Harry Cohn

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Harry Cohn at the 1938 Academy Awards

Harry Cohn (born July 23, 1891 in New York City , New York , † February 27, 1958 in Phoenix , Arizona ) was an American film producer . Cohn was one of the founders of the Columbia Pictures film studio and was the studio's boss until his death.

Life

Harry Cohn was one of five children of a German-Jewish tailor who emigrated to the USA . After a few jobs, including as part of a vaudeville act, Cohn switched to the film business. His brother Jack Cohn has worked in New York for the Independent Motion Picture Company of Carl Laemmle . There Jack had directed the production of the first full-length film Traffic in Souls . Harry also came to Laemmle through Jack and had been sent to Hollywood as his secretary at Universal City . The engagement lasted only a short time, then the two brothers Jack and Harry Cohn decided to set up their own film company together with their lawyer friend Joe Brandt. This is how CBC Film Sales came into being in New York in 1919 .

Harry Cohn soon moved back to Hollywood to oversee the initially small film productions of CBC. The company headquarters was in one of the less attractive areas of Hollywood, which is why it was also called Poverty Row . The company was renamed Columbia Pictures Corporation on January 10, 1924 . The studio was not financially well equipped, so that the founders decided, contrary to the trend at the time, expressly not to acquire their own cinema chain. This saved Columbia from the major financial problems that primarily affected Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers due to their high-deficit cinema chains during the Great Depression .

Harry Cohn ruled the studio unusually autocratic, even by Hollywood standards. His lack of manners, the complete disregard for the most elementary rules of politeness in dealing with others as well as constant harassment of female employees quickly made Cohn one of the most hated men in the entire film industry. At the same time, he was an excellent financial professional who managed to run Columbia as the only film studio until 1958 without a loss.

Gradually, the studio's reputation rose over the years, and in 1927, Cohn produced The Blood Ship, the first ever heavily budgeted film. At the same time, director Frank Capra managed to generate prestige and financial success for Columbia with his films . At least since It happened in one night , which in 1934 was the first film ever to win all five so-called main Oscars , Columbia has been one of the A studios. After Barbara Stanwyck successfully sued the studio for more money in 1931 and soon after found better working conditions at Warner Brothers , Jean Arthur was the only star for Columbia for a long time . The arguments between Cohn and Arthur were so bad in 1944 that after the termination of her contract, the actress ran across the studio premises and shouted:

"Now I'm Free!" Now I'm Free! "
"Now I'm free! Now I'm free!"

Screenwriter Ben Hecht nicknamed Cohn White Fang , and actor Ronald Colman returned to witness the prosecution in 1942 on the condition that he would under no circumstances have any personal contact with Harry Cohn for filming . Another well-known victim was Katharine Hepburn , who was personally blamed by Cohn for Holiday's financial failure in 1938. Until his death, the actress received no more offers from Columbia .

But there were exceptions: Carole Lombard , who first shot for the studio in 1932, was snapped at by the studio boss while working on Virtue because of her hair color.

"Change it! You look like a whore! " (" Change that! You look like a whore! ")

The intrepid Lombard returned:

“If anyone knows what a whore looks like, you do!” ( “If anyone knows what a whore looks like , then you!”)

After that, the two got along very well.

Somewhat surprising was Cohn's predilection for Irene Dunne , an actress known for her religiosity and impeccable lifestyle. The two had gotten along excellently since they first met in 1936, and Cohn always treated the star kindly. When Dunne found increasingly difficult roles in the mid-1940s, it was Cohn who helped her career with two lavishly produced comedies ( Together Again and Over 21 ) to new prestige. Loretta Young , who was blacklisted in mid-1939 after a dispute with her old 20th Century Fox studio and received no more offers, got work again from Cohn and made a comeback with The Doctor's Wife in 1940.

When the lost monopoly position and the rise of television brought the big studios into crisis in the 1950s, Cohns Columbia was also affected, but he held the reins as one of the last great Hollywood moguls of the studio system until his death his hand. Harry Cohn died unexpectedly of a heart attack in February 1958 at the age of 66. He was married to the actress Joan Perry in his second marriage from 1941 until his death ; they had two sons and an adopted daughter. At Cohn's well-attended funeral, Red Skelton allegedly uttered the later famous sentence: "It shows what Harry always said: You give people what they want and they get out for it." ( It proves what Harry always said: Give the public what they want and they'll come out for it. ). However, it is uncertain whether this black humor sentence was ever uttered. Cohn is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery .

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Unspeakable images: Ethnicity and the American cinema
  2. ^ Time Inc: LIFE . Time Inc, June 10, 1957 ( google.de [accessed April 17, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Obituary: Joan Perry. October 2, 1996, accessed April 17, 2020 .
  4. ^ Give the People What They Want and They'll Come. In: quoteinvestigator.com. December 6, 2014, accessed April 17, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Cohn, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film producer
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1958
Place of death Phoenix , Arizona