Thursday, May 26 2005 22:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Ismail Merchant, the India-born film maker behind some of the most enduring movie adaptations of classic literary works, today (May 26, 2005) received glowing tributes from the British media for his "brilliance" in production and "garrulity and charm."

Merchant, who died following a surgery for abdominal ulcers in London yesterday (May 25, 2005) aged 69, was "a film producer of brilliance, garrulity and charm who created a universally recognizable movie brand, in a remarkable partnership with the American director James Ivory that lasted for more than 40 years and 40 films," The Guardian wrote in its obituary.

Merchant's was a startling career, he had directed films himself, and also pursued a passion for food. He opened a restaurant in 1993, and published several books on travel and cuisine, the newspaper said.

"Although they started with dramas set in Merchant's native India, such as Shakespeare Wallah (1965) and Bombay Talkie (1970), Merchant and Ivory came to be the rajahs of stately period costume cinema, often based on 19th and 20th century literary works from Britain, or the Anglocentric America of Henry James," The Guardian said.

The Times, in its obituary column said Merchant was a "frank, freewheeling man who was endowed with energy, charm and prodigious chutzpah."

It noted that Merchant and Ivory are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having had the longest creative partnership in film history, much of it spent also in the company of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the German-born writer who wrote almost all their screenplays.

Merchant, who had the knack of getting famous actors to work for him for "peanuts" (to use his own gleeful description) was the business mind behind Merchant Ivory Productions, a company he formed with Ivory in 1961, it said.

Times said his skills as a producer and a cook worked in harmony. "As the producer - in a ritual that began in one of his earlier films, when a sullen, unpaid cast had to be mollified - he would himself prepare a weekly feast of curry and rice for the entire crew while they were shooting."

He wrote two cookbooks and lent his name to a New York restaurant that specialised in Indo-European fusion food. In 2002, he published a memoir, 'My Passage from India.'

A generous, cosmopolitan man, Merchant owned homes in New York City, London, Paris and upstate New York, the last being shared with Ivory. He frequently invited friends to stay and often put up his actors at one of his own apartments.

"It saves on the hotel bills," he once said mischievously. "But it makes them very happy and comfortable."

The Daily Telegraph said that for more than 40 years, Merchant was "one of the most unorthodox but successful independent film makers in Hollywood."

With Ivory and Jhabvala, Merchant produced some of the most popular films of recent years, including Heat and Dust (1982), A Room With a View (1985), The Remains of the Day (1993) and The Golden Bowl (2000), it noted.

"Merchant's great strength as a producer was his knack for funding his various projects and his ability to produce films for several million dollars less than contemporaries.

Friends described him as having 'the cheek of the devil and the charm of an angel'.

Merchant attributed his success to a 'passion for making films, not for making money.'