Roger Corman Biography

Often called the King of B-Movies, Roger Corman began making low-budget movies in the 1950s, many of them surprisingly good, some of them amazingly bad.

A screenwriter, producer, director and distributor (and sometime actor), Corman was considered the godfather of independent moviemaking from the 1050s through the 1980s. He was known for small budgets, assembly-line production (some of his movies were shot in two or three days) and, importantly, a reputation for making a profit.

Corman made movies with a little sex and a little violence and some sort of gimmick: from gangsters, bikers and hippies to women in prison, monsters from outer space and creatures from beyond the grave.

He hired young, eager players and directors, many of whom went on to success themselves as filmmakers or actors.

Corman’s filmography includes cult classics such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Caged Heat (1974), Death Race 2000 (1975, with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone) and Android (1982).

Among the many famous actors and moviemakers who started out with Corman: actors Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, and directors Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.