Gene Corman

Gene Corman, the younger brother of producer/director Roger Corman, has enjoyed a significant career as a producer, both in association with his brother and independent of him. Born Eugene Harold Corman in Detroit, MI, he considered law and medicine as careers before choosing a major in social sciences. Both brothers were ambitious and had hopes of succeeding in the entertainment industry, but Gene Corman was first to make those aspirations tangible, getting hired after college by Music Corporation of America (better known today as MCA), which was then a talent agency. According to Beverly Gray in her 2000 book, Roger Corman, it was Gene who helped put his brother -- then producing a low-budget sci-fi thriller called Monster From the Ocean Floor -- in contact with distributor Robert L. Lippert, whose company put up the advance to the get movie made. Once Roger was set up in business, Gene joined him as a producer on several early projects, including exploitation movies such as Hot Car Girl and the horror titles as Night of the Blood Beast (for which he also provided the story), Attack of the Giant Leeches, and Beast From Haunted Cave.

Gene Corman continued to be involved with his brother's productions into the 1960s, including The Intruder (1961) -- arguably the best (and certainly the most serious) movie that Roger Corman ever made -- and Tower of London (1962); but as the decade progressed, Gene moved into slightly different categories of film, including the beach movie titles The Girls on the Beach and Beach Ball, and Ski Party, an offshoot of AIP's "Beach Party" movies. By 1967, Gene had taken a leap up to a higher tier of production with the World War II action drama Tobruk, starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard. From the late '60s onward, Gene's career criss-crossed that of his brother's. He served as producer on Roger's remake of The Maltese Falcon, entitled Target: Harry, but he was also the producer of MGM's all-black cast remake of The Asphalt Jungle, Cool Breeze (1972). His later work as a producer included F.I.S.T. (1978), starring Sylvester Stallone, the made-for-television religious drama Mary and Joseph: A Story of Faith (1979), and Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One (1980), which was something of a career-defining movie for the director. During the 1980s, Corman was the producer of the high-profile television miniseries A Woman Called Golda (1982). Gene Corman has run his own production company and also served as a vice president of 20th Century Fox in their television division.

~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide