Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) 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 low budget films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Admired by members of the French New Wave and Cahiers du cinéma, 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 Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese and James Cameron. 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 (2004) 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. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.