HBO screens ‘The Story of Roy Cohn’
Devils are more interesting than angels. Great literature teaches us that. From “Paradise Lost” to “Bedazzled,” characters driven by the seven deadly sins have long overshadowed those who play by the rules.
The 2020 documentary “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” (9 p.m., HBO) profiles one of the great devils of the 20th century, a man whose influence endures.
It is directed by Ivy Meeropol, the granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, prosecuted by Cohn in a case that made his reputation as a very young man. Cohn was largely responsible for seeing both sent to the electric chair for passing along atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union.
“Bully” examines Cohn’s public, private and professional lives from different perspectives and focuses on efforts by the director’s father and brother to clear their parents’ name.
It examines Cohn’s role as a fixer and go-between in mid-century power politics, linking powerful politicians and public figures to organized crime figures, people including presidents, future presidents, senators and cardinals.
The film also examines Cohn’s life as a closeted gay man who both denied and flaunted his sexual life, consorting with Andy Warhol at Studio 54 and bringing his hustlers and escorts to meet the Reagans at the White House. Filmmaker and humorist John Waters describes Cohn’s entourage in the gay resort town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, even while the lawyer was championing and representing politicians and clergy who campaigned against gay rights.
The film spends a lot of time on Cohn’s cultivation of mentorship of Donald Trump, imparting life strategies that became essential to the future president’s “Art of the Deal.” Cohn’s aggressive legal manners and a habit of stiffing contractors and vendors have long been associated with Trump. Cohn also linked the real estate developer to mobster elements in the construction business, notably cement sources linked to Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno. Despite such help, Trump publicly abandoned Cohn once word got out that his old mentor was dying of AIDS.
The film touches on Cohn’s ability to cultivate the press through access and gossip, implicating and compromising the people who should have been investigating him. When Cohn wanted to combat “rumors” of his homosexuality, he got a prominent journalist to declare that they were engaged. Her name was Barbara Walters.
Cohn appears as a major character in Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” an epic meditation on the AIDS era. In clips here, he’s played by Nathan Lane, fulminating against gays and Communists and finally confronting Ethel Rosenberg on his deathbed. Even in “Angels,” Cohn steals the show as the devil himself.