Roger Corman
- Producer
- Director
- Actor
Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan.
Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied
engineering at Stanford University but while in school, he began to
lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for
film. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an
engineer at US Electrical Motors, which cemented his growing
realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as
a messenger for 20th Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of
story analyst.
After a term spent studying modern English literature at England's
Oxford University and a year spent bopping around Europe, Corman
returned to the US, intent on becoming a screenwriter/producer. He sold
his first script in 1953, "The House in the Sea," which was eventually
filmed and released as
Highway Dragnet (1954).
Horrified by the disconnect between his vision for the project and
the film that eventually emerged, Corman took his salary from the picture,
scraped together a little capital and set himself up as a producer,
turning out
Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954).
Corman used his next picture,
The Fast and the Furious (1954),
to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called
American Releasing Corp. (ARC). It would soon change its name to
American-International Pictures (AIP) and with Corman as its major
talent behind the camera, would become one of the most successful
independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with
Five Guns West (1955) and over
the next 15 years directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. He proved himself
a master of quick, inexpensive productions, turning out several movies
as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in
1957, and nine again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960),
which he shot in two days and a night.
In the early 1960s he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining
a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series
of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe
stories, most of them starring
Vincent Price. His film
The Intruder (1962) was a serious
look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young
William Shatner. Critically praised and
winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's
first--and, for many years, only--commercial flop. He called its
failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of
the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in
the future and resolved to express his social and political concerns
beneath the surface of overt entertainments.
Those messages became more radical as the 1960s wound to a close and
after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent,
he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on
production and distribution through his own newly formed company, New
World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New
World also distributed distinguished art cinema from around the world,
becoming the American distributor for the films of
Ingmar Bergman,
Akira Kurosawa,
Federico Fellini,
François Truffaut and others. Selling
off New World in the 1980s, Corman has continued his work through
various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons,
Millenium Pictures, New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his
biography "How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A
Dime"--one of the all-time great books on filmmaking--he returned to
directing but only for a single film,
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
With hundreds of movies to his credit, Roger Corman is one of the most
prolific producers in the history of the film medium and one of the
most successful--in his nearly six decades in the business, only about
a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit. Corman has been
dubbed, among other things, "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and
his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining
films in addition to dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has
displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost
be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors,
writers and creators in Hollywood who DIDN'T get their start with him
than those who did. Among those he mentored are
Francis Ford Coppola,
Ron Howard,
Martin Scorsese,
Jack Nicholson,
James Cameron,
Robert De Niro,
Peter Bogdanovich,
Joe Dante and
Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern
American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009 he was honored with an
Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied
engineering at Stanford University but while in school, he began to
lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for
film. Upon graduation, he worked a total of three days as an
engineer at US Electrical Motors, which cemented his growing
realization that engineering wasn't for him. He quit and took a job as
a messenger for 20th Century Fox, eventually rising to the position of
story analyst.
After a term spent studying modern English literature at England's
Oxford University and a year spent bopping around Europe, Corman
returned to the US, intent on becoming a screenwriter/producer. He sold
his first script in 1953, "The House in the Sea," which was eventually
filmed and released as
Highway Dragnet (1954).
Horrified by the disconnect between his vision for the project and
the film that eventually emerged, Corman took his salary from the picture,
scraped together a little capital and set himself up as a producer,
turning out
Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954).
Corman used his next picture,
The Fast and the Furious (1954),
to finagle a multi-picture deal with a fledgling company called
American Releasing Corp. (ARC). It would soon change its name to
American-International Pictures (AIP) and with Corman as its major
talent behind the camera, would become one of the most successful
independent studios in cinema history.
With no formal training, Corman first took to the director's chair with
Five Guns West (1955) and over
the next 15 years directed 53 films, mostly for AIP. He proved himself
a master of quick, inexpensive productions, turning out several movies
as director and/or producer in each of those years--nine movies in
1957, and nine again in 1958. His personal speed record was set with
The Little Shop of Horrors (1960),
which he shot in two days and a night.
In the early 1960s he began to take on more ambitious projects, gaining
a great deal of critical praise (and commercial success) from a series
of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe
stories, most of them starring
Vincent Price. His film
The Intruder (1962) was a serious
look at racial integration in the South, starring a very young
William Shatner. Critically praised and
winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, the movie became Corman's
first--and, for many years, only--commercial flop. He called its
failure "the greatest disappointment in my career." As a consequence of
the experience, Corman opted to avoid such direct "message" films in
the future and resolved to express his social and political concerns
beneath the surface of overt entertainments.
Those messages became more radical as the 1960s wound to a close and
after AIP began re-editing his films without his knowledge or consent,
he left the company, retiring from directing to concentrate on
production and distribution through his own newly formed company, New
World Pictures. In addition to low-budget exploitation flicks, New
World also distributed distinguished art cinema from around the world,
becoming the American distributor for the films of
Ingmar Bergman,
Akira Kurosawa,
Federico Fellini,
François Truffaut and others. Selling
off New World in the 1980s, Corman has continued his work through
various companies in the years since--Concorde Pictures, New Horizons,
Millenium Pictures, New Concorde. In 1990, after the publication of his
biography "How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost A
Dime"--one of the all-time great books on filmmaking--he returned to
directing but only for a single film,
Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
With hundreds of movies to his credit, Roger Corman is one of the most
prolific producers in the history of the film medium and one of the
most successful--in his nearly six decades in the business, only about
a dozen of his films have failed to turn a profit. Corman has been
dubbed, among other things, "The King of the Cult Film" and "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and
his filmography is packed with hundreds of remarkably entertaining
films in addition to dozens of genuine cult classics. Corman has
displayed an unrivaled eye for talent over the years--it could almost
be said that it would be easier to name the top directors, actors,
writers and creators in Hollywood who DIDN'T get their start with him
than those who did. Among those he mentored are
Francis Ford Coppola,
Ron Howard,
Martin Scorsese,
Jack Nicholson,
James Cameron,
Robert De Niro,
Peter Bogdanovich,
Joe Dante and
Sandra Bullock. His influence on modern
American cinema is almost incalculable. In 2009 he was honored with an
Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement.