Alexander H. Cohen
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Alexander H. Cohen (July 24, 1920 - April 22, 2000) was a prolific American theatrical producer who mounted more than one hundred productions. Although several major theatrical producers have worked on both sides of the Atlantic (mounting Broadway productions in New York City and West End productions in London), to date Alexander Cohen has been the only producer to maintain full-time officers and staffs in both cities on an ongoing basis, as opposed to temporary facilities for administration of a specific production.
Born in New York City, Cohen's first Broadway credit, Ghost for Sale, closed after six performances; he fared better with his second, the thriller Angel Street, which ran for three years. His productions ran the gamut from comedies (Little Murders) to dramas (84 Charing Cross Road, Anna Christie) to musicals (Dear World, A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine) to the classics (King Lear, Hamlet). He also produced stage concerts for Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, and Yves Montand, and an evening of comic sketches with Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
Cohen conceived and originated the first Tony Awards telecast in 1967 and helmed many more over the following years. He also produced a number of Emmy Award presentations, specials with Plácido Domingo and Liza Minnelli, and the first and third editions of Night of 100 Stars, which featured a parade of entertainment and sports celebrities performing and/or appearing on the stage of Radio City Music Hall.
Cohen is reputed to be the inspiration for Mel Brooks's The Producers. He was famous for his publicity stunts and was nicknamed "The Lord of The Flops" by a New York magazine article.
Cohen was responsible for the international stardom of Marcel Marceau, bringing him to New York to perform in support of Maurice Chevalier in An Evening with Maurice Chevalier. Cohen had originally intended the production to be a one-man show but Chevalier did not want to work that hard, and requested that Marceau (then unknown outside Europe) perform his mime pieces to give Chevalier opportunities to rest between musical numbers.
Cohen had huge financial success with an informal series of revues which he collectively titled "Nine O'Clock Musicals". These were extremely low-budget affairs, often with as few as two performers on a stage which featured either a minimal set or no set at all other than a piano. The "Nine O'Clock Musicals" tended to feature performers who had written their own material and were so familiar with it that they needed little or no rehearsal and direction. Cohen's Nine O'Clock musicals (all financially profitable) included At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat (both featuring Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, Words and Music (Hollywood lyricist Sammy Cahn performing his own songs with a few back-up singers) and the semi-musical Good Evening with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Another profitable Cohen production, Bob and Ray, the Two and Only, written by and starring Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, was a non-musical compendium of skits, similar in format to the Nine O'Clock musicals.
Despite his success with revues, the highly prolific Cohen never produced a financially successful book musical (a musical with a script and plot) on Broadway, although he did produce the successful London productions of 1776 and Applause. A challenge he was never able to satisfy was to mount a Broadway revival of Hellzapoppin'. A 1967 out-of-town tryout starring Soupy Sales closed in Montreal, and ten years later another effort starring Jerry Lewis and Lynn Redgrave closed in Boston. The rights are still held by the Cohen estate. The nearest Cohen came to a successful book musical on Broadway was A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, adapted from a much less elaborate London production. This double feature consisted of two short entertainments with the same cast: the first half being a plotless compendium of songs and anecdotes about old-time Hollywood, the second half being Anton Chekhov's play The Bear radically reworked as a musical comedy for the Marx Brothers (impersonated by modern actors), retaining a vague semblance of Chekhov's plot.
As well as producing, Cohen participated in the operation of a number of legitimate theaters, including the Morris Mechanic in Baltimore after its renovation, and the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto when it opened in 1960.
He was responsible for drawing the performing arts community into the popular and highly successful I Love New York television ad campaign. In 1976, he converted the bankrupt and vacant Manhattan Plaza on Manhattan's West 43rd Street into an apartment complex providing subsidized housing for low-income performers.
Cohen made one appearance as an actor when he appeared onscreen in Woody Allen's film The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), portraying Raoul Hirsch, a fictional Hollywood producer in the 1930s. His final act, putting it all together, was in 1999 when he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in his off-Broadway one-man show, Star Billing, in which he reminisced about his hits, flops, and famous feuds. The New York Times reviewer stated that he had many a kind word for his friends and an arsenal of well-honed, acid-tipped barbs for those he loathed, among them David Merrick, Marlene Dietrich and Jerry Lewis [1].
Cohen and his wife, Hildy Parks, had two sons, Gerry and Christopher; he also had a daughter from a previous marriage. He died from emphysema in New York City.
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[edit] Selected Broadway credits
- Waiting in the Wings (1999)
- Sacrilege (1995)
- Ah, Wilderness! (1988 revival)
- Long Day's Journey Into Night (1988 revival)
- Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1984)
- Edmund Kean (1983)
- I Remember Mama (1979)
- Comedians (1976)
- 6 Rms Riv Vu (1972)
- The Unknown Soldier and His Wife (1967)
- Black Comedy/White Lies (1967)
- The Homecoming (1967)
- A Time for Singing (1966)
- At the Drop of Another Hat (1966)
- Baker Street (1965)
- Hamlet (1964 revival with Richard Burton. This is still the longest-running Broadway staging of the play ever produced, outrunning Maurice Evans's 1945 G.I. Hamlet by only a few performances)[1]
- The School for Scandal (1963 revival)
- Beyond the Fringe (1962)
- At the Drop of a Hat (1959)
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949)
[edit] Awards and nominations
- 2000 Drama Desk Award for Lifetime Achievement (awarded posthumously)
- 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance (Star Billing, nominee)
- 1989 Tony Award for Best Revival (Ah, Wilderness!, nominee)
- 1989 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival (Long Day's Journey Into Night, nominee)
- 1984 Tony Award for Best Play (Play Memory, nominee)
- 1984 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience (La Tragedie de Carmen, winner)
- 1980 Tony Award for Best Musical (A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine, nominee)
- 1977 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Foreign Play (Comedians, nominee)
- 1974 Tony Award for Best Play (Ulysses in Nighttown, nominee)
- 1973 Theatre World Award (for his contribution to cultivating theater audiences by extending Broadway not only nationally, but internationally, with his exemplary television productions)
- 1971 Tony Award for Best Play (Home, nominee)
- 1967 Tony Award for Best Play (The Homecoming, winner)
- 1967 Tony Award for Best Play (Black Comedy/White Lies, nominee)
