Known for movies
Short Info
Spouse | Janelle Webb, Cynthia Costas |
Mark | A scene shot at his house in Beverly Hills |
Fact | Father, with Janelle Webb, of Jill Gatsby and Melissa Inger. |
Payments | Earned $750,000 from Cellular (2004) |
Larry Cohen (born July 15, 1941) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror and exploitation genres, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cohen was born in New York City, the son of a Jewish family. His father was a businessman and his mother was a homemaker. He has two sisters. Cohen’s early education took place at the Yeshiva of Flatbush. He later attended the High School of Music & Art, where he developed an interest in film.
Cohen began his career in the entertainment industry as a television writer, penning episodes of such shows as The Defenders, The Fugitive, and The Invaders. He made his directorial debut with the 1968 film Bone, which starred Yaphet Kotto. Cohen would go on to direct a number of exploitation films throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including Black Caesar (1973), It’s Alive (1974), and The Stuff (1985). He also wrote and directed the 1984 film The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover.
In recent years, Cohen has directed episodes of such television shows as NYPD Blue and The Guardian. He has also been active as a producer, working on such films as Phone Booth (2002) and Cellular (2004).
Cohen’s net worth is estimated to be $10 million. He has been married three times and has four children.
General Info
Full Name | Larry Cohen |
Profession | Film director, Film producer, Screenwriter, Television Director, Television producer |
Education | City College of New York |
Nationality | American |
Family
Spouse | Janelle Webb, Cynthia Costas |
Children | Jill Gatsby, Melissa Cohen, Bobby Cohen, Louis Cohen, Pam Cohen |
Siblings | Ronni Chasen |
Accomplishments
Nominations | Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Comedy |
Movies | It's Alive, The Stuff, Q, God Told Me To, Phone Booth, Black Caesar, Maniac Cop, A Return to Salem's Lot, The Ambulance, It Lives Again, Hell Up in Harlem, Cellular, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, Maniac Cop 2, Original Gangstas, Wicked Stepmother, Special... |
TV Shows | Cool Million, The Good Life, The Invaders, Coronet Blue, Blue Light, Branded |
Social profile links
Marks
# | Marks / Signs |
---|---|
1 | A scene shot at his house in Beverly Hills |
Salary
Title | Salary |
---|---|
Cellular (2004) | $750,000 |
Quotes
# | Quote |
---|---|
1 | Some kids were great playing baseball; other kids were great at playing the piano; some kids were terrific at math. Writing was just something that came naturally. |
2 | [on how he came up with the idea of the aliens' signature extended pinky finger on his series The Invaders (1967)] The extended pinky used to be a symbol of effeminacy . . . you know, the effete [person] holding a glass of champagne with the pinky extended? When this show was done back in the '60s, the homosexual community was kind of a submerged, invisible community. People were living secret lives. I thought, here are these aliens living amongst society, keeping their true identities secret, their true selves secret, and this is funny because the pinky kind of symbolizes homosexuality in some way, and nobody will get the gag, but I'll put it in there anyway. |
3 | Sometimes the scenes that really make a movie work are the little scenes that have nothing to do with advancing the action, but just add a little something. |
4 | Life has been good to me. I keep making pictures. Every year I make something. As long as I keep working, I have nothing to complain about. And the films I've made have all had some point to them. Otherwise, I wouldn't have felt they were worth doing. You have to have some direction in which you're headed and a destination which you have to arrive at by the end of the film, so that you feel it was a satisfactory trip. Some kind of personal statement has to be made. |
Facts
# | Fact |
---|---|
1 | Lives in a house in Coldwater Canyon, a secluded area north of Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. The house was built by William Randolph Hearst in 1929. [February 2004] |
2 | Older brother of publicist Ronni Chasen. |
