Jack Cohn(1889-1956)

Arguably there wouldn't have been a Columbia Pictures without him. Jacob (Jack) Cohn was born into an impoverished immigrant family that eventually numbered four children. Hollywood history may credit his younger brother Harry Cohn for a begrudging amount of greatness but he not only followed in Jack's footsteps into the film business, he was a vital part of everything Harry ever built. Jack quit a job at a New York advertising agency in 1908 and jumped on board with the fledgling "Film Service Company", owned by Carl Laemmle. This company morphed into the "Independent Motion Picture" (or IMP) Corporation and began producing its own films (it would, in turn, morph into Universal after moving to Hollywood during the industry's film patent war). The 19-year old quickly rose from a lowly position in the film lab and literally b.s.'d his way up the company's hierarchy. By 1913, he had talked Laemmle into producing newsreels, forming "Universal Weekly". Jack was soon placed in charge of Laemmle's short subject department, which then comprised all of its output. He was placed in charge of cutting Universal's first feature, a $57,000 gamble called Traffic in Souls (1913); its then whopping return of $450,000 was not lost on Jack (or Laemmle for that matter, he committed himself to feature films after this early success and moved west). It was about this time that Jack convinced Uncle Carl to hire an old friend from his days in the advertising business, Joe Brandt, a lawyer who would prove instrumental in the brothers' affairs over the next dozen or so years. With Universal's formation in Hollywood, Jack remained in New York and recommended his brother Harry for a job within the studio. Since Laemmle was an ardent believer in paternalism (practically all his relatives were employed there), it was no great push to get him to hire Harry, who became Laemmle's personal secretary. By 1920, Jack had grown anxious to branch out on his own in the movie business and enlisted Harry and Brandt to form their own production company as CBC (Cohn-Brandt-Cohn) Film Sales. Their initial endeavor, a series of three shorts shot in New York based on H.A. McGill's "Hall Room Boys" cartoons proved a dismal failure and nearly doomed the embryonic firm. Harry needed a 3,000 mile buffer zone between his brother and Brandt and headed West to base CBC's product where most of the talent was. For the next few months, he managed to bring CBC's shorts in cheaply, using excess film stock purchased from other studios. He rented or borrowed everything possible and, incredibly, managed to send marketable product East. Harry rented an old studio at the corner of Sunset and Gower that stood as the portal to Poverty Row, a notorious area that had a reputation of being a place where careers went to die. Like Laemmle, Harry rather belatedly realized that the big money was in feature film production and convinced Jack and Joe to pony up $20,000 for a 6-reel production of More to Be Pitied Than Scorned (1922). The modest production realized a profit of $130,000 which was remarkable considering CBC lacked a theatrical network and had to split profits with innumerable (and often greedy) film exchanges for distribution. The success of this first feature resulted in a deal for 5 additional features - CBC enthusiastically jumped in with both feet, producing 10 features by the end of 1923... each one proving profitable. Despite this success, CBC was met with derision in Hollywood, and dubbed "Corned Beef and Cabbage" Productions, which enraged Harry. Seeking to reposition the firm as a major player in town, Harry successfully lobbied for a name change to "Columbia Pictures Corporation" and, with the change, went public and, by 1925, physical ownership of the Gower studio. Throughout, the brothers fought like wet cats in a burlap bag. Harry, although possessing remarkable instincts for talent, was universally disliked by everyone who ever worked for him. He was cheap, crude, profane, uneducated and enthusiastically belittled anyone at the slightest provocation. Jack remained in the East and acted as the company's banker, remaining mostly disconnected with the creative process. Joe Brandt acted as an intermediary between the two bothers, who continued to fight incessantly (he would be bought out by the end of the decade and leave the company). Columbia Pictures rose out of the ash pile of Poverty Row by making a handful of wise business decisions hashed out by the partners in the 1920s: the company rejected theater ownership (which proved even more intelligent after the Supreme Court ruled against other studio's chain ownership in the 1940s), eschewed longterm talent contracts (with the notable exception of wunderkind director Frank Capra and The Three Stooges, which proved too good a deal to pass up) and virtually fed off its early Poverty Row reputation. Columbia's ability to attract talent was a direct result of being able to contract with loaned-out actors whose studios wanted to punish for perceived unreasonable pay and script disputes. These stars would invariably be placed into Capra's first-class productions; notably, It Happened One Night (1934) which single-handedly propelled the company into the ranks of the majors - and earned its first Oscars. Aside from Capra's films and a precious few other top notch directors like Leo McCarey, the vast majority of Columbia's pre-war output was decidedly B-level, featuring mostly supporting level quality stars; it didn't enjoy its first blockbuster hit until The Jolson Story (1946), an $8 million earner. But Columbia Pictures incredibly never had a year in the red during his brother's reign... a record unequaled by any other Hollywood studio, even MGM, which suffered greatly after WW2. Unlike the other majors, Columbia embraced television. Jack's son, Ralph Cohn, with the blessing of the corporation, formed the Screen Gems subsidiary in the early 1950s - another fortuitous move that paid big dividends in the 1960s. The brothers love-hate relationship continued until Jack's death in 1956 at age 67. Harry died of a heart attack in 1958 at age 66.