BIB_ID
453437
Accession number
MA 23840.899
Creator
Merchant, Ismail, sender.
Credit line
Gift of James Ivory, 2022.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 24.6 x 20 cm + envelope
Notes
During this trip Merchant was accompanied by producer/director Anthony Korner. According to Ivory's notes, the footage shot during this trip influenced Merchant Ivory's "Autobiography of a Princess" (1975). The "interview with Helen" became "Helen, Queen of the Nauch Girls" (1973), a portrait of the mixed-race actress and dancer Helen (born Helen Jairag Richardson in Burma in 1938), wife of screenwriter Salim Khan and stepmother of actor Salman Khan.
Envelope stamped, addressed to Mrs. R. Prawer Jhabvala, 1-A Flagstaff Road, Delhi 6, postmarked December 10, 1971.
Envelope stamped, addressed to Mrs. R. Prawer Jhabvala, 1-A Flagstaff Road, Delhi 6, postmarked December 10, 1971.
Provenance
James Ivory.
Summary
Apologizing for "disconnect[ing] the phone" during their recent conversation; thanking her for "the questions for our interview with Helen," which he believes "will make an interesting half hour film"; expressing satisfaction with the footage they have shot on the trip and wishing Ivory could see it; expressing regret that he will not be able to come to Delhi to see her before he leaves for New York; promising to telephone before his departure on the 12th; telling he likes the idea of Bad Woman to be set in Jodhpur" and asking her to think about writing a treatment for it; sending love to the children and Jhab and herself.
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