3 | Not often allowed to run the TV series that he created. He was removed from creative control of Branded (1965) after one year and was never involved with The Invaders (1967) once he had turned over his outline for the first year. |
4 | Has said that if he had been allowed to run The Invaders (1967), he would have given David Vincent 1) more of a sense of humor, 2) fewer aliens to fight and made them harder to kill, and 3) more of an on-going team of "Believers" in the second year to help him fight the aliens. |
5 | Drew comics and made 8mm movies with his friends as a kid. |
6 | Sold two teleplays to Kraft Mystery Theater (1959) when he was only 22 years old. |
7 | Worked as a page at NBC. |
8 | Was the creator of the 1967 TV series Coronet Blue (1967), which was an offshoot of his work on the TV series The Defenders (1961). Cohen wrote in his autobiography, "The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker," why the mystery behind the short-lived series' title/catch-phrase was never solved, and what it actually meant. "When the Brodkin Organization took over the series, they wanted to turn it into an anthology...so they played down the amnesia aspect until there was nothing about it at all in the show. It was just Frank Converse wandering from one story to the next with no connective format at all. Anyway, the show ended after seventeen weeks and nobody found out what 'coronet blue' meant. The actual secret is that Converse was not really an American at all. He was a Russian who had been trained to appear like an American and was sent to the US as a spy. He belonged to a spy unit called Coronet Blue. He decided to defect, so the Russians tried to kill him before he could give away the identities of the other Soviet agents. And nobody can really identify him because he doesn't exist as an American. Coronet Blue was actually an outgrowth of the episode called 'The Traitor' of 'The Defenders.'" |
9 | Father, with Janelle Webb, of Jill Gatsby and Melissa Inger. |
10 | Does not use a computer or typewriter to write. Dictates his scripts into a hand-held tape recorder. |
11 | His wife, Cynthia Costas Cohen, is a psychotherapist and sculptor. |
12 | His younger sister, Ronni Chasen, is a well-known Hollywood publicist. |
13 | Sold the spec script thriller Captivity (2007). This is his fifth spec script thriller in the last five years. Phone Booth (2002) was sold in December 1998 in the mid-six figures. "Cast of Characters" for $350,000 and Cellular (2004) for $750,000 were both sold in 1999. "Man Alive" was sold in August 2002 for a mid-six-figure amount. [June 2003] |
14 | Directed Hell Up in Harlem (1973) and It's Alive (1974) simultaneously, working on "It's Alive!" from Monday to Friday and "Hell Up in Harlem" at the weekends. |
15 | Fred Williamson was shooting That Man Bolt (1973) in Los Angeles at the same time as Hell Up in Harlem (1973) which was in production in New York, so a double was used for most of the Tommy Gibbs character's New York close-ups. According to Cohen, Williamson did not like the double's physical appearance, remarking that "his butt was too big." |
16 | Educated at the City College of New York and New York University. |
Movies
Writer
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
Blade Rider, Revenge of the Indian Nations | 1966 | ||
I Deal in Danger | 1966 | ||
The Rat Patrol | 1966 | TV Series written by - 1 episode | |
Return of the Magnificent Seven | 1966 | written by | |
Blue Light | TV Series creator - 17 episodes, 1966 writer - 7 episodes, 1966 story - 3 episodes, 1966 | ||
Branded | TV Series creator - 48 episodes, 1965 - 1966 story - 7 episodes, 1965 teleplay - 3 episodes, 1965 | ||
Kraft Suspense Theatre | TV Series story - 1 episode, 1965 teleplay - 1 episode, 1965 | ||
The Defenders | 1963-1965 | TV Series written by - 9 episodes | |
The Fugitive | TV Series story - 1 episode, 1965 written by - 1 episode, 1964 | ||
Espionage | 1964 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
The Doctors and the Nurses | 1963 | TV Series writer - 3 episodes | |
Arrest and Trial | 1963 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
Sam Benedict | 1963 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
Checkmate | 1961 | TV Series written by - 1 episode | |
Surfside 6 | 1961 | TV Series story - 1 episode | |
