The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer 'Ismail Merchant' .
Graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television in Los Angeles, California.
From 1965 to 2005, he & his producer Ismail Merchant enjoyed a collaboration that is probably unequaled in movie history for its success and consistency. In 1987, the pairs accomplishments were honored at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. premiere of Maurice , attended by scores of their devotees, including Christopher Reeve , Sam Waterston , Greta Scacchi and even U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
On location, producer Merchant is renowned for his cooking and feeding of cast & crew, a practice often necessary in Merchant/Ivorys earlier low-budget days.
(24 February 2002) He and partner Ismail Merchant were awarded the BAFTA Fellowship for their films "visual beauty, mature and intelligent themes, shrewd casting and superb acting".
Earned his undergraduate degree from The University of Oregon in 1951. He donated his personal papers to the university in 2003.
The National Portrait Gallery in London has paintings of Jim and his partners, Ismail Merchant 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).
Biography: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985," pp. 458-465. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988.
Directed 6 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Vanessa Redgrave , Denholm Elliott , Maggie Smith , Emma Thompson , Joanne Woodward and Anthony Hopkins. Thompson won an Oscar for Howards End .
Member of the Official Competition jury at the 50th Venice International Film Festival in 1993.
At the opening of the 58. Pula Film Festival (Croatia) Ivory was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.
He is filming The City of Your Final Destination in Argentina, during December 2006 - January 2007.
In addition to their well-known, forty-year-long professional partnership, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory were also longtime romantic partners.
I think the Merchant Ivory brand really means literate dialogue. I think,it starts with that. When people say something, you know it has some,sort of ripples to it.
