Harry Cohn (cont'd)

A year later, Harry, Jack and Joe Brandt had formed their own production and distribution company CBC (Cohn-Brandt-Cohn) Films Sales Company. Leaving Joe and Jack in New York to oversee the business, Harry moved operations west to open a studio and soon began production. The new company rented space in several parts of Los Angeles before settling in at Poverty Row at Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. After buying the rights to the famous and popular comic strip, The Hallroom Boys, CBC signed a production deal with the National Film Company which would produce the filmed series for them, with Harry as the production supervisor of the series. At the same time, in 1920, CBC filmed a series called SCREEN SNAPSHOTS, a popular short which showed informal glimpses of the company’s stars at play and at home. By 1922 Harry was supervising other independent productions for distribution by CBC and soon after, produced CBC’s first feature film, the lucrative MORE TO BE PITIED THAN SCORNED, which solidified the company’s vision for its future.

In January of 1924, CBC was incorporated as Columbia Pictures Corporation with Jack Cohn as head of sales and Harry Cohn as the head of production. In the following year, Harry began to purchase other small studios in the vicinity creating one large studio lot. For the next eight years, Harry’s smart business acumen and ability to spot talent greatly influenced the quality of Columbia’s productions and allowed Harry to fulfill his aspirations of building Columbia into a studio that could compete with

the majors. Harry’s gift for finding the best writers, producers, directors and actors to work on his productions was well known in Hollywood. A prime example of this was the hiring of Frank Capra who made several profitable and crowd-pleasing films for Columbia which would go on to become some of the studio’s “classics.” He groomed numerous actors who ultimately became some of the biggest stars of the day, including Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Irene Dunne, Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Broderick Crawford, Glenn Ford, Judy Holliday the Three Stooges, and Rita Hayworth.

By 1932 Harry had purchased Joe Brandt’s interest in the company and Harry finally became president of Columbia Pictures, solidifying his stature as one of the great Hollywood moguls. Two years later, Harry won his first Oscar® for Best Picture with IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, which earned five Academy Awards® that year. Harry’s savvy leadership continued to be evident by the many Oscars® that were garnered for Columbia under his watchful eye and by the number of all-time great films that still endure today, such as FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, ON THE WATERFRONT, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, BORN YESTERDAY, HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, COVER GIRL, THE JOLSON STORY, and THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI. Providing a supportive environment for Harry’s talent to do their best work kept filmmakers like Capra coming back to the studio to work again and again, making Columbia the most profitable studio in Hollywood by the 1950’s.