William Panzer, who produced the Highlander films and spin-off TV series, has died in Idaho, after falling while ice-skating. He was 64.

The original 1986 film has proven enduringly popular and did much to perpetuate and promote the image of the Scots as a race of fierce, kilted warriors.

It was written by an American college student after a holiday in Scotland. Greg Widen mixed Scottish history and geography with science-fiction elements in a story about immortal swordsmen. Panzer and his partner, Peter Davis, bought the script from Widen, along with the rights to sequels and spin-offs.

The original film starred French actor Christopher Lambert as a sixteenth-century Scot who discovers he is immortal (or rather virtually immortal), with Sean Connery as his mentor. It was not originally a hit, but acquired a passionate following on video.

There have been three sequels so far, with a fourth due out this year, and three different television series, including an animated one. Although the original film was shot extensively in the West Highlands, the producers made only infrequent visits to Scotland for subsequent instalments.

William Norton Panzer was born in 1942 in New York City, not the Scottish Highlands as was romantically suggested in an official press release for one of the Highlander films.

He started off making television commercials and teamed up with Davis on Death Collector, aka Family Enforcer (1976), a low-budget crime film, with Joe Pesci in his first starring role. They were adept at recognising untapped potential and exploiting big names, whose star was beginning to fade.

They made films with Lee Majors and Art Carney, and produced Sam Peckinpah's final movie, The Osterman Weekend (1983), a thriller starring Rutger Hauer and John Hurt. It was not a happy association and in his Peckinpah biography, If They Move . . . Kill 'Em, David Weddle dismisses them as "bottom-feeders in the Hollywood food chain who specialised in low-budget exploitation pictures".

Then came Highlander and they milked it for all it was worth. Panzer was a controversial figure among fans. Many felt the integrity of the stories was compromised by the pursuit of profit. Merchandise included replica swords, jewellery, clothes and trading cards, and there was even talk of a stage musical.

Panzer and Widen fell out on the first sequel, when the story suggested that the immortals were really aliens.

Widen said: "Davis-Panzer have always told me they're not in the film business, they're in the Highlander business. If they can make a Highlander skateboard, they will."

Panzer occasionally produced other films as well, most notably the Elmore Leonard adaptation Cat Chaser (1989) and the slasher movie Cutting Class (1989), starring Brad Pitt before he was famous.

John Mosby, spokesman for the official Highlander fan club, said: "He was a very controversial figure among the Highlander faithful, but he was a real character and a classy gentleman when you met him in person - and he was probably the reason Highlander survived as long as it did."