James Ivory

Born: June 7 1928
Where: Berkeley, California, USA

Oscar-nominated Ivory - together with Ishmail Merchant - are the production team known for sumptuous period dramas such as A Room With A View and The Remains of the Day.

He began his career as a documentary filmmaker before teaming up with producer Merchant to make The Householder in 1963.

Based on a novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the film marked the first of the trio's features centering on the people and culture of India.

The team's second effort, Shakespeare Wallah, attracted international attention for its sensitive portrayal of a family of British touring actors and its insights into the legacy of colonialism.

Merchant and Ivory went on to earn a reputation for quality films made on shoestring budgets.

Their best work - heavily influenced by Satyajit Ray - examined the interplay between different cultures (Bombay Talkie, Heat and Dust).

They are also known for their adaptations of literary classics - The Europeans and The Bostonians are highly regarded translations of the works of Henry James.

A Room with a View, an adaptation of EM Forster's novel of a young woman's romantic experiences while traveling abroad, was a huge success.

It earned eight Oscar nominations and took approximately £15m at the US box-office.

At their best, Merchant-Ivory films are at once faithful to their literary sources and intelligently refined films which rarely dip into the overly precious.

A later adaptation of Forster's novel of male homosexual love, Maurice, though a well-crafted and thoughtful film, seemed to lack the underlying passion of several of the earlier adaptations.

Ivory's shift to more contemporary ground with an adaptation of Tama Janowitz's novel Slaves of New York was ill-conceived and unsatisfying.

He rebounded admirably, though, with Mr and Mrs Bridge, which featured subdued, highly effective performances by the real-life husband and wife duo of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

Even better was 1992's Howards End, still another Forster adaptation and one of Ivory's finest films to date.

The following year, Ivory directed Howards End co-stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson in The Remains of the Day, which garned eight Oscar nominations.

After again directing Hopkins in another biopic, Surviving Picasso, which failed despite the actor's charismatic turn, Ivory responded with the critically-acclaimed A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries.

Ivory's collaboration with Merchant and Jhabvala continued with the 2001 adaptation of Henry James' novel The Golden Bowl.

Next for Ivory and his collaborators was a sophisticated, unpretentious adaptation of Diane Johnson's bestselling novel Le Divorce, a relaxed if unchallenging effort.