Roger Corman — known as Hollywood's "King of the Bs” for the many low-budget classics he created — died last week at the age of 98.
In 2013, he came to Rochester to be honored with the George Eastman Award for distinguished contribution to the art of film. Corman was recognized for his role in bringing foreign art films to the U.S. and for launching the careers of many beloved Hollywood stars.
You can see him in the background of several movies: a Senate investigator in “The Godfather Part II,” an FBI agent in “Silence of the Lambs.”
These bit parts were given to Corman by directors Francis Ford Coppola and Jonathan Demme, acknowledging the role that he played as their early mentor in making movies.
I spoke to Corman over a decade ago on "1370 Connection," the precursor to WXXI’s "Connections with Evan Dawson." The full audio from that show is attached to this story, if you'd like to listen to that interview.
Corman gave many of Hollywood's most famous actors and directors their first breaks in some of the hundreds of B-movies he helped create as a producer and director. First roles for Jack Nicholson and Sandra Bullock, early work for Joe Dante, and as he listed these old friends, “Marty Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jim Cameron, is currently after 'Titanic' and 'Avatar,' at the moment, probably our most prominent graduate, as we refer to them.”
Corman is best known for low-budget classics, including the original (non-musical) "Little Shop of Horrors,” “Attack of the Crab Monsters,” and “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes.” He is also remembered fondly for Edgar Allen Poe adaptations with Vincent Price. And he rarely strayed from his low-budget roots — producing cult classics like 2010’s “Sharktopus” for the Syfy Channel.
One notable exception was “The Intruder” — a critically acclaimed movie confronting racism that Corman made in 1962, starring a young William Shatner.
He recalls with chagrin that, “It was the first film I ever made that lost money.” He decided it was "too much of a message film. I forgot that films should be entertainment.” Corman said.
But it was that film that he chose to introduce and screen when receiving his award from the George Eastman Museum in 2013. After that, he said he made sure that the message would be more subtext, beneath an entertaining surface.
Corman’s legacy is one of zany low-budget films, but also of great craftmanship, visual style, and a love and commitment to the movies — and the people who make them.
