Trailblazing independent film director Roger Corman has been ‘berated’ and relentlessly ‘abused’ on an almost daily basis by his wife Julie over financial trusts purportedly worth $100 million set up for their children, shocking court papers have revealed.
Julie’s verbal attacks on her 91-year-old husband – known as the King of the Bs whose classic films include The Pit and the Pendulum and The Little Shop of Horrors – became so ‘extreme’ that several times he became ill as a result, it’s claimed.
The shocking allegations have been made in a legal filing made by the elderly director’s two sons, Brian and Roger.
While Corman’s sons have made the legal filing, both sisters have made it clear that they fully support their parents.
In the documents – obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com – the sons claim their 75-year-old mother Julie has tried to cut them and their two sisters, Mary and Catherine, out of their inheritance by forcing their dad to change several irrevocable trusts he and her had set up.
And in an action which has exposed a huge family rift, the sons are calling for their parents to be evicted from their $16 million California mansion so they can benefit from an expired residential trust agreement.
Legendary director Roger Corman’s children claim that his wife and their mother Julie ‘berated’ and ‘abused’ Corman in order to cut them out of their inheritance in financial trusts estimated at $100m, according to a court petition. Corman and his wife and business partner Julie have been married for 47 years
Corman and his wife and business partner Julie, who have been married 47 years, set up four trusts for their grown children in 2002 and three others had already been set up in the years before.
But, according to the paperwork, Julie began to ‘undermine’ the elderly filmmaker’s wishes for his children and over the years has tried to ‘impose her will’ over him so she is left with a larger share, should he die first.
His two sons claim they have now been cut out of any conversation regarding the trusts and are left wondering whether their inheritance is intact.
The main trusts, known as qualified personal residence trusts (QPRTs), involve the family’s luxury home on posh La Mesa Drive, in Santa Monica, California.
The seven-bedroom, five and one-half bathroom, 6,500 sq ft, two-story property has an estimated worth of between $12.7million and $16million, according to the filing.
It boasts a swimming pool and tennis court and is adjacent to and overlooking the exclusive Riviera Country Club and golf course.
The property sits on ‘one of the most prestigious residential streets in Santa Monica’, according to the documents, and could bring in a rental income of $35,000 a month.
The children are calling for their parents to be evicted from their home in Santa Monica, California (pictured), so they can benefit from an expired residential trust agreement
The seven-bedroom, five and one-half bathroom, 6,500 sq ft, two-story property has an estimated worth of between $12.7million and $16million, according to the filing
There’s also three other financial trusts that will benefit the children established over the years by either Corman or Corman and Julie together.
Brian and Roger claim that in the years after the QPRTs were established their mother began to ‘exhibit a change’ towards her view of the trusts and began to ‘undermine the beneficial interests held by her children.’
His sons accuse Julie of insisting that their father refrain from discussing the family finances with the four children and that she ‘berated’ and ‘abused’ him in a bid to force him to ‘succumb to her wishes’.
According to a sworn statement by the couple’s daughter Mary in 2009, her father had always openly discussed financial matters with her and her siblings because he wanted to prepare them for the future.
But by the time they reached their 20s their mother’s temperament regarding the trusts ‘changed drastically’, the paperwork states.
‘She would yell at my father for no apparent reason and our meetings regularly devolved to such a degree that she would become hysterical and leave,’ Mary wrote.
Mary said her siblings eventually moved out of the family home, leaving her behind and she witnessed her mother’s behavior first-hand, the documents claim.
She became ‘increasingly aware of her verbal attacks against my father’.
Mary, who lives in New York, recalls: ‘After dinners when the trusts were mentioned, she would regularly attack my father later in the evening over his willingness to discuss the trusts with members of the family. This verbal abuse was so extreme that several times my father became physically ill as a result.’
She added: ‘As the years progressed, my mother’s badgering became a nightly occurrence. My mother no longer believed that any of the children should get the distributions my father had wanted to give us.’
