LOS ANGELES (AP) —
He helped create such low-budget classics as Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Monsters, giving early breaks to many of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors. Roger Corman, the King of B, has passed away. He was 98 years old.
Mr. Corman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., according to a statement released Saturday by his wife and daughters.
“He was generous, generous and kind to all who knew him,” the statement said. “When I asked him how he wanted to be remembered, he replied: ‘I was a film director, that’s all.'”
Starting in 1955, Corman helped create hundreds of films as a producer and director, including “Black Scorpion,” “Bucket of Blood,” and “Bloody Mama.” An excellent judge of talent, he hired aspiring filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron, and Martin Scorsese. In 2009, Corman won the prestigious Academy Award.
“There are many constraints to making a low-budget production, but there are also certain opportunities,” Corman said in the 2007 film about Val Leton, who directed underground classics such as Cat People in the 1940s. told in the documentary.
“You can gamble a little more. You can experiment. You have to find more creative ways to solve problems or present concepts.”
The roots of Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1970s can be found in Corman’s films. Jack Nicholson made his film debut as the title character in Corman’s 1958 quickie Cry Baby Killer and remained with the company, writing and producing some biker films, horror films, and action films. I was in charge of Other actors who started their careers in Corman films include Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern, and Ellen Burstyn. Peter Fonda’s appearance in Wild Angels was a precursor to his own breakthrough biker film, Easy Rider, which co-starred Nicholson and Corman alumnus Dennis Hopper. Boxcar Bertha, starring Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, was one of Scorsese’s earliest films.
Corman’s directors were given tiny budgets and were often told to complete their films in as little as five days. When Howard, who would go on to win a Best Director Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, begged for an extra half day to reshoot scenes from 1977’s Grand Theft Auto, Corman told him: Said. If you want, but there’s no one else there. ”
At first, only drive-ins and specialty theaters could book Corman movies, but when teenagers started flocking to the theaters, national chains folded. Corman’s pictures of sex and drugs, such as the explicit 1967 story “The Trip,” were public at the time. A film about LSD written by Nicholson and starring Fonda and Hopper.
Meanwhile, he found a lucrative sideline in releasing high-end foreign films in the United States, including Ingmar Bergman’s The Cry and the Whisper, Federico Fellini’s Amarcord and Volker Schlondorff’s The Tin Drum. did. Two of the latter won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Corman began his career as a messenger boy at 20th Century Fox, eventually graduating to story analyst. After he briefly left his job to study English literature at Oxford, he returned to Hollywood and began his career as a film producer and director.
Despite his tough dealings with penalties, Corman maintained a good relationship with his directors and boasted that he had never fired them “because I didn’t want to put them through that humiliation.”
Some of his former subordinates returned his favor years later. Coppola cast him in The Godfather Part II, Jonathan Demme cast him in Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and Howard gave him a role in Apollo 13.
Most of Corman’s films were quickly forgotten by all but his most devoted fans. A rare exception was 1960’s Little Shop of Horrors, starring a bloodthirsty plant that devours humans, in which Nicholson played a small but memorable role as a pain-loving dental patient. This inspired a long-running stage musical and his 1986 musical adaptation starring Steve Martin, Bill Murray, and John Candy.
In 1963, Corman began a series of films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Most notable was The Raven, which teamed Nicholson with veteran horror stars Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone. This horror parody, which Corman directed over an unusual three-week schedule, received critical acclaim, an unusual feat for a Corman film. Another Poe adaptation, The House of Usher, was deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress.
Near the end of his life, Karloff appeared in another Corman-backed film, the 1968 thriller Target, which marked Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut.
Corman’s success attracted offers from major studios, and he directed The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Von Richthofen and Braun on regular budgets. But both were disappointing, and he blamed the failures on front office interference.
Roger William Corman was born in Detroit and grew up in Beverly Hills, which he once said was “not a wealthy area.” He attended Stanford University, earned a degree in engineering, and served three years in the Navy before arriving in Hollywood.
After a stint at Oxford University, 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 became a producer.
He is survived by his wife Julie and children Katherine, Roger, Brian and Mary.
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This obituary was written by the late Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas. passed away in 2014.
