Roger Corman, Hollywood mentor and ‘King of the Bs’, dies aged 98

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From Associated Press

Roger Corman, the Oscar-winning “King of the Bs,” who helped produce low-budget classics like “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and gave many of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors an early one gave me a break, died. He was 98.

Corman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, California, his daughter Catherine Corman said in a statement Saturday.

“He was generous, outgoing and kind to everyone who knew him,” the statement said. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that.'”

Beginning in 1955, Corman was involved as a producer and director in the making of hundreds of films, including “Black Scorpion,” “Bucket of Blood,” and “Bloody Mama.” A notable talent evaluator, he hired aspiring filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese. In 2009, Corman received an honorary Oscar.

“There are a lot of limitations that come with working on a low budget, but at the same time there are certain opportunities,” Corman said in a 2007 documentary about Val Lewton, the director of “Cat People” and other underground classics 1940s.

“You can play a little more. You can experiment. You have to find a more creative way to solve a problem or present a concept.”

The roots of Hollywood’s golden age in the 1970s lie in Corman’s films. Jack Nicholson made his film debut as the title character in Corman’s 1958 quickie The Cry Baby Killer and remained with the company for biker, horror and action films, writing and producing several of them.

Other actors whose careers began in Corman films included Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern and Ellen Burstyn. Peter Fonda’s performance in The Wild Angels was a precursor to his own groundbreaking biker film Easy Rider, which starred Nicholson and his Corman co-star Dennis Hopper. Boxcar Bertha, starring Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, was an early Scorsese film.

Corman’s directors were given tiny budgets and were often told to complete their films in just five days.

When Howard, who later won a best director Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind,” asked for an extra half day to reshoot a scene for 1977’s “Grand Theft Auto,” Corman told him, “Ron, you can come back .” if you want, but no one else will be there.”

At first, only drive-ins and specialty theaters booked Corman films, but as teenagers arrived, the national chains caved. Corman’s films were open to the era’s themes of sex and drugs, such as his 1967 release The Trip, an explicit story about LSD written by Nicholson and starring Fonda and Hopper.

Meanwhile, he discovered a lucrative sideline releasing prestigious foreign films in the United States, including Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers,” Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Volker Schlöndorff’s “The Tin Drum.” The latter two won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Corman started as a messenger for Twentieth Century-Fox and eventually graduated to a story analyst. After briefly giving up the business to study English literature for a semester at Oxford, he returned to Hollywood and began his career as a film producer and director.

Despite his miserly nature, Corman maintained good relations with his directors and boasted that he never fired anyone because “I didn’t want to inflict that humiliation.”

Some of his former subordinates returned the favor years later for his kindness. Coppola cast him in The Godfather, Part II, Jonathan Demme took him in The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and Howard gave him a role in Apollo 13.

Most of Corman’s films were quickly forgotten except by die-hard fans. A rare exception was 1960’s Little Shop of Horrors, which starred a bloodthirsty plant that feasted on humans and in which Nicholson had a small but memorable role as a pain-loving dentist patient.

It inspired a long-running stage musical and a 1986 musical adaptation starring Steve Martin, Bill Murray and John Candy.

In 1963, Corman initiated a series of films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Most notable was “The Raven,” in which Nicholson worked with veteran horror stars Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone.

Directed by Corman in a rare three-week run, the horror spoof received good reviews, a rarity for his films. Another Poe adaptation, “House of Usher,” was deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress.

Towards the end of his life, Karloff starred in another Corman-backed film, the 1968 thriller Targets, which marked Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut.

Corman’s success led to offers from major studios and he directed The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Von Richthofen and Brown on normal budgets. However, both were disappointments and he blamed front office interference for their failure.

Roger William Corman was born in Detroit and grew up in Beverly Hills, but “not in the wealthy neighborhood,” he once said. He attended Stanford University, earned a degree in engineering, and came to Hollywood after three years in the Navy.

After his stay at Oxford, he worked as a television stagehand and literary agent before finding his life’s work.

In 1964, he married Julie Halloran, a UCLA graduate who also became a producer. They had three children: Catherine, Roger and Brian.

He leaves behind Julie, Catherine and Mary, his daughter said in the statement.