# Ivory in Black—Ismail Merchant Dies at 68

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ivory-in-black-ismail-merchant-dies-at-68/305484>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 25, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ivory-in-black-ismail-merchant-dies-at-68/305484 "2005-05-25T20:18:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ivory-in-black-ismail-merchant-dies-at-68/305484/1 "2005-05-25T20:18:16Z")

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Rather a brief and condescending obit, but the only one I could find up right now:

> [@](#):
>
> Ismail Merchant died at 4:30 pm in London on Wednesday. According to his brother-in-law, Waheed Chauhan, his ulcer burst, causing his death. The filmmaker was 68. Born on Christmas Day in Mumbai, Ismail shifted to New York at an early age and got his Masters Degree there. He made quite a few memorable films with Shashi Kapoor, like _The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah, Bombay Talkie_ and _In Custody_. He formed a long-lasting collaboration with James Ivory, to form Merchant Ivory Productions, which churned out a number of films. It earned a place in The Guinness Book of World Records for the longest partnership in independent cinema.

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**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ivory-in-black-ismail-merchant-dies-at-68/305484/2 "2005-05-25T20:40:24Z")

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I was searching for a thread on this a little while ago (when the story was on the Yahoo home page). Here’s the [Yahoo (AP) article](http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050525/ap_en_mo/obit_merchant_12). I loved his films, and particularly the way he brought back my favorite genre, costume dramas. I even forgive him for _Le Divorce_.

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ivory-in-black-ismail-merchant-dies-at-68/305484/3 "2005-05-27T01:24:51Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Merchant was unmarried and had no children.

Duh!  
I thoroughly enjoyed much of his work (none more than Rupert Graves and Julian Sands running nekkid through the forest, probably), but must admit that I often found his movies…

boring  
THERE, I SAID IT! SUE ME! IT HAD TO BE SAID!

But certainly not to diminish his talent (and how he got “that look” for the budgets he worked with is worthy of a doctoral thesis).