Losey – Broadway Cast & Staff {{!}} IBDB |url=https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/joe-losey-15475 |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=www.ibdb.com}}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="5" |1934
|''A Bride for the Unicorn''
|Brattleboro Theater, Cambridge
|
|<ref name=":1">{{Citation |last=Gardner |first=Colin |title=Theatre credits and filmography |date=2019-01-11 |work=Joseph Losey |pages=278–298 |url=https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526141569/9781526141569.00017.xml |access-date=2025-01-22 |publisher=Manchester University Press |language=en-US |isbn=978-1-5261-4156-9}}</ref>
|-
| rowspan="3" |''Jayhawker''
|[[National Theatre (Washington, D.C.)|National Theatre]], Washington, D.C.
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|[[Garrick Theatre (Philadelphia)|Garrick Theatre]], Philadelphia
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|[[James Earl Jones Theatre|Cort Theatre]]
|
|<ref name=":0" />
|-
|''[[Gods of the Lightning]]''
|Peabody Theater, Boston
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|1935
|''[[Waiting for Lefty]]''
|Moscow
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
| rowspan="4" |1936
|''Hymn to the Rising Sun''
|[[Fourteenth Street Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
| ''Conjur Man Dies''
|[[Lafayette Theatre (Harlem)|Lafayette Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref name=":0" />
|-
| ''[[Triple-A Plowed Under]]''
|[[Biltmore Theatre (Broadway)|Biltmore Theatre]], New York
|[[Federal Theatre Project]] production
|<ref name=":0" />
|-
|''Who Fights This Battle?''
|[[Delaney Hotel]], Hoosick
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|1938
|''Sunup to Sundown''
|[[Hudson Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref name=":0" />
|-
|1947
|''[[The Great Campaign]]''
|[[Princess Theatre (New York City, 1913–1955)|Princess Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref name=":0" />
|-
|1947-48
| ''[[Life of Galileo]]''
|[[Maxine Elliott's Theatre]], New York
|
|<ref>{{Cite web |title=Joseph Losey theatre profile |url=https://www.abouttheartists.com/artists/729343-joseph-losey |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=www.abouttheartists.com}}</ref>
|-
|1954
|''The Wooden Dish''
|[[Phoenix Theatre, London|Phoenix Theatre]], London
|
|<ref>{{Cite web |title=Joseph Losey {{!}} Theatricalia |url=https://theatricalia.com/person/2qjt/joseph-losey |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=theatricalia.com}}</ref>
|-
|1955
|''The Night of the Ball''
|[[Noël Coward Theatre]], London
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|1975
|''Waiting for Lefty''
|[[Hopkins Center for the Arts]], Hanover
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|-
|1980
|[[Boris Godunov (opera)|''Boris Godunov'']]
|[[Paris Opera]]
|
|<ref name=":1" />
|}

=== Other productions ===

* Political Cabaret (1937)<ref name=":1" />
* Russian War Relief (1940–43), shows in New York, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit<ref name=":1" />
* [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] Memorial Show (1945), [[Hollywood Bowl]]<ref name=":1" />
* [[18th Academy Awards]] (1946), [[Grauman's Chinese Theatre]]<ref name=":1" />
* [[19th Academy Awards]] (1947), Grauman's Chinese Theatre<ref name=":1" />

==Awards and nominations==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Institution
! Year
! Category
! Title
! Result
|-
| rowspan="2" |[[British Academy Film Awards|British Academy Film Award]]
| 1968
| [[BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film|Outstanding British Film]]
| ''Accident''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1972
| [[BAFTA Award for Best Direction|Best Direction]]
| ''The Go-Between''
| {{nom}}
|-
|[[Cahiers du cinéma|Cahiers du Cinéma]]
|1964
|[[Cahiers du cinéma's Annual Top 10 Lists|Top 10 Films of the Year]]
|''The Servant''
| {{partial|10th place}}
|-
| rowspan="5" |[[Cannes Film Festival]]
| 1962
| rowspan="5" |{{Lang|fr|[[Palme d'Or]]|italic=no}}
| ''Eva''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1966
| ''Modesty Blaise''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1967
| ''Accident''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1971
| ''The Go-Between''
| {{won}}
|-
| 1976
| rowspan="3" | ''Monsieur Klein''
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="4" |[[César Awards]]
| rowspan="2" |1977
| [[César Award for Best Film|Best Film]]
| {{won}}
|-
| [[César Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
| {{won}}
|-
| rowspan="2" |1980
| Best Film
| rowspan="2" |''Don Giovanni''
| {{nom}}
|-
| Best Director
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="3" |[[Nastro d'Argento]]
| rowspan="2" |1966
| rowspan="3" |Best Foreign Director
| ''King & Country''
| {{nom}}
|-
| ''The Servant''
| {{won}}
|-
| 1972
| ''The Go-Between''
| {{nom}}
|-
|[[New York Film Critics Circle]]
|1964
|[[New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director|Best Director]]
|''The Servant''
| {{nom}}
|-
|[[San Sebastián International Film Festival]]
|1954
|[[Golden Shell]]
|''The Sleeping Tiger''
| {{nom}}
|-
|[[Sant Jordi Awards]]
|1972
|Best Foreign Film
|''The Go-Between''
| {{won}}
|-
|[[Taormina Film Fest]]
|1978
|Golden Charybdis
|''Roads to the South''
| {{nom}}
|-
| rowspan="4" |[[Venice Film Festival]]
|1962
| rowspan="4" |[[Golden Lion]]
|''Eva''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1963
| ''The Servant''
| {{nom}}
|-
|1964
|''King & Country''
| {{nom}}
|-
| 1982
| ''La Truite''
| {{nom}}
|}

