Roger Corman, Hollywood mentor and 'King of the Bs,' dies at 98

FILE - Roger Corman addresses the audience during the awards ceremony of the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 27, 2023. Corman, the Oscar-winning King of the Bs who helped turn out such low-budget classics as Little Shop of Horrors and Attack of the Crab Monsters and gave many of Hollywood's most famous actors and directors an early break, died Thursday, May 9, 2024. He was 98.

“There are many constraints connected with working on a low budget, but at the same time there are certain opportunities,” Corman said in a 2007 documentary about Val Lewton, the 1940s director of “Cat People” and other underground classics. Corman's directors were given minuscule budgets and often told to finish their films in as little as five days. When Howard, who would go on to win a best director Oscar for “A Beautiful Mind,” pleaded for an extra half day to reshoot a scene in 1977 for “Grand Theft Auto,” Corman told him, “Ron, you can come back if you want, but nobody else will be there.”

Corman got his start as a messenger boy for Twentieth Century-Fox, eventually graduating to story analyst. After quitting the business briefly to study English literature for a term at Oxford, he returned to Hollywood and launched his career as a movie producer and director. Most of Corman's movies were quickly forgotten by all but die-hard 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 pain-loving dental patient. It inspired a long-lasting stage musical and a 1986 musical adaptation starring Steve Martin, Bill Murray and John Candy.

Corman's success prompted offers from major studios, and he directed “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre” and “Von Richthofen and Brown” on normal budgets. Both were disappointments, however, and he blamed their failure on front-office interference.

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