Last Wish for Merchant

Last wish to come home to Bombay
AMIT ROY


London, May 25: The body of Ismail Merchant, who died today at a hospital in
London, aged 68, will probably be taken to India, a close friend said.
“That was his wish,” the friend added.
One half of the famous Merchant Ivory film partnership, which produced such
quality movies as Howard’s End, A Room With A View and Remains Of The Day,
Merchant maintained characteristically elegant apartments in Bombay (he
could never bring himself to call the city of his birth Mumbai), London and
New York.
An urbane, cultured man, who delighted in cooking for his friends — often he
charmed his leading ladies and men into taking modest fees by giving them a
meal he had prepared himself — Merchant was equally at home in India,
Britain and the US.
At heart, though, he considered himself a Bombay boy. Merchant was born
Ismail Noormohamed Abdul Rehman on December 25, 1936, in Mumbai.
It was as producer that he was most successful. When he turned his hand to
directing, as he did with The Mystic Masseur (he did the impossible by
persuading V.S. Naipaul to give him the film rights to his novel) and Cotton
Mary, the results were modest. But he did have one success as a director —
In Custody. Most recently, he was directing his latest venture, The White
Countess, which he had shot in China.
He died in a London hospital today, surrounded by family and close friends,
his London office said.
Merchant and James Ivory, an American, made some 40 films together and won
six Oscars — four for best picture — since forming their famous partnership
in 1961 with German-born screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Their hits — especially E.M. Forster adaptations like A Room With A View and
Howard’s End — helped revive the public’s taste for well-made, emotionally
literate period drama.
In an interview last year, Merchant said the films worked because they
captured great stories.
“It should be a good story — speak about a time and place that is
permanent,” he said. “It should capture something wonderful with some great
characters whether it’s set in the past or in the future.”
Fellow film producer Lord Puttnam said Merchant was an “extraordinary
talent”.
“What’s gone is a major character and a unique film producer — someone who
completely defined independence in the film industry,” he said.
Merchant has lived and worked for most of his life in the West, completing
his education at New York University where he earned his masters degree in
business administration.
Merchant’s first film was a theatrical short, The Creation Of Woman, which
was nominated in 1961 for an Academy Award and was an official entry from
the US in the Cannes Film Festival that year.
En route to the festival, Merchant met James Ivory, who agreed to form a
partnership, Merchant Ivory Productions, to make English language theatrical
features in India for the international market.
The Householder was Merchant and Ivory’s first feature- length film and the
first Indian film to be distributed worldwide by a major American company,
Columbia Pictures.
It was followed by more Indian features, all in some way funded wholly or in
part by an American studio, including Shakespeare Walla (1965), The Guru
(1969), and Bombay Talkie (1970).
The first feature film he directed, In Custody, based on a novel by Anita
Desai, and starring Shashi Kapoor, was filmed in Bhopal, India, and went on
to win national awards from the Government of India for Best Picture, Best
Actor, Best Costume and Best Production Design.
His second directing feature, The Proprietor, starred Jeanne Moreau,
Jean-Pierre Aumond and Christopher Cazenove and was filmed on location in
Paris.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050526/asp/nation/story_4788197.asp