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Merchant-Ivory
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) and director James Ivory (b. 1928). Merchant and Ivory were life and business partners from 1961 until Merchant's death in 2005. During their time together, they made 44 films. The films were for the most part produced by Merchant and directed by Ivory, and 23 of them were scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927–2013) in some capacity. The films were often based upon novels or short stories, particularly the work of Henry James, E. M. Forster, and Jhabvala herself. The initial goal of the company was "to make English-language films in India aimed at the international market". The style of Merchant Ivory films set and photographed in India became iconic. The company also went on to make films in the United Kingdom and America. Some actors and producers associated with Merchant Ivory include Maggie Smith, Leela Naidu, Madhur Jaffrey, Aparna Sen, Shashi Kapoor, Jennifer Kendal ...
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Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (; 7 May 19273 April 2013) was a British author and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant. In 1951, Jhabvala married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to New Delhi. She began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a CBE in 1998 and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar. Early life Ruth Prawer was born in Cologne, Germany to Jewish parents Marcus and Eleanora (Cohn) Prawer. Marcus was a lawyer who moved to Germany from Poland to escape conscription and Eleanora's father was cantor of Cologne's largest synagogue. Her father was accused of communist links, arrested and released, and she witnessed the vi ...
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Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as both a charming, and vulnerable romantic lead and has since transitioned into a dramatic character actor. Among his numerous accolades, he has received a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, Volpi Cup, and an Honorary César. , his films had grossed a total of nearly US$3 billion worldwide. In 2022 ''Time Out'' magazine listed Grant as one of Britain's Greatest Actors of all time. Grant first received attention for his early roles in acclaimed costume dramas such as Merchant-Ivory's ''Maurice'' (1987), for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and ''The Remains of the Day'' (1993), as well as ''Sense and Sensibility'' (1995) and ''Restoration'' (1995). Grant then reached global stardom as a leading man in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy film ''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994), whereupon he received the Golden Globe Award and the BAFT ...
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Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and producer. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received many accolades throughout his career, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, a British Academy Television Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received an honorary Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts, and in 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in the motion picture industry. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, Hopkins trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal Natio ...
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Leela Naidu
Leela Naidu (1940 – 28 July 2009) was an Indian actress who starred in a small number of Hindi and English films, including '' Yeh Raste Hain Pyar Ke'' (1963), based on the real-life Nanavati case, and ''The Householder'', Merchant Ivory Productions' first film. She was Femina Miss India in 1954, and was featured in the ''Vogue'' along with Maharani Gayatri Devi in the list of "World's Ten Most Beautiful Women", a list she was continuously listed in from the 1950s to the 1960s in prominent fashion magazines worldwide. She is remembered for her stunning classical beauty and subtle acting style. Early life Leela Naidu was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. Her father, Dr. Pattipati Ramaiah Naidu, a well known nuclear physicist, hailed from Madanapalle, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, and had worked under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Marie Curie for his doctoral thesis in Paris. He ran one of Madame Curie's labs in Paris. He was Scientific Advisor to UNESCO for Southe ...
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Howards End (film)
''Howards End'' is a 1992 period romantic drama film directed by James Ivory, from a screenplay written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based on the 1910 novel of the same name by E. M. Forster. Marking Merchant Ivory Productions' third adaptation of a Forster novel (following 1985's ''A Room with a View'', and 1987's ''Maurice''), it was the first film to be released by Sony Pictures Classics. The film's narrative explores class relations in turn-of-the-20th-century Britain, through events in the lives of the Schlegel sisters. ''Howards End'' premiered at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won the 45th Anniversary Award. The film was theatrically released on March 13, 1992 in the United States and on May 1, in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim and commercial success, grossing $26.3 million on a $8 million budget. At the 65th Academy Awards, the film received a leading nine nominations including for the Best Picture, and won three; Best Actres ...
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James Ivory
James Francis Ivory (born June 7, 1928) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. All three were principals in Merchant Ivory Productions, whose films have won seven Academy Awards; Ivory himself has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one. Ivory's directorial work includes ''A Room with a View (1985 film), A Room with a View'' (1985), ''Maurice (film), Maurice'' (1987), ''Howards End (film), Howards End'' (1992), and ''The Remains of the Day (film), The Remains of the Day'' (1993). For his work on ''Call Me by Your Name (film), Call Me by Your Name'' (2017), which he wrote and produced, Ivory won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Academy Awards, BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Writ ...
