Charles B. Griffith - Biography

Biography

Griffith was born into a family of actors and performers: his mother and grandmother were actors, his father was in vaudeville and his grandfather was a circus performer. His mother died in childbirth in 1941, and Griffith was raised by his grandmother and attended military school. He broke into the industry writing scripts for the radio serial, Myrt and Marge, in which his mother and grandmother had appeared as actors, then worked on the TV adaptation which did not eventuate.

Griffith began writing film scripts, which an actor friend of his, Jonathan Haze showed to Roger Corman, who hired Griffith as a writer. He wrote two Westerns for Corman that were not made before being hired to do an uncredited rewrite on It Conquered the World. He received his debut credit with Gunslinger (1955).

For the next six years Griffith was Corman's most regular screenwriter. He wrote several of his early scripts with a partner, Mark Hanna, although Griffith later claimed that he did most of the writing while Hanna did the selling.

Following his success with Corman, Columbia Pictures signed Griffith to a five-picture contract as producer and director. He made two films, directing one, but did not enjoy the experience:

They were really terrible. It stopped me for twenty years from ever directing again. They were really rank. You see, I got chicken and started to write very safely within a formula to please the major studios, and of course, you can't do that.

Griffith soon returned to Corman. He was paid just $800 for his most famous script, The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Griffith admits to copying the structure of this film from his earlier Bucket of Blood (1959). He also says he reused the structure he developed for Naked Paradise (1957) on Beast from Haunted Cave (1958), Ski Troop Attack (1959), Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) and Atlas (1962). Griffith says he was hurt that Roger Corman elected Richard Matheson to write House of Usher (1960).

In 1960 Griffith produced an Arab-Israeli war film with regular collaborator Mel Welles but they were picketed by unions and had to shut down. Griffith and Melles sued the union and settled out of court. Griffith moved to Israel to finish the movie but was unable to. He wound up living there for two years, writing a couple of films before Corman rehired him to work on the crew of The Young Racers (1963).

Griffith spent the next few years in Europe, working for Roger Corman and also with Michael Reeves before moving back to Hollywood. He worked for Corman sporadically until the late 1980s, as a writer, director and second unit director.

"I was lazy," he admitted later. "Instead of trying to write an A-picture and sell it on the market, I'd just go back and get another assignment from Roger."

From the 1980s onwards Griffith concentrated on writing books and travelling as opposed to writing screenplays.