left the rights to his books to King's College, Cambridge, which has a self-governing board of fellows of the college. They were initially reluctant to give permission to film Maurice, not because of the subject matter of the novel, but because it was considered an inferior work, and a film that called attention to it would not enhance Forster's literary reputation. Ismail Merchant, the producer of the film, conferred with them and was very persuasive. They were favourably impressed with the adaptation by Merchant Ivory Productions of A Room with a View and relented. Writing Ivory's usual writing partner, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, was unavailable because she was busy writing her novel Three Continents. Ivory wrote the screenplay with Kit Hesketh-Harvey, who had become connected with Merchant Ivory Productions through his sister, journalist and author Sarah Sands (born Sarah Harvey), who was then the wife of Julian Sands, the leading man in A Room with a View. Hesketh-Harvey had previously written documentaries for the BBC. He had attended Tonbridge School and Cambridge University, where Forster was educated, and knew the background. Ivory later said, "What Kit brought to the script was his social background. He went to Cambridge and a fancy prep school. His knowledge of the British upper middle class, that was incredibly useful – the dialect, the speech, the slang, and so many other things. As an American, I could not have possibly written the script without him." Jhabvala reviewed the script and suggested changes. On her advice, Clive Durham's unconvincing conversion to heterosexuality during a trip to Greece was justified by creating an episode in which Clive's university friend Risley is arrested and imprisoned after a homosexual entrapment, which frightens Clive into marrying. Casting Julian Sands, who had played the male lead in Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View, was originally cast in the title role, but backed out at the last minute. John Malkovich was due to take the role of Lasker-Jones. He had become a friend of Julian Sands while both were making The Killing Fields. After Sands left the project Malkovich lost interest in the film and was replaced by Ben Kingsley. James Wilby had auditioned for the role of Clive Durham's brother-in-law. When Sands left the project, Ivory considered two unknown actors for the role of Maurice: James Wilby and Julian Wadham. Since he had already cast the dark-haired Hugh Grant as Clive,