Sam Cohn
Encyclopedia
Samuel Charles Cohn was a talent agent
at International Creative Management
, a firm he helped create, in the borough
of Manhattan
in New York City.
Cohn has been described as one of the most powerful agents in the 1970s and 1980s, and had an extensive client list that included top stars in theater
and film
. Some of his most well-known clients included Paul Newman
, Woody Allen
, Meryl Streep
, Liza Minnelli
, Whoopi Goldberg
, Dianne Wiest
, Jackie Gleason
, Dame Maggie Smith, Robert Altman
, and E.L. Doctorow. Time
magazine called Cohn "the first superagent of the modern age".
. His father, grandfather and uncle operated a company called Independent Oil Company of Pennsylvania that marketed refined petroleum products, and was later sold to Standard Oil of New York.
Cohn attended the Culver Military Academy
in Indiana, and earned a bachelors degree in English
and German literature
from Princeton University
. He enrolled in Yale Law School
, but put his legal studies on hold to join the Army
and served in Japan
at the end of the Korean War
. He completed his law degree in 1956.
, and as a lawyer and business executive at Goodson-Todman, producer
of game show
s including The Price Is Right
. He was also a lawyer for a small agency, General Artists Corporation, which, through a series of acquisitions and mergers, evolved first into a larger agency called Creative Management Associates, and then, in 1974, into ICM.
A lengthy 1982 profile by Mark Singer in The New Yorker
(reprinted in a later book by Singer) described Cohn's career and personality in detail. Cohn was known for lunching at New York's Russian Tea Room
almost every day, his habit of eating paper
, and his strong preference for New York over Los Angeles, which is unusual among major motion picture agents. Cohn was also famously difficult to reach on the phone. His obituaries in the two leading entertainment industry trade newspapers
both mentioned that he was "the most difficult man in the business to get on the phone", and in his New Yorker profile, Singer repeated an industry joke that Cohn's tombstone would read, "Here lies Sam Cohn. He'll get back to you."
The character Arnold Moss, a paper-eating talent agent based on Cohn, was created by Nora Ephron
and portrayed by Dan Aykroyd
in Ephron's 1992 film This Is My Life
.
Cohn's client list and influence waned in later years, and in 1999 he left his position as the head of ICM's New York office. He remained a member of ICM's board of directors until 2005, and continued to work at ICM until retiring in early 2009. The Variety
article reporting his retirement noted: "Hanging onto his trademark ways to the very end, Cohn did not return a call from Daily Variety for comment."
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
at International Creative Management
International Creative Management
International Creative Management is a talent and literary agency with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London. ICM is a full-service agency representing creative and technical talent in the fields of motion pictures, television, fiction and nonfiction publishing, music, live performance,...
, a firm he helped create, in the borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City.
Cohn has been described as one of the most powerful agents in the 1970s and 1980s, and had an extensive client list that included top stars in theater
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and film
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
. Some of his most well-known clients included Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
, Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
, Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest
Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...
, Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
, Dame Maggie Smith, Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
, and E.L. Doctorow. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine called Cohn "the first superagent of the modern age".
Early life
Cohn was born in Altoona, PennsylvaniaAltoona, Pennsylvania
-History:A major railroad town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop complex. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3, 1867, and February 8, 1868...
. His father, grandfather and uncle operated a company called Independent Oil Company of Pennsylvania that marketed refined petroleum products, and was later sold to Standard Oil of New York.
Cohn attended the Culver Military Academy
Culver Academies
The Culver Academies is a college preparatory boarding school and summer camp in the United States. The Culver Academies is composed of three entities: Culver Military Academy for boys, Culver Girls Academy , and the Culver Summer Schools and Camps . Collectively known as Culver Academies located...
in Indiana, and earned a bachelors degree in English
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
and German literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. He enrolled in Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
, but put his legal studies on hold to join the Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and served in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
at the end of the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. He completed his law degree in 1956.
Career
He worked his way up through the television industry with stints as a television producer, as a lawyer at CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
, and as a lawyer and business executive at Goodson-Todman, producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
of game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
s including The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right (U.S. game show)
The Price Is Right is an American game show which was created by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman. Contestants compete to identify the pricing of merchandise to win cash and prizes. The show is well-known for its signature line of "Come on down!" when the announcer directs newly selected contestants to...
. He was also a lawyer for a small agency, General Artists Corporation, which, through a series of acquisitions and mergers, evolved first into a larger agency called Creative Management Associates, and then, in 1974, into ICM.
A lengthy 1982 profile by Mark Singer in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
(reprinted in a later book by Singer) described Cohn's career and personality in detail. Cohn was known for lunching at New York's Russian Tea Room
Russian Tea Room
The Russian Tea Room is a restaurant in New York City, located at 150 West 57th Street between Carnegie Hall Tower and Metropolitan Tower.-History:...
almost every day, his habit of eating paper
Xylophagia
Xylophagia is a condition involving the consumption of wood. It is one form of the eating disorder known as pica. People who suffer from this eating disorder usually consume things like paper, pencils, tree bark or other items made of wood...
, and his strong preference for New York over Los Angeles, which is unusual among major motion picture agents. Cohn was also famously difficult to reach on the phone. His obituaries in the two leading entertainment industry trade newspapers
Trade journal
A trade magazine, also called a professional magazine, is a magazine published with the intention of target marketing to a specific industry or type of trade. The collective term for this area of publishing is the trade press....
both mentioned that he was "the most difficult man in the business to get on the phone", and in his New Yorker profile, Singer repeated an industry joke that Cohn's tombstone would read, "Here lies Sam Cohn. He'll get back to you."
The character Arnold Moss, a paper-eating talent agent based on Cohn, was created by Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, journalist, author, and blogger.She is best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay; for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally... and Sleepless in...
and portrayed by Dan Aykroyd
Dan Aykroyd
Daniel Edward "Dan" Aykroyd, CM is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, winemaker and ufologist. He was an original cast member of Saturday Night Live, an originator of The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters and has had a long career as a film actor and screenwriter.-Early...
in Ephron's 1992 film This Is My Life
This is My Life (film)
This Is My Life is a 1992 film that marked the directorial debut of screenwriter Nora Ephron. The screenplay, written by Ephron and her sister, Delia Ephron, is based on the book, This Is Your Life, by Meg Wolitzer. The film tells the story of Dottie Ingels , who works at a cosmetics counter but...
.
Cohn's client list and influence waned in later years, and in 1999 he left his position as the head of ICM's New York office. He remained a member of ICM's board of directors until 2005, and continued to work at ICM until retiring in early 2009. The Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
article reporting his retirement noted: "Hanging onto his trademark ways to the very end, Cohn did not return a call from Daily Variety for comment."