Roger Corman, independent filmmaker and Hollywood mentor, has died aged 98

Roger Corman, a man known as a pioneer of independent filmmaking and a mentor to many who worked with him, has died. He was 98.

Corman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, California, according to a statement released Saturday by his wife and daughters and obtained by the Associated Press.

Known as the “King of the Bs,” Corman helped produce the low-budget classics “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Attack of the Crab Monsters.” He gave many Hollywood actors and producers their first breakthrough.

While he acknowledged the “many limitations” of working on low-budget films in a 2007 documentary about Val Lewton, the 1940s director of “Cat People” and other underground classics, he said they also had more Allowed creativity and experimentation.

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Roger Corman speaks to the audience during the awards ceremony at the 76th International Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

Corman’s career as a producer and director began in 1955 when he made the B-movies Black Scorpion, Bucket of Blood and Bloody Mama. He hired the now well-known filmmakers Ron Howard, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese.

Corman’s B-movie directors were given tiny budgets and often had 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 “Grand Theft Auto” in 1977, Corman told him, “Ron, you can come back if you want, but no one else will be there.”

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Roger Corman arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Irishman” on Thursday, October 24, 2019, at the TCL Chinese Theater. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

High-profile actor 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. Nicholson is best known for his role in the 1980 horror film “The Shining.”

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

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 at Oxford University for a semester, he returned to Hollywood and began his career as a film producer and director.

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Producer Roger Corman poses in his office in Los Angeles, May 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

In 1964, he married Julie Halloran, a UCLA graduate who also became a producer.

He is survived by his wife Julie and children Catherine, Roger, Brian and Mary.

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

The Associated Press contributed to this report.