His 1969 film Midnight Cowboy remains the first and only X-rated film to take home the Best Picture Academy Award.
He lived as an out gay man throughout his life. Schlesinger was a fearless film director who refused to bow to the rules of political correctness. In 2015 his grave was broken into and his skull was stolen.Īctor John Malkovich played Murnau in the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalized chiller about the shooting of Nosferatu. Murnau’s remains were returned to his native Germany for burial. According to tabloids, a 14-year-old boy was in the car with him. In 1931, at age 42, he was killed in a car accident near Santa Barbara, California. Janet Gaynor, leading lady in Sunrise, was honored as Best Actress that year, the first year of the Academy Awards.į.W. Murnau’s use of lighting and shadow created a mood unlike anything seen in films before or since. A few years later, Hollywood called, and Murnau made the equally stunning Sunrise (1927).
