Beverly Gray has spent her career fluctuating between the world of the intellect and show biz. As she was completing her doctorate in Contemporary American Fiction at UCLA, she surprised everyone (including herself) by taking a job with B-movie maven Roger Corman. At down-and-dirty New World Pictures, she edited scripts, wrote publicity material, cast voice actors, supervised a looping session, and tried her hand at production. She collaborated with such rising directors as Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, and Paul Bartel, and thought up the twist ending to a cult classic, Death Race 2000. Leaving New World for academia, Beverly also found time to write about theatre and film for Performing Arts magazine, Theatre Crafts, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Then Roger Corman beckoned once again. Beverly went on to spend eight years at Concorde-New Horizons Pictures as Corman’s story editor and development expert, overseeing the making of 170 low-budget features. Some of these were family-friendly, others decidedly not. Along the way she earned six screenwriting credits and played several cameo roles, in all of which she kept her clothes on.

We are spending too little time now speaking with Beverly regarding her foray into the world of B Movies

(1) How did you come to work with Roger Corman?

While I was finishing my PhD in twentieth-century American fiction at UCLA, I decided to get involved with the school paper, the Daily Bruin. My big interest was theatre, but the snobbish editor of the Arts section decreed that, as a neophyte, I should go to the movies instead. I found I enjoyed writing film reviews, as a change of pace from working on scholarly papers. One day I got a phone call from a favorite professor. He was the head of the campus chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and someone named Roger Corman had contacted him, looking for an assistant. I went to Roger’s office on the Sunset Strip, promised to read and discuss with him Siegfried Kracauer’s Theory of Film, and was almost immediately hired. Years later I discovered that Stan Berkowitz, a colleague on the Bruin, had also interviewed for that job. Stan was completing an advanced film degree, but I had several advantages: my PhD trumped his Master’s Degree, and also I was female. Remarkably enough, Roger often prefers to hire women, and he loves intellectuals with fancy academic credentials. (Stan went to work for Russ Meyer about the same time that I started my New World job. Russ Meyer –the original King Leer — would never have been my boss of choice!) By the way, before going to work at New World, I read Siegfried Kracauer’s Theory of Film from cover to cover, but Roger never mentioned it again.

(2) You’re an educated woman. What would compel you to work in the sordid world of B Movies?

From my very first day, when I was handed the script of Cockfighter, I knew I had arrived in a place that was very different from academia. I never had a problem with our subject matter, nor with the titillating posters that covered our walls. (“It’s always harder at night for the Night Call Nurses!” “Keep abreast of the medical world with the Candy Stripe Nurses!”) Frankly, I learned that I loved the raw energy of low-budget moviemaking. It was certainly a lot more fun than high-brow literature. And at New World you had the opportunity to try so many things: developing scripts, writing publicity material, casting, production, even playing a cameo role. My first Corman years were also very special in that, while making car-crash movies and women-in-prison flicks, we were also distributing masterworks by Fellini and Ingmar Bergman. We on Corman’s staff were a whole lot smarter than our often-tawdry material, and sometimes it seemed as though we were all in on a big, marvelous joke.

(3) What was your favorite film experience while with Corman?

There are so many to choose from! Thinking back to the early days, I have fond memories of working with Chuck Griffith, Paul Bartel, and Frances Doel on the script of Death Race 2000. We spent hours inventing creative ways that our hero could run down pedestrians without losing the audience’s sympathy. And I’m proud to say that I personally came up with the film’s twist ending, which put me in Roger’s good graces for a while. I also remember going on location to then-rural Temecula, California as the production secretary on Big Bad Mama, and driving through the hinterlands late at night with Paul Bartel (the future creator of Eating Raoul), looking for the gourmet restaurant he was sure was out there somewhere. One more early memory: when Roger decided to distribute a futuristic French-language animated film called La Planète Sauvage (we re-named it Fantastic Planet), I helped to cast such wonderful old-time radio actors as Olan Soulé and Janet Waldo for the English-language version. Then, with absolutely no background in sound recording, I helped direct the looping session.

(4) What was the wackiest experience while working with Corman?

As Roger’s story editor I had plenty of wacky times at Concorde-New Horizons, in the company of filmmakers like Jim Wynorski. (Jim, of course, is a subject unto himself.) But I’ll focus here on a specifically Roger story. One day I walked into his office. He was seated behind his big glass desk, with an amused smile on his face. Perched on top of the desk were several ballerinas in full Swan Lake regalia. It was, I discovered, a photo shoot for GQ magazine, and an article would soon appear with the headline, “Shocker! Horror-Meister Roger Corman’s Favorite ‘B’ Work is Ballet.” Roger, it seems, had been approached by a journalist trying to discover a Corman interest that readers might find surprising. He recalled that, as a young man in Paris without much command of the language, he’d taken dates to the ballet.

Then there was the time my whole family appeared in a costume party scene in Munchie (even though none of us had gone through hair and makeup yet) . . . but don’t get me started!

(5) The first five words that come to mind when you think of Roger Corman?

Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster

More recently, Beverly has returned to both teaching and journalism. She has covered the entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter, and leads screenwriting workshops for UCLA Extension’s world-renowned Writers’ Program.
Beverly’s first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, debuted in the #4 spot on the Los Angeles Times hardcover non-fiction bestseller list. It was hailed by critics from coast to coast. She next published Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond, then followed up with an expanded paperback edition of the Corman bio, released under the new, improved title Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers.

Beverly is a popular speaker on topics ranging from the art of biography to the secrets of low-budget filmmaking. She’s working to update her Corman bio, while also researching the films of the Sixties and their impact on the Baby Boom generation. Her blog, “Beverly in Movieland,” explores movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent.

for More Beverly please go to:

www.beverlygray.com
www.BeverlyinMovieland.com