I  s  m  a  i  l     M  e  r  c  h  a  n  t     o  n     J  a  m  e  s     I  v  o  r  y  ,

J  e  a  n  n  e     M  o  r  e  a  u     a  n  d     r  e  i  n  c  a  r  n  a  t  e  d     l  e  o  p  a  r  d  s

By RENEE MONROSE “Hello, Trianon Palace Hotel? I am calling for the Maharaja of Jodhpur," says the voice in clipped, Indian-accented English. "He requires a suite for several days — immediately! "No, no, that is not the suite the Maharaja likes. He likes the one with the view of the meadow ... "What is that? It is being renovated? The entire wing of the hotel is closed? Really uninhabitable? Oh, I see. Yes, well, that sounds very much to the Maharaja's taste." "Excuse me, my good man, but maharajas do not take baths. They are bathed. His servants will bring buckets of water up to the room. Do not worry. The Maharaja does not care about comforts. But he must have that view." The man on the telephone is Ismail Merchant and he is not playing a prank. No, indeed, he is hard at work. It's just that he has some rather eccentric methods as he goes about his business. Impersonating Indian royalty is one of them. Barging into the dressing rooms of actors he doesn't know (like Paul Newman) is another. It has been said that, in order to get a film made, Merchant "would sell his mother if he had to." So far, say his friends, he hasn't had to. Known primarily as the producer of Merchant Ivory Films, a 35-year-long collaboration with James Ivory (director of such films as "Room with a View," "Howards End" and the recently released "Surviving Picasso") and the writer Ruth Prawler Jhabvala, Merchant is now turning some of his irrepressible energy to directing. His film "The Proprietor," which opened on October 9 and stars Jeanne Moreau, tells the story of a writer who returns to her birthplace to confront her past. The film is Merchant's homage to Francoise Truffaut, who directed Moreau in "Jules et Jim," and a panegyric on Moreau, an actress Merchant has long admired. Now, about that suite. Merchant had to have it for his final shot. So the day after the telephone call, he arrived at the Trianon Palace Hotel dressed in an elegant silk kurta and trailing a "private secretary" (his cameraman). After a brief panic over the bathroom situation, the assistant manager bowed to "royalty's wishes" and turned over the key. Merchant is a handsome man with intense, dark eyes, quicksilver moods and the digestive system of a native Bombayan. He uses these ingredients with the skill of a masterful cook. In fact, on top of everything else, he is a masterful cook. Whenever members of the crew or cast get uppity, he opens his spice cabinet and serves them a humblingly incendiary curry. It quells the uprising every time. Merchant could probably charm the tusks off a rampaging elephant. He has a long history of staging outrageous stunts in pursuit of the things he wants — money, actors, locations — and getting away with it. Why does it work? Why do actors like Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, Joanne Woodward, Hugh Grant and Greta Scacchi line up for sometimes miserable working conditions and the Hollywood equivalent of peanuts? "Why not?" Merchant replies — as he frequently does to impertinent questions. "I just charm people into submission." The real answer must be some passionate subcontinental thing. It certainly isn't a West Coast financial thing: The man has notoriously shallow pockets. As Hugh Grant said recently "For my two cents — and that's about what he paid me — I'm proud to have been in one of his films." I met with Merchant several times over the past few months — at a restaurant in Manhattan (he didn't pay for my lunch); at his and Ivory's estate in the Hudson Valley (he cooked an incendiary dahl); and at the nearby home of his friend, the composer Richard Robbins. Next: Man-Eating Leopard