The Variety article gives a fairly good summary, but this one feels personal.
Let’s start with Targets, a film I always talk up. It’s Peter Bogdanovich’s first film that happened because Corman had some unused footage with Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff, and Karloff still owed him a few days of shooting for a contract. Corman told Bogdanovich if he could work those two things in, he could make a picture.
There’s also the careers he helped start or rejuvenate:
After “Little Shop of Horrors” in 1960, Corman convinced Arkoff to bankroll some more ambitious projects, in particular, a series of films based on the works of one of Corman’s favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. The horror series, which starting with “The Fall of the House of Usher” in 1960, spawned eight low-budget hits including “The Tomb of Ligeia” and “The Masque of Red Death.” They revived the careers of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre and became classics of a kind.
During the same period he was giving unknown actors like Ellen Burstyn, Nicholson and De Niro, screenwriters like Robert Towne and directors like Scorsese, Demme, Joe Dante and Peter Bogdanovich their starts.
– Variety obituary (emphasis mine)
And he produced plenty of movies I watched during my MST3K/renting horror movies with friends era. I can still quote parts of Death Race 2000.
I don’t think there’s a world where I love movies as much as I do without Roger Corman.
This Builds Character 