A pioneer of independent cinema, Roger Corman is a fascinating study in contrasts. As the original King of the Exploitation Film, he has filled his movies with images of blood-sucking vampires, rampaging biker gangs, vigilante strippers, and abducting aliens, all while producing each of his four-hundred-plus films on a shoestring budget and making a profit on nearly every one. In the process, Corman became the role model for today’s independent filmmaker. This guru with a vision has also demonstrated an uncanny eye for talent, being among the first to recognize and employ the abilities of Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, John Sayles, and James Cameron to name but a few. Through interviews with eighty of Corman’s friends and associates and photographs, Beverly Gray takes you behind the cameras and into the heart of Cormanville for a firsthand, insider’s look at the man and the mogul, providing a compelling private and public perspective on this soft-spoken giant of the cinema.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"...an absorbing peek into a unique era in motion picture history . . . a must for anyone who loves movies." -- Mel Welles, actor in several Corman films
"Beverly Gray nails both sides of the complex Corman, the tame and the wild, the cheap and the generous..." -- Chuck Griffith, screenwriter for Little Shop of Horrors
"Gray's sensitive combination of scholarly detachment and firsthand observation have made [Corman] come alive in all his wily brilliance." -- L.A. Weekly
"Kudos to Gray for her exhaustive work on the pop-culture icon who's given us all years of guilty cinematic pleasure" -- Total Movie
"[Corman's] supreme talent is a rare ability to liberate talent in others. He liberated an excellent film historian in Gray." -- L.A. Weekly
"Beverly Gray nails both sides of the complex Corman, the tame and the wild, the cheap and the generous..." -- Chuck Griffith, screenwriter for Little Shop of Horrors
"Gray's sensitive combination of scholarly detachment and firsthand observation have made [Corman] come alive in all his wily brilliance." -- L.A. Weekly
"Kudos to Gray for her exhaustive work on the pop-culture icon who's given us all years of guilty cinematic pleasure" -- Total Movie
"[Corman's] supreme talent is a rare ability to liberate talent in others. He liberated an excellent film historian in Gray." -- L.A. Weekly
About the Author
Beverly Gray was story editor and development executive at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons Pictures, collaborating on some 170 low-budget films. As an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern California, she taught fiction into film courses. Currently she’s an instructor for UCLA Extension’s screenwriting program as well as a freelance journalist for entertainment industry publications, including the Hollywood Reporter. In 2003, she published Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond. She lives in Santa Monica, California.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "must" for all Roger Corman fans!,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking (Hardcover)
Roger Corman is a Hollywood movie making legend in his own lifetime. What is sometimes overlooked is that he was also responsible for launching the film making careers of such luminaries as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, and Sylvester Stallone. Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography Of The Godfather Of Indie Filmmaking is the thorough, informative, illuminating, at times inspiring life of a unique, one-of-a-kind film directors who has fifty low-budget movies to his credit, and who has producers almost five hundred more! This is one well-written, meticulously researched Hollywood biography that is a "must read" for all movie fans, film buffs, and show business historians.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book About Moviemaking,
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This review is from: Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking (Hardcover)
Usually, these unauthorized bios of entertainment industry figures are either slick, superficial rehashes of newspaper articles cobbled together by pseudo-writers or vicious hack-jobs by bitter ex-employees out for blood. Not this one. Beverly Gray's book is a wonderfully written, methodically researched, indepth look at a movie-making legend, written by an ex-employee who manages to portray her former boss with warmth, wit and surprising objectivity. Gray's background in academia really comes through, not in the dry, textbook writing usually associated with scholars, but in the intelligence and smoothness of her prose. This book is as educational as it is entertaining, marked by exceptional reporting and insightful anecdotes from her first-hand experience as Corman's right-hand woman. You'll learn far more about Roger Corman from her book than the one he wrote about himself. Highly recommended for anyone interested in movie-making...and the business behind the business.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kudos from Creating Characters author Marisa D'Vari,
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This review is from: Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers (Paperback)
This fascinating "biography" is really a savvy "how to" book that belongs on the shelf of every screenwriter, aspiring producer, director, and development executive -- and everyone else who loves films and craves to know the secrets of Hollywood's most colorful mogul.
I found it fun to read as a realistic "behind the scenes" glimpse of what it takes to be a profitable mogul, such as the way Corman hired young cheap "promising" talent instead of going for experience. Directors fresh out of film school reading this book, for example, can get a good feel for the mindset and financial situation of producers they interview with. Screenwriters will learn how Corman and team (Gray had been his development executive) managed to write and produce so many successful films quickly. Few books reveal the inner machinations of a successful producer so intimately. Gray, a screenwriting teacher at UCLA, has done a spectacular job of showcasing the life story of an intruiging man through more than eighty interviews and via her own experience.
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