Jeremy Thomas, the acclaimed British film producer who won an Academy Award for The Last Emperor, has died at the age of 77. His publicist confirmed that he passed away peacefully on Friday, surrounded by family and loved ones at his home in Oxfordshire.
Thomas built a distinguished five-decade career producing both independent and mainstream cinema. He is best remembered for Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic The Last Emperor, which swept the 1989 Oscars with nine wins, including best picture. Thomas received the producer award alongside his collaborator David Puttnam for the 1987 biographical drama, which starred Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole, and Vivian Wu.
His partnership with Bertolucci extended to several other projects, including The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha, Stealing Beauty, and The Dreamers. Thomas also championed emerging British talent, producing early works by directors such as Ben Wheatley, Jonathan Glazer, Stephen Frears, and David Mackenzie.
Among his other notable credits are Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence—featuring David Bowie—along with Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, Nicolas Roeg’s Bad Timing and Eureka, Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, Julien Temple’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, and film adaptations of J.G. Ballard’s novels Crash and High-Rise.
Thomas began his career in film editing before securing his first production role on the 1976 Australian movie Mad Dog Morgan. In recognition of his contributions to cinema, he was named a CBE in the 2009 New Year Honours and received the European Film Academy’s award for Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema in 2006.
His final project, a collaboration with Japanese director Takashi Miike titled Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, is scheduled to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday.
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