Ismail Merchant met his future partner, James Ivory, at a screening of Ivory's documentary The Sword and the Flute (1959) in New York City.
Ismail Merchant and Ivory formed Merchant Ivory Productions in May 1961. Their first picture was The Householder (1963) in 1963.
The National Portrait Gallery in London has paintings of Ismail Merchant and his partners, James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala - even though they all live in New York City and none of them are English. (Ruth is German/Polish, Ismail is Indian, and James is American).
Educated in Bombay and the U.S., Indian-born Ismail Merchant was destined for a business administration career. Rather than waste away in banking or speculating, lifelong movie buff Merchant put his skills to work in the creative arts. Ismail Merchant found the perfect collaborators in the form of German/Indian novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and California-born director James Ivory.
The Merchant/Ivory productions written by Jhabvala, among them Shakespeare Wallah (1965), Bombay Talkie (1969), Roseland (1977), The Europeans (1979), A Room with a View (1984), and Howard's End (1992), have set an international standard for superior production values at the least possible cost. These accomplishments are all the more remarkable when one realizes that Ismail Merchant and Ivory were almost constantly at each other's throats over artistic and financial matters -- and make no effort to hide their squabbles from the public. In addition to his administrative duties, Ismail Merchant occasionally turned director as well; among his efforts was The Courtesans of Bombay (1980). Ismail Merchant also carved a niche in the culinary world with his best-selling cookbook, Ismail Merchant's Indian Cuisine.
In 2005, while working on The White Countess, Ismail Merchant was stricken with an illness and died unexpectedly a short time later. He was 68.
