Ismail Merchant, 1936–2005

The film producer Ismail Merchant, partner of director James Ivory, has died at the age of 68 in a London hospital. He and Ivory were in London to shoot a film adaptation of "The White Countess," by Kazuo Ishiguro. Warren Hogue of the NYT has an obituary of Mr. Merchant, which includes the immortal line uttered by Mr. Merchant describing their recruitment of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala as screenwriter for their first film:

"When we first began, Ruth told us she had never written a screenplay," Mr. Merchant told The Associated Press. "That was not a problem, since I had never produced a feature film and Jim had never directed one."

If only that sort of bravado worked for all of our ventures and projects in life, eh?

Merchant-Ivory movies were wonderful period-piece creations—think "A Room with a View," or "Howard's End" — and it's sad that Ismail Merchant won't be around any more to head up another production. He and Ivory treated their production company as if it were their family—the same people would be employed behind the scenes from film to film—and, according to Hogue's obituary,

Once on the scene, Mr. Merchant was just as likely to be fetching tea for a company member or making one of his celebrated curries for the cast as pitching a fit about cost overruns or schedule snafus.