Roger Corman’s Fearless Biographer

If it weren’t for Roger Corman, I wouldn’t be a biographer today. But I am – and I’ve joined the company of a lot of smart folks. One is Dona Munker, who kindly invited me onto her “Stalking the Elephant” blog, which covers not big-game hunting but the writing of biography. I provided ten tips, the first of which reads: “In starting out, scour your life for a subject you are in a unique position to explore. When writing a biography, consider making your own relationship with the central figure a part of the story.” Good advice, if I do say so myself.

My first book, the tastefully titled Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers, begins in the personal realm: “I first laid eyes on veteran Hollywood filmmaker Roger Corman in the summer of 1973, when he interviewed me for a job as his assistant.” I had a great anecdote from that meeting, and an even more telling one from the day I learned he was replacing me, both to help out a needy former staffer and to save the difference between her salary and my own.

Throughout most of my Corman book, though, I stayed in the background. Because this was Roger’s story, not mine, I never spelled out how hard he tried to take charge of my project. But since I’m now persona non grata in the Corman world -— barred from any film documentary or DVD commentary over which he has control —- it seems high time to set the record straight.

When I told Roger in 1998 that I had a contract for a book about him, he had a ready response: “I would be happy to cooperate with you in any possible way, as long as you can reassure me that this book will be largely favorable.” Taken aback by his bluntness, I stammered that I had spent wonderful years in his employ, and hoped to bring that spirit to the book. Soon afterward he handed down an ultimatum: he wanted my publisher and me to sign a legal document allowing him to read my book in manuscript and remove anything he considered “derogatory.” Obviously, this was not the ideal way to do biography, especially since I knew from experience that Roger could be prickly about his public image. I let a few weeks pass, then wrote a polite letter explaining that of all the lessons I’d learned from him over the years, one of the most valuable was the importance of artistic independence.

Roger didn’t give up easily. Once my research was well underway, he phoned to say he had told various celebrity alumni not to speak to me, because he’d heard my book was to be “a hatchet job.” No, I said, it was intended as an objective study, worthy of the finest libraries in the land. My answer pleased him, I think, but I asked no favors. Because by then I grasped that Roger would never be satisfied until he had reshaped my book to his best advantage. (Earlier biographers, eager to be hired onto Corman movies, had willingly agreed to his demands.) I wrote the biography my way, and was gratified by the number of Cormanites who insisted my book had come far closer than any other to capturing the essence of a very complex man.

I’m sorry that in its aftermath, Roger has seen fit to shun me. But I’m proud my book sits on the shelf of the Library of Congress, and in many of our best libraries. Artistic independence, it seems, does pay off.