ROY COHN DEEP DIVE
Roy Cohn reminds me of someone. Someone I know. When I finally put my finger on it, I doubt I will reveal this, because it’s not really a compliment.
I fell down a Roy Cohn rabbit-hole after watching Fellow Travelers, which I found in the Showtime section of the Paramount + app after I got bored with Landman.
I knew who Roy Cohn was, mostly because I watch a lot of news. At some point during Trump’s first term in office, when it became clear that the AG was not supposed to be his personal fixer, he infamously asked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?,” and there were plenty of TV pundits to explain who Cohn was and why this was a sinister ask. At any rate, after watching Fellow Travelers, I wanted to know even more about this brilliant yet villainous lawyer.
Fortunately, there are two documentaries available to stream: On HBO MAX, Bully. Coward. Victim and also Where’s My Roy Cohn? is on Amazon Prime. They both cover similar ground, but the former has less Trump and more Rosenbergs.
A quick summary: At 23 years old, Cohn helped convict and sentence to death Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. For his next trick, he served as chief counsel on Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities committee, where he exposed closeted homosexuals, despite being one himself. Then he went on to defend mafia bosses and well known figures such as George Steinbrenner, Aristotle Onassis and Donald Trump. He ran in circles with Roger Stone and Rupert Murdoch but was ultimately disbarred by the state of New York for unethical conduct. He died of AIDS at age 60 but told everyone it was liver cancer.
A side note: He bore a scar on his nose from a botched plastic surgery procedure that his mother insisted he have when he was an adolescent. My La-z-boy armchair analysis concludes that his cruelty is clearly overcompensation for lifetime feelings of inadequacies.
After I finished the documentaries I discovered that in addition to Fellow Travelers and the recent release of The Apprentice, there are actually several screen portrayals of Roy Cohn by various well known actors. So I watched most of them. If there are others you think I should see, please let me know. I ranked them below in descending order of my preference:
4. James Woods in Citizen Cohn. (This is an HBO movie, but not available on MAX. I found it on Youtube.) It pains me to put this in last place, because I’m a big James Woods fan. (See Salvador.) But Woods plays Cohn with a nervous energy that doesn’t ring true to what I’ve learned from the documentaries. Nose scar: Faint, but it’s there, more prominent in the dying of AIDS hospital scenes.
3. Al Pacino in Angels in America. (HBO MAX) I can sort of see why they would cast Pacino at the time, since people probably didn’t know what Cohn was like, and he’s got the right energy, but he’s way too Pacinoey. Oddly, I didn’t find him too Pacioney when he played Phil Spector. Nose scar: None.
2. Will Brill in Fellow Travelers. (Showtime/Paramount+) Now we’re talking! Brill turns the ice and desperation up to 11. I’m unfamiliar with this actor, but will be on the lookout for more. Nose scar: Borderline distracting. Caused me to pause the show and google “Roy Cohn nose scar.”
1. Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice. (I saw it on a screener through the PGA. But you can rent it on Amazon and Itunes.) Sheer perfection. Kendall Roy is back and serving up revenge. I could watch Strong play this role all weekend. I didn’t even mind having to think about Trump. Nose scar: Minimal if at all, but he gets extra credit for being the only Cohn portrayer on the list that exploits Cohn’s insane suntan. I’m convinced Roy Cohn is why Trump is orange.
Honorable mention: The documentary Bully. Coward. Victim. contains clips of Nathan Lane playing Cohn in the broadway production of Angels in America. That, in retrospect, seems like crazy casting. However, from what I could see, he was pretty good, so I reserve judgement since I’m unable to see the full performance. Nose scar: None.