By now the brothers were working separately. James went to Hollywood to produce "King Rat". Shortly afterwards he was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he failed to keep a dinner arrangement with director Lewis Gilbert about making a film version of the musical "Oliver!". A hotel employee found him dead, sitting up in bed with an open book on his lap; the cause was reported to be a heart attack. He was 46 years old. Bryan Forbes later claimed the heart attack was brought on by an accidental overdose of painkillers. Gilbert had to pull out of the "Oliver!" project shortly before filming began because of his Paramount contract and John Woolf remembered "The Fallen Idol" (1948) which suggested to him that its director, Sir Carol Reed, had the requisite skills to work with children.