Heartsick At Madonna Antics

John Schlesinger, the director of ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and ‘Billy Liar’, who died in July 2003, blamed Madonna for his 1999 heart attack. That damning charge lives on in letters and production notes he wrote while directing Madonna in the $25 million flop ‘The Next Best Thing’, the London Telegraph reported. “I am fu**ing angry with [producer Tom Rosenberg] being influenced by Madonna,” Schlesinger wrote to his agent. “I do not for one moment think that their behavior has not added to the reasons I have ended up here [in a hospital bed].”