Biography
Ismail Merchant (25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005) was an Indian film producer and occasional director. Born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman in Bombay, he studied at the University of Bombay and earned an MBA from New York University. In 1961 he formed Merchant Ivory Productions with director James Ivory; the pair collaborated for over four decades, with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala writing most of their scripts.
Merchant produced literary adaptations including A Room with a View (1985), Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992) and The Remains of the Day (1993). The company’s films received multiple Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and won BAFTA Awards for Best Film for A Room with a View and Howards End. Merchant was also nominated for an Academy Award for the short film The Creation of a Woman (1959). He directed several features later in his career, among them In Custody (1993) and The Mystic Masseur (2001).
