I woke up this morning to the sad news that longtime producer/director/mentor Roger Corman had passed away at age 98, and everything I’d planned to write later on today immediately went on the back burner.  While it is very hard to sum up such an incredible life and career, here goes…

Corman began his career in the 1950s, producing and sometimes directing such drive-in theater/late-night TV fare as “It Conquered the World” (1956), “Attack of the Crab Monsters” (1957), “Not of this Earth” (1957) and “Teenage Cave Man” (1958) and the original non-musical black & white version of “Little Shop of Horrors” (1960), which was not a musical, and which featured a very young Jack Nicholson.  Later, Corman segued into his colorful Edgar Allan Poe (loose) adaptations, such as “House of Usher” (1960), “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1961) and “The Raven” (1963), with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre.  As a childhood horror fan, those Poe flicks were a lot of fun, especially “The Raven.”

While none of these movies would win Oscars, they were the kind of stuff I would devour as a kid, particularly “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” (1965) and “Queen of Blood” (1966), both of which used repurposed Russian sci-fi movie footage, and were huge influences on me growing up (“Queen of Blood” was also a significant influence on Ridley Scott’s “ALIEN”).  Hell, I still remember playing a mind’s eye-version of those movies in my backyard with tiny spaceman action figures and a muddy hole dug by my dog that we filled with water!  In my childhood, we had imagination, not gamer consoles.  Even when I saw “Star Wars” in 1977, I thought to myself that Luke’s landspeeder was reminiscent of the Russian ‘air car’ used in “Voyage…” I later learned that producer Gary Kurtz, another student of Corman’s, worked on both.  Reading up on Corman, I began to see connections everywhere between him and nearly all of modern cinema.

Note: Corman would eventually win an honorary (and long overdue) Oscar in 2009 for his undeniable influence on the medium of film itself.

Note: The book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood” (1999) by Peter Biskind, is a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about the generation that ushered in the modern era of movies and TV shows—much of which began with Roger Corman and his profitable B-movies; the success of which Corman parlayed into advancing new talent.

As alluded to with Gary Kurtz, Corman’s greatest achievement was his mentoring of countless actors and filmmakers, including such future legends as Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Jonathan Demme (“Silence of the Lambs”), Ron Howard, Pam Grier, James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Nicholas Roeg (“The Man Who Fell to Earth”), Martin Scorsese, Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, and a few thousand more of great significance whom I’m forgetting, of course…  

Corman’s style was often described as guerrilla filmmaking; do whatever you have to do, as quickly and inexpensively as possible, to get the shot in the can. The last film Corman would direct personally was 1990’s “Frankenstein Unbound,” which I rented 30-odd years ago on VHS, and which starred Raul Julia, John Hurt, and Bridget Fonda, whose father Peter Fonda (“Easy Rider”), was another graduate of the Corman’s ‘film school.’  The careers launched from his mentoring changed the industry forever. Thanks to Roger Corman giving so many young filmmakers their first breaks, we now have “The Godfather,” “Star Wars,” “Taxi Driver,” “Goodfellas,” “Silence of the Lambs,” and so many more.  Basically, nearly every good American film you’ve probably seen in the last 50 years has some Corman lineage.  

He’s that prolific.

My Own Corman Encounters

While I never physically shook hands with the man, I had seen him in person on a couple of occasions, at San Diego Comic Con.  The first was at a 2006 panel, where he talked at length about his long career, as well as the endless parade of talent he mentored in his ‘film school.’  The most memorable part of that panel for me occurred during the Q & A afterward, when a woman came up to the mic, and before she could speak, Corman beamed a big smile and said, “Gale!”  

The anonymous-looking woman sitting directly across the aisle from me was prolific producer Gale Anne Hurd.  Hurd was the producer of “The Terminator,” “ALIENS,” “The Abyss,” and “The Walking Dead” franchise, and she cut her teeth working for producer Roger Corman in the late 1970s (“Rock ’n’ Roll High School”), including his colorful “Star Wars”/“Seven Samurai” mashup, “Battle Beyond the Stars” (1980).  It was working for Corman where she’d meet her future ex-husband and filmmaking partner, James Cameron. 

Another time I would see Roger Corman would be six years later, at San Diego Comic Con 2012, where he was talking with “Star Trek” star William Shatner, who worked for Roger Corman on “The Intruder” (1961), a rare dramatic turn about racial tensions in the deep South. The moderator of the panel was filmmaker Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Dogma,” “Chasing Amy”), who seemed in awe of his guests, and did the best moderating job by simply letting his guests speak to each other.  Corman was also there to promote his latest production, “Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader” (2012), a giant woman flick that was absolutely in keeping with Corman’s long, pioneering career in exploitation cinema.

Corman was producing right up until 2021, though his career wasn’t so much about the films on their own merits. It was also about the careers he launched, as well as that quick and dirty directing style that he passed onto modern Hollywood, which changed the industry forever.  His legacy is simply too great to sum up in a single column.  

I only regret that I didn’t try a bit harder to get that handshake…

Roger Corman, 1926-2024