Quiz

In the mid-'30s Cohn hired a relatively unknown cowboy actor, John Wayne, for a several-picture contract at Columbia with its "B" western unit. Cohn, a married man, soon got the idea that Wayne had made a pass at a Columbia starlet with whom Cohn was having an affair. When he confronted Wayne about it Wayne denied it, but Cohn called up executives at other studios and told them that Wayne would show up for work drunk, was a womanizer and a troublemaker and requested that they not hire him. Wayne didn't work for several months afterward, and when he discovered what Cohn had done, he burst into Cohn's office at Columbia, grabbed him by the neck and threatened to kill him. After he cooled off he told Cohn that "You son of a bitch, as long as I live I will never work one day for you or Columbia no matter how much you offer me." Later, after Wayne had become a major star, he received several lucrative film offers from Columbia, including the lead in Romantico avventuriero (1950) (which was later made by 20th Century-Fox with Gregory Peck in the role), all of which he turned down cold. Even after Cohn died in 1958, Wayne still refused all offers from Columbia Pictures, including several that would have paid him more than a million dollars.

It was absolutely no secret that many people loathed Harry Cohn, but Cohn actually enjoyed his reputation of being the most hated man in Hollywood. In February 1958 when he died, the classic comment (usually attributed to Red Skelton) upon seeing the large number of people showing up for Cohn's funeral: "Give the people what they want, and they'll turn out for it!" When a member of the Temple asked the Rabbi to say "one good thing" about the deceased, he paused and said "He's dead".

The career of Oscar-winning screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who achieved cinematic immortality writing Quarto potere (1941) for Orson Welles, was effectively scuttled by his alcoholism. By the end of the 1930s he had been reduced to working for Columbia Pictures, a former Poverty Row studio turned into a major because of the huge success of movies directed by Frank Capra. Despite the wealth brought into the studio by Capra, it was a stingy place and the bottom of the barrel for a self-respecting screenwriter, a last stop before actually falling off the map in Hollywood. Mankiewicz had been fired by almost every other studio in Hollywood and was, by the late 1930s, a "ruined man," according to fellow screenwriter F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cohn was known for getting talent discarded by the major studios at bargain prices, and he signed Mankiewicz for $750 a week. On his part Mankiewicz was contrite, but Columbia producer William Perlberg, knowing Mankiewicz was an alcoholic with a sharp tongue who enjoyed baiting his bosses, banned him from the executive dining room in an effort to head off trouble. However, one day Mankiewicz defied the ban and wound up sitting at a table with Cohn and other executives. Cohn started the conversation with: "Last night I saw the lousiest picture I've seen in years." After mentioning the title, one producer reported that he had seen it with an audience and they had loved it. He suggested that maybe Cohn would have had a different reaction if he had seen it with an audience. Cohn replied, "That doesn't make any difference. When I'm alone in a projection room, I have a foolproof device for judging whether a picture is good or bad. If my fanny squirms, it's bad. If my fanny doesn't squirm, it's good. It's as simple as that." There was a momentary silence, which was broken by Mankiewicz. "Imagine," he said to the other members of the table. "The whole world wired to Harry Cohn's ass!" Mankiewicz was once again out of a job and eventually wound up writing scripts for Welles' Mercury Theater on the radio.

Harry Cohn was rude and used obscene language with his employees but was very generous in the same time, never hesitating to pay hospital bills when one of his company members was sick or had a relative ill.

His favourite hobby was to fire loyal employees on Xmas Eve.

His women contract players were expected to be at his beck and call. Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford and Kim Novak were 3 that rejected him. Joan is said, after signing a 3 picture deal, to have pushed him off her and stopped him by saying 'Harry I'm having lunch with Joan and the boys(his wife and sons) tomorrow.

He was probably the model for the fictional film producer Jack Woltz in the film The Godfather who wakes up next to a severed horse's head.

Under Harry Cohn's leadership, Columbia Pictures posted profits for 38 consecutive years (1920 to 1958). To date this record has been broken by only one Hollywood studio, the Walt Disney Co. (39 years, 1980 to 2019).

Harry Cohn is interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Section 8, Lot 86, between the lake and the entrance to the Cathedral Mausoleum. He chose the large family property himself. "I picked out a great plot", he said. "It's right by the water, and I can see the studio [Columbia Pictures] from here". Cohn's above-ground tomb has a cross entwined with a Star of David. He was not religiously observant and there is no evidence he converted from Judaism to Christianity, but he had an attraction to Catholicism. Both his wives were Catholics, and he allowed his second wife, Joan Perry, to raise their children in the Catholic church. The inscriptions on his crypt were ordered by Perry.

He was known as the meanest mogul in Hollywood.

His daughter, Jobella, was born in 1942 to his wife, Joan Perry. She died in infancy. They later had two sons, John Perry Cohn and Harrison Perry Cohn, and a daughter, Catherine Perry Cohn.

Cohn was the subject of countless epithets around Hollywood, but writer Ben Hecht gave him the nickname that stuck: "White Fang". Hecht got it from the titular character (a hybrid wolf-dog) of a Jack London novel.

When someone was told who had turned up for his funeral they commented 'They wanted to make sure that he was dead'.

Brother of Jack Cohn and Nat Cohn

Uncle of Robert Cohn and Ralph Cohn, sons of his brother Jack Cohn.

Appears in the novel "The Vertigo Murders: An Alfred Hitchcock Mystery", by J. Madison Davis.

He used to slash a rising crop across his desk to terrify employees.