Roger Corman may be the most important figure in American movies of the past 50 years…and yet the prolific B-movie producer has never become a household name. Still, the impressive roster of famous actors and directors to whom the exploitation maestro gave starts in the business is legendary, loaded with Hollywood luminaries like Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, and James Cameron.

In his outrageously illustrated new book, Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses, Entertainment Weekly movie critic Chris Nashawaty interviews both Corman and his A-list alumni and gets them to open up about their earliest Hollywood memories making low-budget (often times ridiculously cheesy) movies for the drive-in demigod.

Here, Nashawaty takes a look back at some of the biggest names in the business… before they were stars.

Next Jack Nicholson