Roger Corman

Who is Roger Corman?

Roger William Corman is an American independent film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Much of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Admired by members of the French New Wave and Cahiers Du Cinema, in 1964 Corman was the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française, as well as the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. In 2009, he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award.

Corman mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and Peter Bogdanovich. He helped launch the careers of actors Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson.

Corman has occasionally taken minor acting roles in the films of directors who started with him, including The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13, The Manchurian Candidate and Philadelphia. A documentary about Corman's life and career entitled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel premiered at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011, directed by Alex Stapleton.