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Madhur Jaffrey
Madhur Jaffrey CBE (née Bahadur; born 13 August 1933) is an Indian-British-American actress, food and travel writer, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing Indian cuisine to the western hemisphere with her debut cookbook, ''An Invitation to Indian Cooking'' (1973), which was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2006. She has written over a dozen cookbooks and appeared on several related television programmes, the most notable of which was ''Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery'', which premiered in the UK in 1982. She was the food consultant at the now-closed ''Dawat'', which was considered by many food critics to be among the best Indian restaurants in New York City. She was instrumental in bringing together filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and acted in several of their films such as ''Shakespeare Wallah'' (1965), for which she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival. ...
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Ismail Merchant
Ismail Merchant (born Ismail Noor Muhammad Abdul Rahman (25 December 1936 – 25 May 2005)) was an Indian film producer, director and screenwriter. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included Director (and Merchant's longtime professional and domestic partner) James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Early life and education Born in Bombay (Mumbai), Merchant was son of Hazra (née Memon) and Noor Mohamed Rehman, a Bombay textile dealer. He grew up bilingual in Gujarati and Urdu, and learned Arabic and English at school. When he was 11, he and his family were caught up in the 1947 partition of India. His father was the President of the Muslim League and refused to move to Pakistan. Merchant later said that he carried memories of "butchery and riots" into adulthood.cited in ''Cheek of the devil'' As a child at the age of 9, Merchant delivered a speech about partition at a political rally in front of a crowd of 10,000. ...
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Colin Firth
Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the " Brit Pack" of rising young British actors, undertaking a challenging series of roles, including leading roles in '' A Month in the Country'' (1987), ''Tumbledown'' (1988) and '' Valmont'' (1989). His portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's ''Pride and Prejudice'' led to widespread attention, and to roles in more prominent films such as ''The English Patient'' (1996), ''Shakespeare in Love'' (1998), ''Bridget Jones's Diary'' (2001), ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' (2002), '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'' (2003), Richard Curtis's romantic comedy ensemble film ''Love Actually'' (2003), and the musical comedy '' Mamma Mia!'' (2008) and its sequel, ''Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!'' (2018). In 2009, Firth received international acclaim for his performance in Tom Ford's ''A Single Man'', for which he won a BAFTA Award and recei ...
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Richard Hawley
Richard Willis Hawley (born 17 January 1967) is an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. After his first band Treebound Story (formed while he was still at school) broke up, Hawley found success as a member of Britpop band Longpigs in the 1990s. After that group broke up in 2000, he later joined the band Pulp, led by his friend Jarvis Cocker, for a short time. As a solo musician, Hawley has released eight studio albums. He has been nominated for a Mercury prize twice and once for a Brit Award. He has collaborated with Lisa Marie Presley, Shakespears Sister, Arctic Monkeys, Manic Street Preachers, Elbow, Duane Eddy and Paul Weller. Early life Born in Sheffield, Hawley grew up with two sisters in a working-class area of the city. He was born with a cleft palate, which required numerous operations. Both his parents were musicians; his father Dave Hawley was a guitarist with a number of local bands (on his death, the ''Sheffield Star'' called him a "Sheffield music ...
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Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. Known for her roles in blockbusters and independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received various awards and nominations, including a British Academy Film Award and an International Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, and nine Golden Globe Awards. Bonham Carter rose to prominence by playing Lucy Honeychurch in ''A Room with a View'' (1985) and the title character in '' Lady Jane'' (1986). Her early period roles saw her typecast as a virginal " English rose", a label with which she was uncomfortable. She is best known for her eccentric fashion and dark aesthetic and for often playing quirky women. For her role as Kate Croy in ''The Wings of the Dove'' (1997), Bonham Carter received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in ''The King's ...
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German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades. Accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death (1346–53) led to mass slaughter of German Jews and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms became the center of Jewish life during medieval times. "This was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity." The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany. Entire communities, like those of Trier, Worms, Mainz and Cologne, were slaughtered. The Hussite Wars became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews. The end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed ...
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