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," "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood," and "The King of Cult," he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film
Among the countless features directed by Corman, a great deal were low-budget films that later attracted a cult following, such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Intruder (1962), and X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963); House of Usher (1960) became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.
In 1964, Corman became the youngest filmmaker to have a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française, as well as in the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art. He was the co-founder of New World Pictures, the founder of New Concorde and was a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers."
Corman was also famous for handling the U.S. distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan). He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He also helped to launch the careers of actors like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.
Corman occasionally acted in films by directors who started with him, including The Godfather Part II (1974), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Manchurian Candidate (2004). A documentary about Corman's life and career titled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, directed by Alex Stapleton, premiered at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.
Roger Corman was married to Julie Halloran from 1970 until his death. They had four children. Corman died at his home in Santa Monica, California, on May 9, 2024, at age 98.