The United States Steel Hour | 1961 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
'Way Out | 1961 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
The Witness | 1961 | TV Series written by - 1 episode | |
Zane Grey Theater | 1960 | TV Series writer - 1 episode | |
Kraft Theatre | TV Series written by - 1 episode, 1958 adaptation - 1 episode, 1958 | ||
Messages Deleted | 2010 | written by | |
The Gambler, the Girl and the Gunslinger | 2009 | TV Movie written by | |
It's Alive | 2008 | 1974 screenplay / screenplay | |
Maniac Cop | 2008 | Short based on characters created by | |
Bo chi tung wah | 2008 | original story | |
Captivity | 2007 | screenplay / story | |
Cellular | 2004 | story | |
Phone Booth | 2002 | written by | |
Misbegotten | 1998 | screenplay | |
The Defenders: Choice of Evils | 1998 | TV Movie story / teleplay | |
The Ex | 1997 | screenplay | |
Ed McBain's 87th Precinct: Heatwave | 1997 | TV Movie teleplay | |
Invasion of Privacy | 1996 | written by | |
Ed McBain's 87th Precinct: Ice | 1996 | TV Movie teleplay | |
Uncle Sam | 1996 | Video written by | |
The Invaders | 1995 | TV Series television series - 2 episodes | |
As Good as Dead | 1995 | TV Movie written by | |
The Expert | 1995 | uncredited | |
NYPD Blue | 1995 | TV Series written by - 1 episode | |
Guilty as Sin | 1993 | written by | |
Body Snatchers | 1993 | screen story | |
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence | 1993 | characters / written by | |
Maniac Cop 2 | 1990 | characters - uncredited / written by | |
The Ambulance | 1990 | written by | |
Wicked Stepmother | 1989 | written by | |
Desperado: Avalanche at Devil's Ridge | 1988 | TV Movie | |
Maniac Cop | 1988 | written by | |
Deadly Illusion | 1987 | ||
Best Seller | 1987 | written by | |
A Return to Salem's Lot | 1987 | screenplay / story | |
It's Alive III: Island of the Alive | 1987 | based on characters created by / written by | |
The Stuff | 1985 | written by | |
Special Effects | 1984 | written by | |
Perfect Strangers | 1984 | ||
Scandalous | 1984 | story | |
Women of San Quentin | 1983 | TV Movie story | |
Q | 1982 | writer | |
I, the Jury | 1982 | screenplay | |
Full Moon High | 1981 | written by | |
See China and Die | 1981 | TV Movie | |
The American Success Company | 1980 | screenplay / story | |
Sparrow | 1978 | TV Movie creator | |
It Lives Again | 1978 | based on characters created for the screen by / written by | |
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover | 1977 | written by | |
Calling Doctor Storm, M. D. | 1977 | TV Movie | |
God Told Me To | 1976 | original screenplay | |
Man on the Outside | 1975 | TV Movie writer | |
Posse | 1975 | treatment - uncredited | |
Columbo | 1973-1974 | TV Series story by - 3 episodes | |
It's Alive | 1974 | written by | |
Shootout in a One-Dog Town | 1974 | TV Movie story | |
Hell Up in Harlem | 1973 | written by | |
Griff | 1973 | TV Series creator | |
Black Caesar | 1973 | written by | |
Cool Million | TV Series created by - 1 episode, 1972 writer - 1 episode, 1972 | ||
Bone | 1972 | ||
Call Holme | 1972 | TV Movie creator | |
In Broad Daylight | 1971 | TV Movie | |
El Condor | 1970 | screenplay | |
Scream Baby Scream | 1969 | screenplay - as Laurence Robert Cohen / story - as Laurence Robert Cohen | |
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting | 1969 | screenplay / story | |
The Legend of Custer | 1968 | suggested by | |
The Invaders | 1967-1968 | TV Series creator - 43 episodes | |
Coronet Blue | 1967 | TV Series creator - 13 episodes | |
Custer | TV Series series suggested - 14 episodes, 1967 series suggested by - 3 episodes, 1967 |
Director
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
Masters of Horror | 2006 | TV Series 1 episode | |
Original Gangstas | 1996 | ||
As Good as Dead | 1995 | TV Movie | |
The Ambulance | 1990 | ||
Wicked Stepmother | 1989 | ||
Deadly Illusion | 1987 | ||
A Return to Salem's Lot | 1987 | ||
It's Alive III: Island of the Alive | 1987 | ||
The Stuff | 1985 | ||
Special Effects | 1984 | ||
Perfect Strangers | 1984 | ||
Q | 1982 | ||
Full Moon High | 1981 | ||
See China and Die | 1981 | TV Movie | |
It Lives Again | 1978 | ||
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover | 1977 | ||
God Told Me To | 1976 | ||
It's Alive | 1974 | ||
Hell Up in Harlem | 1973 | ||
Black Caesar | 1973 | ||
Bone | 1972 |
Producer
