Mumbai-born producer and sometime director Ismail Merchant died today in London. He was 68.
Merchant and his partner, American director James Ivory, were responsible for several classy productions made in the last four decades, including Heat and Dust (1981), starring Julie Christie as a woman traveling through India; the drama Quartet (1981), with Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, and Isabelle Adjani; and the solid dramatic comedy Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
Additionally, Merchant produced a trio of Academy Award-nominated pictures: A Room with a View (1986) with Helena Bonham-Carter; Howard's End (1992), which won Emma Thompson a Best Actress Oscar; and The Remains of the Day (1993) starring Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. German-born, English-raised screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a frequent collaborator.
In the last ten years, however, the prestige of the Merchant-Ivory productions has declined dramatically, with films such as A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998) and Le Divorce (2004) finding little favor from either critics or audiences.
Merchant also directed several films, including the well-received In Custody (1993).
The producer-director had been suffering from health problems, and had recently undergone surgery for stomach ulcers. At the time of his death, Merchant and Ivory were in London shooting The White Countess, from a script by Kazuo Ishiguro (author of the novel The Remains of the Day), and starring Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Lynn Redgrave, and Vanessa Redgrave.
According to a family spokesperson, Merchant's body will be buried in Mumbai.