Mary said her father would often plead with his wife to stop badgering him and even offered to resign (from the trusts) and give her complete control over their finances if she would stop.
Mary’s sister Catherine gives a similarly shocking account in the documents.
She says her mother wanted to discuss financial decisions regarding the trusts with Corman in secret.
Catherine said in the sworn statement: ‘Her demands for secrecy have grown vastly in recent years, to the point where she stops my father mid-sentence if he is about to discuss our finances with us, and throws tantrums if she finds out he has spoken to us about financial matters.’
Catherine, 42, who now lives in New York, claims that last summer her father told her over lunch that he wanted to make major distributions to his children. He said the same thing to Brian, 40, and Roger, 41.
She added: ‘My mother did not want the distributions made, and stopped him from even discussing the distributions with us, much less making them.
‘In sum, I am extremely concerned by my mother’s words… and actions.., which reveal her not to be acting in our interest but in fact working against the interests of the beneficiaries of the trusts of which she is a trustee.’
Daughters Mary (far right) and Catherine (second to right) both claimed their mother’s ‘verbal abuse was so extreme’ that it caused Corman to become sick and she sometimes directs the ’emotional’ abuse towards the children
Catherine added that her mother often turns her verbal and ’emotional’ abuse on her children.
She recalls an incident in which Julie verbally attacked Mary to the point of tears and when Catherine tried to intervene Julie hit her in the face, leaving a red mark on her face, according to the court documents.
The documents state that Julie’s behavior comes solely down to her belief that her and Corman have been ‘too generous’ towards their children.
Catherine recounts a trip to Paris with her mother ‘several years ago’ during which they stayed at the Ritz Hotel and Julie upgraded them to the expensive F. Scott Fitzgerald Suite.
Catherine commented on the lavish room and Julie responded that ‘she might as well spend the money now since none of it was going her way anyway.’
‘When I asked her what she meant by this, my mother told me that she would only be getting $10million… when my father dies,’ said Catherine in her statement.
‘When I told her not to talk about such things as my father’s death, she said she needed to think about it because by that time she would be in her seventies and that would not be enough money for her to live on.’
She added in the paperwork that later in the trip her mom confided in her that she believed there was too much money in the trusts and she did not believe that ‘children should have more money than their parents’.
The two sons want a judge to determine their rights and obligations as beneficiaries and co-trustees regarding the home where the filmmaker and his wife live.
They seek an order directing the trustees to act ‘solely in the interest of the beneficiaries in connection with the property,’ including that it not be leased for an amount ‘less than the value of the fair market rent for the property.’
And amazingly the children are considering evicting their parents from the family home so they can realize its value.
The documents state: ‘True to form… Julie has refused to vacate the Property.’
It added: ‘As a result, Julie has put the trustees in the unenviable position of either evicting their parents or violating their fiduciary obligations by acceding to Julie’s wishes to lease the Property to her and Roger W. on terms less favorable than those available on the open market.’
In 2009, sons Brian and Roger filed suit against their parents after they were fired from the family production company for asking too many questions about trust accounts.
Roger Corman starred as the FBI director Silence of the Lambs with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins
Corman and his wife and business partner Julie have been married for 47 years
Corman (pictured) has directed some 56 movies and produced 385 in a career spanning six decades. He is known as the King of the Bs whose classic films include The Pit and the Pendulum and The Little Shop of Horrors
The men said they spent 11 years working as vice president of marketing and director of operations, respectively, for their parents’ movie company, Concorde-New Horizons.
In 2008, the brothers say, they began to suspect that money was disappearing from the trust accounts.
Corman has directed some 56 movies and produced 385 in a career spanning six decades and was known for his love of horror and science fiction.
Considered a genius in his field, Corman is credited with mentoring many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorcese, Jonathan Demme and James Cameron.
He also helped to launch the careers of actors Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson.
Corman also appeared on screen, taking on minor roles in the films of directors who started with him, including The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13, The Manchurian Candidate and Philadelphia.
He won an honorary Oscar for his life’s work in 2010.