Roger Corman dies: Tributes hail the director one of the most important figures in film history

One of the most important figures in modern film history has died.

Filmmaker Roger Corman, who championed independent cinema and helped launch the careers of icons like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Frances Ford Coppola and James Cameron, died on May 9 at the age of 98, per Variety.

Known behind the camera for a plethora of B-movies like The Little Shop of Horrors, The Wild Angels and countless Edgar Allen Poe adaptations, Corman pioneered the way small-budget films were made and set the table for many of the pillars of modern Hollywood the industry still leans on.

His “Corman Film School” helped foster the careers of towering figures in the medium, including Scorsese, Coppola, Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Frank Marshall, Gale Anne Hurd, Polly Platt, James Horner, John Sayles, Robert Towne and countless others.

Corman’s productions also gave way for the acting careers of legends like Nicholson, De Niro, Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda, Sandra Bullock, Talia Shire, Tommy Lee Jones and Dennis Hopper, among others.

His impact on the medium is genuinely immeasurable and will continue to live in the future of movies.

His family confirmed his death to Variety on Saturday in a statement: “His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that.’”