Roger Corman

Corman went to Beverly Hills High School and then to Stanford University to study industrial engineering. While at Stanford, Corman realized he did not want to be an engineer. He enlisted in the V-12 Navy College Training Program with six months of study to complete. He served in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. He returned to Stanford to finish his degree, receiving a bachelor of science in industrial engineering in 1947. While at Stanford University, Corman was initiated in the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

In 1948, he worked briefly at U.S. Electrical Motors on Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles, but his career in engineering lasted only four days; he began work on Monday and quit on Thursday, telling his boss "I've made a terrible mistake." His brother Gene was already working in the film industry as an agent and Roger decided to go into filmmaking, instead.

In August 1956, AIP financed a Corman heist movie shot in Hawaii, Naked Paradise (1957), co-written by Griffith. Corman shot it back-to-back with a movie made with his own money, She Gods of Shark Reef (1958) – Corman wound up selling the movie to AIP.

He was meant to make Rock'n'Roll Girl for AIP in December 1957.

In April 1957, Corman announced he would try to make two films back-to-back from then on to save costs.

For AIP, he made The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), shot in August 1957. He was meant to follow this with Teenage Jungle by Tony Miller.

He had his biggest budget yet for I Mobster (1958), a gangster story, co-produced by Edward L. Alperson and Corman's brother Gene for 20th Century Fox. In September 1958, he was reported as scouting locations in Australia to do a remake of H. Rider Haggard's She.

In January 1959, Corman announced he would be moving into distribution.

In 1959, Corman founded The Filmgroup with his brother Gene, a company producing or releasing low-budget black-and-white films as double features for drive-ins and action houses. In February 1959, Filmgroup announced they would release 10 films. Their first movies were High School Big Shot (1959) and T-Bird Gang (1959) produced by Stanley Bickman.

AIP wanted Corman to make two horror films for them, in black and white, at under $100,000 each on a 10-day shooting schedule. Corman, however, was tired of making films on this sort of budget, and was worried the market for them was in decline. He proposed making a film in color for $200,000, shot over 15 days. Corman proposed an adaptation of "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe and AIP agreed. The film was announced in May 1959.

Richard Matheson was hired to do the adaptation and Vincent Price was brought in to star; Haller did the art direction. The resulting film, House of Usher (1960), shot in early 1960, was a critical and commercial hit.

Following this, Corman bought two scripts, Sob Sisters Don't Cry and Cop Killer. In March 1960, Corman announced that Filmgroup would be part of an international production group, Compass Productions. He directed a peplum in Greece, Atlas (1961) in August.

The fourth Poe was an anthology, Tales of Terror (1962), shot in late 1961. One of the installments, "The Black Cat", was a comedy, inspiring Corman to do a whole Poe story comedically next: The Raven (1963). Later, Corman used the sets for that film for The Terror (1963), made for Filmgroup but released by AIP, and starring Boris Karloff (whose scenes were all shot in two days) and Jack Nicholson. Corman did not direct all of this film; additional scenes were shot by Monte Hellman, Coppola, and Jack Hill, among others.

In 1964, Corman was the youngest producer/director to be given a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française, as well as retrospectives at the British Film Institute and the Museum of Modern Art.

In August 1965, Corman announced he had signed a contract with United Artists to make two films over three years. He also signed with Columbia to make a Western, The Long Ride Home, based on a script by Robert Towne.

Corman did begin directing Long Ride Home with Glenn Ford at Columbia. However, Corman left production a few weeks into the shoot in June 1966 and was replaced by Phil Karlson. The film was retitled A Time for Killing (1967).

In September 1967, he announced plans to build a new film studio. However, this did not happen for a number of years.

United Artists finally agreed to finance his Red Baron project, although they asked it be given emphasis on American characters. Accordingly, it was filmed as Von Richthofen and Brown (1971), shot in Ireland in July 1970. There were several plane crashes during filming and one person died.

In May 1970, Corman founded New World Pictures which became a small independently owned production/distribution studio, and were an immediate success with Angels Die Hard (1970), a biker film, and The Student Nurses (1971), directed by Rothman. The Big Doll House (1971), directed by Jack Hill in the Philippines, was a big hit, making a star of Pam Grier. The company made a profit of $3.2 million in its first financial year and Corman says all eleven out of his first eleven films were successful. Angels Die Hard led to a series of biker films, including Angels Hard as They Come (1971), produced by Jonathan Demme with Jack Fisk working as art director. Bury Me an Angel (1971) was the first biker movie directed by a woman, Barbara Peeters. Corman financed the directorial debuts of Curtis Hanson, Sweet Kill (1971), produced by Corman protege Tamara Asseyev. Student Nurses led to a "cycle" of nurse pictures, including Private Duty Nurses (the first film directed by George Armitage), Night Call Nurses (1972) (the first feature directed by Jonathan Kaplan), The Young Nurses and Candy Stripe Nurses (1975). There was also The Student Teachers (1973) and Summer School Teachers (1974). Big Doll House was followed by a series of women in prison pictures, such as Women in Cages (1972), The Hot Box (1972), Black Mama, White Mama (1973), The Arena (1974) (the first film directed by Steve Carver) and Caged Heat (1974) (the first film directed by Demme). Of New World's second year, Corman says 11 of the 12 releases were successful. Corman produced one more film at AIP, Boxcar Bertha (1972), the second feature directed by Martin Scorsese, starring David Carradine. He also executive produced Unholy Rollers (1972) for AIP. A proposed political satire, The Wild Political Prank, was not made. He made I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973) with his brother and produced Cockfighter (1974) with Monte Hellman, which was a rare financial failure for New World. A big hit was Big Bad Mama (1974), a gangster film directed by Carver and starring Angie Dickinson. It led to a follow-up, Crazy Mama (1975), produced by his wife and directed by Demme. In 1975, Corman said New World was "the most successful independent film company in the country...if you count AIP as a major". He said they were "the best of the cheap acts."

