Roger Corman

Often called the King of B-Movies, Roger Corman has been making low-budget movies since the 1950s. A screenwriter, producer, director and distributor (and sometime actor), Corman is considered the godfather of independent moviemaking, known for tiny budgets, assembly-line production (some of his movies were shot in two or three days) and his reputation for making a profit. He made movies with a little sex and a little violence and some sort of gimmick: from gangsters, bikers and hippies to women in prison, monsters from outer space and creatures from beyond the grave. His filmography includes cult classics such as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Caged Heat (1974), Death Race 2000 (1975, with David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone) and Android (1982). Among the many who started out with Corman: actors Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, and directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.