Jeremy Thomas, the British film producer whose work ranged from Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor to films by David Cronenberg, Nagisa Oshima and Nicolas Roeg, has died aged 77. He died on Friday at his home in Oxfordshire, surrounded by family and loved ones.
Thomas was described as one of the most respected and influential figures in international independent cinema. Over a career lasting more than five decades, he produced over 80 films and remained at work until his final days.
His best-known success was The Last Emperor, Bertolucci’s 1987 film about Puyi, the final monarch of China’s Qing dynasty. Starring Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole and Vivian Wu, it won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Thomas received an Oscar as its producer in 1988.
Born in 1949, Thomas came from a filmmaking family. His father, Ralph Thomas, was a director. His uncle, Gerald Thomas, directed all 30 films in the Carry On series.
Thomas began in the cutting room, working as a film editor and assistant editor on The Harder They Come and Ken Loach’s Family Life. His first production role came with Mad Dog Morgan, a 1976 Australian biographical film about a 19th-century outlaw.
He was based in London throughout his career, while his productions took him across the world and into sustained partnerships with directors working outside the conventional centres of English-language cinema. His repeated collaboration with Bertolucci continued through The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha, Stealing Beauty and The Dreamers.
His other work included Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Oshima’s film starring David Bowie, as well as Sexy Beast and High-Rise. He also worked with Cronenberg, Julien Temple, Roeg, Jerzy Skolimowski and Matteo Garrone.
Thomas held an institutional role in British film as a former chairman of the British Film Institute. His honours included a BAFTA for outstanding British contribution to cinema in 1990, the European Film Academy’s award for outstanding European achievement in world cinema in 2006, and a CBE in the New Year Honours in 2009.
In 2019, Mark Cousins made a documentary about Thomas that followed the producer by car from the United Kingdom to the Cannes Film Festival, where Garrone’s Pinocchio was screened. The film captured an established producer still travelling in pursuit of the next picture.
His latest collaboration, Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, with the Japanese director Takashi Miike, was due to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday. Its scheduled arrival underlined the extent to which Thomas remained active at the end of a career defined by an independent producer’s willingness to back directors over several decades.
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