{"id":768545,"date":"2026-09-12T17:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768545\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T17:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T17:46:17","slug":"jeremy-thomas-dead-legendary-producer-and-oscar-winner-was-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/768545\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Thomas Dead: Legendary Producer and Oscar Winner was 77"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJeremy Thomas<\/a>, one of the film industry\u2019s most highly respected independent producers with a body of work spanning more than half a century, died on Friday. He was 77 years old.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, his team said that Thomas died peacefully at his British country home in Oxfordshire surrounded by his family and loved ones.<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross his career, Thomas \u2014\u00a0who founded the Recorded Picture Company and later co-founded Hanway Films \u2014\u00a0helped bring to life more than 80 features, championing the work of both international cinema and daring auteur filmmakers in the process.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong numerous accolades and awards, Thomas won a best picture Oscar for Bernardo Bertolucci\u2019s \u201cThe Last Emperor<\/a>\u201d in 1988, one of nine Academy Awards for the film. He would make five features across 17 years with the Italian director, one of several filmmakers with whom he\u2019d have enduring working relationships.<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin his vast library of films, Thomas also produced Jonathan Glazer\u2019s debut feature \u201cSexy Beast,\u201d David Cronbenberg \u201cCrash,\u201d Christopher Hampton\u2019s \u201cA Dangerous Method\u201d and Nagisa Oshima\u2019s \u201cMerry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.\u201d Other directors he collaborated with, many across multiple films, would include Jim Jarmusch, Stephen Frears, Julien Temple, Takashi Miike, Matteo Garrone, Werner Herzog, Terry Gilliam, Richard Linklater, Karel Reisz, Phillip Noyce, David Mackenzie, Jerzy Skolimowski, Ben Wheatley and Wim Wenders. <\/p>\n

\n\tWorking to the last, Thomas\u2019s latest collaboration with Miike, \u201cBad Lieutenant: Tokyo,\u201d is due to world premiere in Toronto on Sept. 14.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2006 Thomas received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World Cinema. In 2021, Thomas\u00a0came to Cannes as the subject of Mark Cousins\u2019 documentary \u201cThe Storms of Jeremy Thomas,\u201d recounting his numerous trips to the festival and work as a producer. He recently appeared in Luca Guadagnino\u2019s documentary \u201cJoie De Vivre,\u201d which also premiered in Venice, about the cinema, art, and life of Bertolucci. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe son of director Ralph Thomas (who directed many \u201cDoctor\u201d films) and nephew of Gerald Thomas (who directed all of the \u201cCarry On\u201d films), Thomas was born in London in 1949. He began working in the industry immediately after leaving school, helping in the cutting rooms for films including \u201cThe Harder They Come\u201d and \u201cFamily Life,\u201d eventually rising to edit Ken Loach\u2019s 1973 TV short \u201cA Misfortune.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile he originally wanted to be a director, Thomas shifted to producing, with his first producer credit being the 1976 feature \u201cMad Dog Morgan,\u201d which he made in Australia at the age of 27 for director Phillipe Mora. He later returned to the U.K. and produced Skolimowski\u2019s 1978 horror \u201cThe Shout,\u201d the first for his newly-launched Recorded Pictures Company banner. The film went to Cannes, where it competed for the Palme d\u2019Or and won the Grand Prix de Jury prize. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremy Thomas, one of the film industry\u2019s most highly respected independent producers with a body of work spanning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,159180,144566,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-768545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-jeremy-thomas","tag-the-last-emperor","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}