== Footnotes ==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
== Sources ==
*[[Foster Hirsch| Hirsch, Foster]]. 1980. ''Joseph Losey.'' [[Twayne Publishers]], Boston, Massachusetts. {{ISBN   | 0-8057-9257-0}}
*Maras, Robert. 2012. ''Dissecting class relations: The film collaborations of Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter''. [[World Socialist Web Site]], May 28, 2012. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/05/lose-m28.html  Accessed 12 October, 2024.
*Palmer, James and [[Michael Riley   | Riley, Michael]]. 1993. ''The Films of Joseph Losey.'' [[Cambridge University Press]], Cambridge, England. {{ISBN   |0-521-38386-2}}
*[[David Sanjek |  Sanjek, David]]. 2002. ''Cold, Cold Heart: Joseph Losey’s The Damned and the Compensations of Genr''e. [[Senses of Cinema]], July 2002.  Director: Joseph Losey Issue 21.https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/director-joseph-losey/losey_damned/    Accessed 10 October, 2024.

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Caute |first=David |title=Joseph Losey: A Revenge on Life |publisher=Faber and Faber |date=1994 |isbn=978-0-571-16449-3}}
* [[Michel Ciment|Ciment, Michel]], ''Conversations with Losey'' (New York: Methuen, 1985); originally published as {{in lang|fr}} Ciment, Michel, ''Le Livre de Losey. Entretiens avec le cinéaste'' (Paris: Stock/Cinéma, 1979)
* {{in lang|fr}} Ciment, Michel, ''Joseph Losey: l'oeil du Maître'' (Institut Lumière/Actes Sud, 1994)
* Cohen, Robert, "Bertolt Brecht, Joseph Losey, and Brechtian Cinema". ''"Escape to Life": German Intellectuals in New York: A Compendium on Exile after 1933''. Eckart Goebel and Sigrid Weigel (eds.). De Gruyter, 2012. 142–161. {{isbn|978-3112204160}}
* DeRahm, Edith, ''Joseph Losey: An American Director in Exile'' (Pharos, 1995)
* Hirsch, Foster, ''Joseph Losey'' (Twayne, 1980)
* Houston, Penelope, "Losey's Paper Handkerchief", ''[[Sight and Sound]]'', Summer 1966
* Jacob, Gilles, "Joseph Losey, or The Camera Calls", ''Sight and Sound'', Spring 1966
* Leahy, James, ''The Cinema of Joseph Losey'' ([[A. S. Barnes]], 1967)
* {{in lang|fr}} Ledieu, Christian, ''Joseph Losey'' (Seghers, 1963)
* Palmer, Palmer and Michael Riley, ''The Films of Joseph Losey'' ([[Cambridge University Press]], 1993)
* {{in lang|es}} Vallet, Joaquín, ''Joseph Losey'' (Cátedra, 2010)

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20121023062415/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/individual/82342?view=credit Filmography] at BFI Film & TV Database
*{{Screenonline name|id=451136|name=Joseph Losey}}
*{{IMDb name|0521334}}
*{{IBDB name}}
*[https://archive.org/details/ChildWen1942 A Child Went Forth] at Archive.org
*[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/may2012/lose-m28.shtml Robert Maras, "Dissecting class relations: The film collaborations of Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter", May 28, 2012]

{{Joseph Losey}}
{{César Award for Best Director}}
{{Cannes Film Festival jury presidents}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Losey, Joseph}}
[[Category:1909 births]]
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[[Category:Hollywood blacklist]]
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