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
As Good as Dead | 1995 | TV Movie producer | |
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence | 1993 | co-producer | |
Maniac Cop 2 | 1990 | producer | |
Wicked Stepmother | 1989 | executive producer | |
Maniac Cop | 1988 | producer | |
A Return to Salem's Lot | 1987 | executive producer | |
It's Alive III: Island of the Alive | 1987 | executive producer | |
The Stuff | 1985 | executive producer | |
Q | 1982 | producer | |
Full Moon High | 1981 | producer | |
See China and Die | 1981 | TV Movie producer | |
It Lives Again | 1978 | producer | |
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover | 1977 | producer | |
God Told Me To | 1976 | producer | |
It's Alive | 1974 | producer | |
Hell Up in Harlem | 1973 | producer | |
Black Caesar | 1973 | producer | |
Bone | 1972 | producer | |
Never Too Young | 1965 | TV Series executive producer | |
Branded | 1965 | TV Series producer |
Miscellaneous
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore | 1974 | production executive | |
Blue Light | TV Series executive script consultant - 17 episodes, 1966 executive story consultant - 1 episode, 1966 |
Actor
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
Spies Like Us | 1985 | Ace Tomato Agent |
Thanks
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
Syndicate Smasher | 2017 | special thanks post-production | |
Dorfman in Love | 2011 | thanks | |
The Scared of Death Society | 2010 | special thanks | |
Eating Out | 2004/I | special thanks |
Self
Title | Year | Status | Character |
---|---|---|---|
King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen | Documentary post-production | Himself | |
Unsung Hollywood | 2016 | TV Series documentary | Himself |
42nd Street Memories: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Notorious Street | 2015 | Documentary | Himself |
Interview with Director Larry Cohen: Confessions of a Low Budget Maverick | 2014 | Short | Himself |
Dark Dreamers | 2011 | TV Series | Himself |
Scripting a New Slasher Super-Villain: Larry Cohen on Matt Cordell | 2011 | Video documentary short | Himself |
This Week in Horror | 2011 | TV Series | Himself - Guest |
God Told Me to Bone: An Evening with Larry Cohen | 2010 | Video documentary short | Himself |
More Tales from the Script | 2010 | Video documentary | Himself |
American Grindhouse | 2010 | Documentary | Himself - Director, Black Caeser |
Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film | 2009 | Documentary | Himself |
Tales from the Script | 2009 | Documentary | Himself |
Trailers from Hell | 2007 | TV Series | Himself |
The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird | 2006 | Video documentary short | Himself |
Stool Pigeons and Pine Overcoats: The Language of Gangster Films | 2006 | Video documentary short | |
Welcome to the Big House | 2006 | Video documentary short | |
Hitchcocked! | 2006 | TV Movie documentary | Himself |
Molls and Dolls: The Women of Gangster Films | 2006 | Video documentary short | Himself |
Shooting the Police: Cops on Film | 2006 | TV Movie documentary | Himself |
Budd Boetticher: A Man Can Do That | 2005 | TV Movie documentary | Himself - interviewee |
Make Your Own Damn Movie! | 2005 | Video documentary | Himself |
Dialing Up 'Cellular' | 2004 | Video documentary short | Himself |
Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered and Shafted | 2004 | Documentary | Himself |
Celling Out | 2004 | Video documentary short | Himself |
The 100 Scariest Movie Moments | 2004 | TV Mini-Series documentary | Himself |
Baadasssss Cinema | 2002 | TV Movie documentary | Himself |
Les deniers du culte | 1997 | TV Movie documentary | Himself |
Fantasy Film Festival | 1979 | TV Series | Himself |
Awards
Won Awards
Year | Award | Ceremony | Nomination | Movie |
---|---|---|---|---|
1988 | George Pal Memorial Award | Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA | ||
1977 | Special Jury Award | Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival | God Told Me To (1976) | |
1975 | Special Jury Award | Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival | It's Alive (1974) |
Nominated Awards
Year | Award | Ceremony | Nomination | Movie |
---|---|---|---|---|
1988 | Edgar | Edgar Allan Poe Awards | Best Motion Picture | Best Seller (1987) |
Source: IMDb, Wikipedia