James Ivory

I can’t imagine what it would be like to get back into the field you’ve shared with your life partner of nearly half a century after their death. They met in 1959; two years later, they were professional and personal partners. For decades, the pair were known for producing some of the best, most intelligent films in the business. Obviously we don’t know what their personal life was like other than that they were partners, but they did stay together and keep working together and that tells you something, at least. And then twenty years ago, Ismail Merchant died, and there’s a gap in James Ivory’s career, and then with 2017’s Call Me By Your Name he became the oldest competitive Oscar winner.

Ivory was born Richard Jerome Hazen, 98 years ago this month. (He’s on my calendar as “James Ivory if still alive.”) He was adopted by Edward and Hallie Ivory, who raised him in Klamath Falls, Oregon. And if you know Klamath Falls, that’s not the place you’d expect to be the home of one of the greats of English period dramas. Much less surprising if he’d stayed in his birthplace of Berkeley. He then attended the University of Oregon, and it’s only with receiving his Master’s at the USC School of Cinematic Arts that he starts having the kind of biography you’d expect.

It should give people of unexpected biographies hope, really. Because when I was growing up, Merchant-Ivory was a name of a reputation. The Izzard bit about British films is about Merchant-Ivory films and we all know it. And for years, that was a company doing very, very well for itself. That Ivory’s only Oscar win came as late as it did and for writing is frankly shocking; he was nominated three times for directing. And the only one of those losses to which I respond with, “Okay,” is when he lost to Spielberg for Schindler’s List.

I haven’t mentioned most of the films by name, but have I had to? If you know who Ivory is, you know what they are. A Room With a View, which made Helena Bonham-Carter a star and brought Daniel Day-Lewis to greater attention. Howards End, which gave Emma Thompson one of her Oscars. The Remains of the Day, which gave her another and gave Sir Anthony Hopkins one of his. And if you didn’t know who James Ivory is, you certainly do now, and you know exactly the sort of film Merchant-Ivory was famous for making.

It’s a bit refreshing, after yesterday, to see that the personal life section of his Wikipedia starts with a frank “Ivory is gay.” Apparently he routinely gets people telling him that the Merchant-Ivory film Maurice, about a gay man, changed their lives. It’s hard to deny his sexuality given his relationship with Merchant, but I’m sure quite a lot of people try. However, he’s still alive to tell you that they were partners and that men have had long-term romantic and sexual relationships with other men for longer than the bigots would like you to think they have.