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Roger Corman

File:Filmmaker_Roger_Corman,_portrait,_1978_(cropped).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Roger Corman

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Also known as Roger William Corman

American film director, producer, and actor (1926–2024)

Person · Open Library

Born
1926-04-05
Died
2024-05-09
Works
21

Top works

  • How i Made Movies in Hollywood d and Never Lost a Dime
  • Corman/Poe
  • Intruder (Valancourt 20th Century Classics)
  • All I Need to Know about FILMMAKING I Learned from the TOXIC AVENGER
  • Todo lo que siempre quise saber sobre cine lo aprendí de El Vengador Tóxico

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United States
Active from
1926-04-05
Active to
2024-05-09
film director

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
216
Total plays
452

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Roger+Corman">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Roger Corman

Quotes

  • We were shooting a Ku Klux Klan parade led by Bill [William Shatner], and he went through the black part of town in a parade of cars carrying crosses with the hoods, and then they burned the flaming cross. We shot late at night; I said, "Cut, print!" and everybody went, "Yeah, we're out of here!" Guys raced to their cars, the grips threw the last couple of things in the trucks and we just drove straight north.
  • I come across as a very straightforward guy and that tends to surprise people [...] Clearly my subconscious mind must be some kind of boiling inferno.
  • [Asked why he never made a film like the art house titles his company distributed: I]t's an economic situation. All of those films were made in Europe with government subsidies. Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut did not have the necessity of having to earn their money back and so they were free to do what they liked. In the US it's different. It's a money-making industry, so that's what you have to do
  • I don't know if I would say I'm an artist. [...] I would say that I'm a craftsman. I attempt to ply my trade in the best possible way. If occasionally something transcends the craft, then that's wonderful. [...] It doesn't happen very often.
  • My father was an engineer and I intended to follow in his footsteps, but movies became my real passion. Careful planning is important in engineering, so I used that experience to focus on film preproduction. With the low budgets I had, I couldn't afford to have the cast and crew waiting around for days on a 10-day picture while I figured out how and what to shoot.
  • It's not so much watching them but understanding how they were made – the preparation and willingness to deviate when necessary especially if you're on a low budget, I also took every film I made seriously and did my best on every one.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
Roger William Corman , ( 1926-04-05 ) April 5, 1926, Detroit , Michigan , U.S.
Died
May 9, 2024 (2024-05-09) (aged 98), Santa Monica, California , U.S.
Education
Stanford University ( BS )
Occupations
Film director producer actor
Years active
1954–2024
Spouse
Julie Halloran ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. December 26, 1970</span>"}]]}'>1970 ) ​
Relatives
Gene Corman (brother)
Allegiance
United States
Branch
United States Navy
Service years
1944–1946
Conflicts
World War II

via Wikipedia infobox

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Roger William Corman (April 5, 1926 – May 9, 2024) was an American film director, producer, and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", “King of the Beatnik Movies”, "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film.

Many of the more than 500 features directed or produced by Corman were low-budget films that later attracted a cult following, such as A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963), and the counterculture films The Wild Angels (1966) and The Trip (1967). House of Usher (1960) became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and which collectively came to be known as the "Poe Cycle".

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Roger Corman” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (8)