The filmmaker known as the “King of the Bs,” Roger Corman, has died at the age of 98, it was revealed Saturday.
Corman died Thursday at his Santa Monica home, according to a statement Saturday from his daughter, Catherine Corman. His cause of death was not immediately made public.
“He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all those who knew him,” she said. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, `I was a filmmaker, just that.”’
Corman started working in 1955 and produced and directed literally hundreds of films, including “The Masque of the Red Death,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and “Bucket of Blood.”
In 2009, Corman received an honorary Lifetime Achievement Academy Award.
Paul Almond, who legally represented for Corman’s production company, New World Pictures, told City News Service that the filmmaker was obsessed with penny-pinching.
Almond told CNS an anecdote about the film “Piranha.” Rather than shoot in the Amazon, scenes were filmed in a residential swimming pool in Pacific Palisades. But they made a “horrendous discovery about the titular fish — “they don’t just snap up live flesh.” So, when the piranhas wouldn’t follow the script, imitation ones were employed instead.
The attorney also recalled a time when Corman — whom he called “one of the cheapest human beings in the world” — purchased a property in Venice for the purposes of building a studio. There was a key stipulation from residents — Corman would not be allowed to “gentrify” the location. Almond said it was a deal he sealed without feeling he even needed Corman’s approval. “I said yes without telling Roger.”
Corman helped launch the careers of directors Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese, as well as actors including Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson.
Almond said that at one point in the 1970s, “the town” was divided into two camps: 50% from USC and 50% from the “Corman Academy.”
In a 2007 documentary about B-list director Val Lewton, Corman talked about the opportunities of working on a low-budget production. “You can gamble a little bit more. You can experiment,” he said. “You have to find a more creative way to solve a problem or to present a concept.”
Corman was born in Detroit and raised in Beverly Hills. He earned an engineering degree from Stanford University and served in the Navy.
He is survived by his wife, Julie, whom he married in 1964 and daughters Catherine and Mary.