Joseph Losey

Joseph Walton Losey III (/ˈloʊsi/; 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. 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 three films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963), Accident (1967), and The Go-Between (1971). His 1976 film Monsieur Klein won the César Awards for Best Film and Best Director. Other notable films included The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Eva (1962), King & Country (1964), Modesty Blaise (1966), Figures in a Landscape (1970), A Doll's House (1973), Galileo (1975), and Don Giovanni (1979). Though drubbed by critics and a box office failure, Boom! (1968) was sometimes cited by Losey as his personal favorite, and Tennessee Willams considered it the best movie adaptation of one of his plays. The film starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, both of whom worked with Losey again, Taylor in Secret Ceremony (1968) and Burton in The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).