Roger Corman, the Oscar-winning “King of the BS” who helped create such low-budget classics as “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and many of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors. Given early breaks, have died. He was 98 years old.
Corman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., his daughter, Kathryn Corman, said in a statement Saturday.
“He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all who knew him,” the statement said. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, that’s all.’
Beginning in 1955, Corman helped produce and direct hundreds of films, including “Black Scorpion,” “Bucket of Blood” and “Bloody Mama.” A notable judge of merit, he hired aspiring filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese. In 2009, Corman received an honorary Academy Award.
“There are a lot of obstacles to working on a low budget, but there are also some opportunities,” Corman said in a 2007 documentary about Val Lewton, the 1940s director of “Cat People” and others. The lands were classic.
“You can gamble a little more. You can experiment. You have to find a more creative way to solve a problem or present an idea.”
The roots of Hollywood’s golden age in the 1970s can be traced back to Corman’s films. Jack Nicholson made his film debut in 1958 as the title character in Corman’s “The Cry Baby Killer” and stayed with the company for biker, horror and action films, writing and producing some of them.
Other actors whose careers began in Corman films include Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern and Alan Burston. Peter Fonda’s appearance in “The Wild Angels” was a precursor to his own historical biker film, “Easy Rider,” starring Nicholson and fellow Corman alumnus Dennis Hopper. “Boxcar Bertha,” starring Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, was Scorsese’s debut film.
Corman’s directors were given modest budgets and were often told to finish their films in at least five days.
When Howard, who would go on to win a best director Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind,” requested 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.”
Initially only drive-ins and specialty theaters booked Corman’s films, but as teenagers began to leave, national chains followed. Corman’s pictures were open for his time about sex and drugs, such as his 1967 release “The Trip,” a vivid story about LSD written by Nicholson and starring Fonda and Starring Hooper.
Meanwhile, he discovered a lucrative sideline releasing prestige foreign films in the United States, among them Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers,” Federico Fellini’s “Amarcard” and Volker Schlöndorff’s “The Tin Drum.” “. The latter two won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Corman got his start as a messenger boy for Twentieth Century Fox, eventually graduating to story analyst. After briefly leaving the business to study English literature for a period at Oxford, he returned to Hollywood and began his career as a film producer and director.
Despite his money-grubbing ways, Corman maintained a good relationship with his directors, boasting that he never fired anyone because, “I don’t want to bring that humiliation.”
Some of his former underlings repaid his kindness years later. Coppola cast her in “The Godfather, Part II,” Jonathan Demme cast her in “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” and Howard cast her in “Apollo 13.”
Most of Corman’s films were quickly forgotten by all but fans. A rare exception was 1960’s “Little Shop of Horrors,” which starred a bloodthirsty plant that feasted on humans and featured Nicholson in a small but memorable role as a toothache lover.
It inspired a long-running stage musical and a 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 paired Nicholson with veteran horror stars Boris Karloff, Peter Lowry and Basil Rathbone.
On a rare three-week schedule directed by Corman, 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.
Near the end of his life, Karloff starred in another Corman-backed effort, the 1968 thriller “Targets,” Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut.
Corman’s success brought offers from major studios, and he directed “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” and “Van Richthofen & Braun” on modest budgets. However, both were frustrated, and he blamed their failure on front office interference.
Roger William Corman was born in Detroit and raised in Beverly Hills, but “not in the affluent class,” he once said. He attended Stanford University, earned an engineering degree, and after three years in the Navy arrived in Hollywood.
After his stint 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 is survived by Julie, Catherine and Mary, his daughter said in a statement.
Credit : nypost.com
