Legendary agent Sam Cohn, who cast a large shadow over the agency business as a whole and ICM in particular, died Wednesday in New York following a brief illness. He was 79.
Cohn, who retired from ICM in February, had a list of clients over the years that was unmatched. Names included Meryl Streep, Woody Allen, Susan Sarandon, Robert Altman, Paul Newman, Mike Nichols and Sigourney Weaver.
His role on Broadway was also significant, having represented influential stage talent like Bob Fosse, Arthur Miller and Arthur Penn.
Cohn started off in 1963 at General Artists Corp., which eventually merged with Creative Management Associates. In 1975, Cohn helped to merge CMA with Intl. Famous Agency, where other top agents like Marvin Josephson, Freddie Fields and Sue Mengers worked.
After ICM was founded, Cohn stayed on the East Coast and ran the agency's New York office for almost 25 years.
Cohn has been a major stockholder at ICM until recently, and last year he cashed out an ownership stake worth millions when ICM recapitalized with investor Suhail Rizvi and Merrill Lynch in 2005.
Born in Altoona, Pa., Cohn graduated from Princeton and Yale Law School. He began his career in the business affairs department of CBS.
He is survived by his wife, Jane Gelfman; son Peter Cohn, a filmmaker; daughter Marya Cohn; and four grandchildren.
In other tributes to Cohn, Bruce Weber wrote in the New York Times:
Mr. Doctorow, a client since the mid-1970s, said Mr. Cohn’s distinction as an agent was that “he worshiped creative people, was in awe of creative minds.”
“It wasn’t just a money thing for him,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It was about the quality of the project and its potential. I wrote a play called ‘Drinks Before Dinner,’ and Sam got Mike Nichols to direct, and Chris Plummer signed on. We did it at the Public Theater” — in 1978 — “and it was all Sam’s work. He was virtually the producer of the play, and he loved to give his opinion: ‘This line is wrong. That has to change.’ ”
Mr. Cohn cut a unique figure in the entertainment business. For one thing, he was a confirmed New Yorker who hated Los Angeles, avoided traveling there whenever possible and, when he couldn’t avoid it, got out as soon as possible. For another, he loved theater and didn’t think of it as merely something an actor or director did between movies.
On Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke wrote:
For decades, the so-called “Mayor of New York” held court lunchtime at his right front table in the old Russian Tea Room, just a stroll west on Fifty-Seventh Street from his office. He attended the opera or the theater or the symphony every night of the week, then dined at Wally’s, a steak house in the same eight block area of the rest of his worklife. His office walls were covered with movie and theatrical posters dedicated to the movie packages he had put together.