Corman married Julie Halloran in 1970. They have four children. On April 3, 2018, a lawsuit by Corman's sons, Roger Martin Corman and Brian Corman, was filed against Corman to prevent the trade of his film collection. It was later dropped.

"Directing is very hard and very painful", he said in 1971. "Producing is easy. I can do it without really thinking about it."

Corman sold New World Pictures in January 1983 to a consortium of three lawyers for $16.9 million.

Corman and the new owners of New World ended up suing each other in March 1985. Corman claimed that New World failed to honor their guarantee to distribute his movies at a fee of 15%. He sought $400 million in damages and the return of the company. He said they refused to distribute School Spirit (1985) and Wheels of Fire. He also claimed that New World cheated him distributing Space Raiders, Screwballs and Slumber Party Massacre. New World sued Corman in return, claiming he was seeking to return to distribution, and was discrediting New World to potential investors. They said Corman bypassed New World for some of his films, such as Columbia's Hardbodies (1984). Corman argued "My whole point in selling was to free myself of the burden of running the company and to get guaranteed distribution. If I can't get my guaranteed distribution, I'm forced to go back to running the company."

The case with New World settled out of court. In March 1985 Corman announced he would establish a new distribution "cooperative", Concorde Pictures, where producers could get relatively cheap distribution from Concorde in exchange for contributing to the company's overhead. Their first releases were Corman productions School Spirit, Wheels of Fire and Barbarian Queen. Concorde later merged with a low budget production company, Cinema Group, and announced plans to make 15-20 films a year.

Corman won the Lifetime Achievement Award at Stockholm International Film Festival in 1990.

In 1995 Corman was executive producer on Roger Corman Presents, a special series of 13 movies for Showtime with budgets of around $1.5 million each. "I think the Corman name means action, humor and some titillation", says Mike Elliott, the producer of the series. "It's going to deliver the goods – and it will have a little moral statement in there as well." Corman ended up doing a second season of 11 movies. The films were Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats, Hellfire, Virtual Seduction, Suspect Device, Unknown Origin, Terminal Virus, Where Evil Lies, Vampirella, Shadow of a Scream, Subliminal Seduction, House of the Damned (a.k.a. Spectre), The Haunted Sea, Alien Avengers (a.k.a. Aliens Among Us) and its sequel, Inhumanoid, Sawbones, Not Like Us, and Last Exit to Earth. He created his own comic book franchise, Black Scorpion, which led to a sequel and later a TV series. Corman also executive-produced remakes of The Wasp Woman, Humanoids from the Deep, A Bucket of Blood (a.k.a. The Death Artist), Piranha and Not of this Earth.

Later Concorde-New Horizons films included Overdrive (1997). "The genres still hold", said Corman in 1997, "action adventure, the suspense thriller, science fiction and horror. The difference is that they are bigger and better now. "

In 1998, he won the first Producer's Award ever given by the Cannes Film Festival.

Death Race 2000 (1975), written by Robert Thom and directed by Paul Bartel, was a big hit, earning $4 million. It helped inspire a series of car chase movies: Cannonball (1976), directed by Bartel; Eat My Dust! (1976), directed by Griffith starring Ron Howard, which led to a follow-up, Grand Theft Auto (1978), Howard's directorial debut. There was also The Great Texas Dynamite Chase (1976), Deathsport (1978) and Smokey Bites the Dust (1981).

In 2006 Corman said he made 60% of his films overseas. "These foreign countries are offering subsidies that are so great that not only I but many independent producers are moving overseas", he said. He sold the remake rights of Death Race 2000 to Universal, who made Death Race (2008) with Jason Statham, with Corman credited as executive producer. It led to two direct-to-video prequels and one direct-to-video sequel.

In 2006, Corman received the David O. Selznick Award from the Producers Guild of America. Also in 2006, his film Fall of the House of Usher was among the twenty-five movies selected for the National Film Registry, a compilation of significant films being preserved by the Library of Congress.

In 2009, Corman produced and directed alongside director Joe Dante the web series "Splatter" for Netflix. The protagonist of the film is portrayed by Corey Feldman, and the story talks of the haunting tale of rock-and-roll legend Johnny Splatter. He also started contributing trailer commentaries to Dante's web series Trailers from Hell. In 2011, Corman cited James Cameron's Avatar (2009) and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) as examples of "great imagination and originality".

In 2010, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Corman with an Academy Honorary Award at the inaugural Governors Awards, on November 14, 2009.

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss interviewed Corman for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror, of which the second half of the second episode focuses on Corman.

In 2010, Corman was inducted into the Beverly Hills High School Hall of Fame.

In 2010, Roger Corman teamed up New Horizons Pictures with Shout! Factory to release new DVD and Blu-ray editions of Corman productions under the name Roger Corman's Cult Classics. The releases have concentrated on 1970–1980s films he produced through New World rather than directed. These titles include Rock 'n' Roll High School, Death Race 2000, Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World and Piranha, with additional titles continuing to be released.

In 2012, Corman was honored with the Filmmaker on the Edge Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival.

Film elements and prints for many movies directed, produced, and/or distributed by Corman are held at the Academy Film Archive as part of the New Horizons Collection. The Academy Film Archive restored Corman's film The Masque of the Red Death in 2019.