A screenwriter and director, Griffith mostly worked for B-movie producer Roger Corman. Griffith wrote the scripts for Corman films such as Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth, A Bucket of Blood, Teenage Doll, Creature from the Haunted Sea, and Rock All Night.
But he’s best known for 1960’s The Little Shop of Horrors, where Griffith also provided the voice for the carnivorous plant, “Audrey Jr.”, who kept urging Seymour to “Feed me!” The film was later adapted into a stage musical, which was then itself adapted back to another successful film. “Griffith’s scripts were very imaginative and often quirky and kind of subversive,” says science fiction film commentator Tom Weaver. “And when you look at any list of Roger Corman’s early pictures, those were the ones that put Corman on the map.” Griffith died at his home on September 28 at 77.