Harry Cohn

Harry Cohn was a mogul in the motion picture production industry. He was dedicated to the goal of making each motion picture better than the one before. He towered over everyone in authority and involved himself in all aspects of a production, from story conception to the final screening. With the enormous effort he put in, he was able to create many films that show great achievement as art. Cohn began by producing and distributing short subjects. He always seemed one step ahead of the film industry, eventually becoming the head of a studio that he raised from poverty to one of the major studios. He had strong opinions and had a great influence on his own company as well as on the industry in Hollywood.

Cohn was born on New York's East Side on July 23, 1881. He was the son of an immigrant tailor. He quit school early and worked at jobs such as chorus boy in the play "The Fatal Wedding," shipping clerk for a music publishing house, fur salesman, and pool hustler. In 1912, he joined Harry Ruby in a vaudeville act. Meanwhile, Cohn's brother Jack had been working his way up the ladder for Carl Laemmle, whose company became Universal. In 1913, Jack edited Traffic in Souls, which was the first feature-length film. The profits were so great--$450,000, and the film cost only $5,700 to make--that Laemmle decided to go out to Hollywood and open Universal City. Jack's success at Universal prompted Harry to go there in 1918 with his idea for silent song shorts. The brot

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ppened One Night, in 1934, which received five. From Here to Eternity, which set a record for Columbia for receiving the most Academy Awards for a single production, won eight, which was equalled by On the Waterfront in 1954. Other pictures which received Best Picture for Columbia were You Can't Take It with You in 1938 and All the King's Men. Other films made under Cohn at Columbia were One Night of Love, The Awful Truth, Lost Horizon, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Cover Girl, A Song to Remember, The Jolson Story, Jolson Sings Again, Picnic, The Eddie Duchin Story, and The Solid Gold Cadillac. The Jolson Story was Columbia's first blockbuster and helped to make Cohn as powerful as the major studio heads. Cohn's hard method of dealing with people led to many lawsuits, including those by Rita Hayworth and Charles Vidor, the director. He would hire and fire people at will. Once, at a Christmas party, he asked a secretary whom she disliked most at the studio, and Cohn immediately fired him. Cohn was able to set a lot of records during his life: box office records, company profits, gambling losses ($400,000 in a season). For every star or director he lured to the studio, he drove two away. He wanted to dominate the professiona

Category: Film - H