By: Bruce Cohen

BRUCE COHEN PRODUCTIONS

I’ll start by getting right to the point – if you ask me, leading is all about inspiration and communication. I think that probably applies across all businesses, but I can speak specifically about producing Film, Television and Theater. Many people don’t know what a producer does – even my mother never knew how to describe it to her friends at the start of my producing career until she got to spend time on the set and see for herself. She passed away from Alzheimer’s at the beginning of Covid, but she played an important role in the development of my leadership skills at an early age, so it feels appropriate to dedicate this essay to her and begin it with that story, especially since it started me on my path to being a producer.

When I was a kid in a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington D.C, a neighbor whom I loved was very active in the local Democratic Party and she had me campaigning door to door for local candidates … from the time I was 4! I was a precocious kid, I guess, and I’m not sure how inspirational my pitch was but, evidently, I was a pretty good communicator for a four-year-old and my love of politics was born. In 6th grade,

I decided to run for President of my elementary school. My mother was an artist and had the idea that she could help me silkscreen my posters, which led us to the idea that I needed slogans. Each kid running was allowed to put up 3 posters and ours were “Cohen Can,” “Cohen Cares,” and “Cohen’s Cool.” I can’t remember how many other candidates there were, but I can remember that I was the only one with professional looking posters and coherent messaging … and I won! This led to my adolescent political career, with its signature silk screen posters, of Vice President and then President of my Junior High School (“Cohen Can” and “Cohen Can Do More”) and President of the Sophomore Class and Junior Class in High School (“Back Bruce” and “Bring Back Bruce”).

Those elected offices helped me get into Yale, or at least they certainly didn’t hurt, which is where I fell in love with film and was inspired to try for a career in the field. While an intern with a desk job in distribution at Warner Bros. right out of college, my co-workers kept telling me that the dream was to find a job on a set – where they made the films and television shows beloved around the world – and I heard about the DGA Trainee program (Director’s Guild of America) to train you to be an Assistant Director (AD). I had no idea what that was, so my boss arranged for me to spend a day on the set of “PROTOCOL” starring Goldie Hawn and shadow the DGA Trainee. To my delight, I learned that the AD’s were the ones who ran around the set with walkie-talkies organizing everything, which reminded me a lot of being Sophomore Class President and I figured if I could put on the Homecoming Dance, maybe I could help organize a film set!

I managed to get into the program and in the spring of 1985, I arrived on the set of my first film as a DGA Trainee, Steven Spielberg’s THE CO- LOR PURPLE, produced, along with Steven and the legendary Quincy Jones, by Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall. For anyone who doesn’t know, that illustrious husband and wife duo are the most recent recipient of the Thalberg Award from the Academy, the holy grail of producing honors, and have, between them, 13 Best Picture Oscar nominations and have produced such tiny, unpopular films as RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, E.T., THE SIXTH SENSE, SEABISCUIT, MUNICH, LINCOLN, all 5 BOURNE movies and the 3 most recent STAR WARS movies… or, pardon my French, holy shit. At the beginning of that shoot, I still didn’t know what a producer was, but by the end, I was determined to do what they did some day. Kathy’s definition of the role, which I have also used to this day is that the producer is the CEO of the company formed to make that film, television or theater project and, as such, oversees every aspect of the production, both creative and financial. Meanwhile, I was the luckiest kid in the most phenomenal candy store, Hollywood-style and Steven, Kathy and Frank at their company, Amblin Entertainment, became my magical trio of mentors. They truly taught me everything I know about producing. They were all about hiring the best people, both in front of and behind the camera, inspiring them with their extraordinary creative vision and then communicating to them exactly what they needed to get the job done…. but not just done… done superbly.

Amblin was like a big family and Steven, Kathy and Frank loved to promote family members who they believed in. I was beyond lucky enough to be one of their many beneficiaries. I was a DGA Trainee, Second Assistant Director, First Assistant Director, Associate Producer and Co-Producer on 6 Amblin productions, including AMAZING STORIES and HOOK, followed by ALIVE for Kathy and Frank’s new company, Kennedy Marshall. We filmed ALIVE in the stunning Canadian Rockies and one day on the set, Kathy walked over to me and announced that she had spoken to Steven back in Los Angeles, that Amblin was getting ready to shoot the live action version of THE FLINTSTONES that summer and that I was going to produce it. This seemed insane to me! They knew full well that I hadn’t produced a film before – how would I know what to do and how to do it? Kathy, in her inimitable style, basically told me I was being a wuss, that I was ready to produce and that was that. The three of them had certainly tried to teach me by example that true leaders inspired with great vision and communicated with great clarity and, it turned out I had, in fact, been paying attention.

I think I would say that one of the funnest ways I got to practice my producing skills on my first feature was for the arrival on set of person playing Fred Flintstone’s mother-in-law, Pearl Slaghoople, the legendary Elizabeth Taylor. THE FLINTSTONES turned out to be both her return to the silver screen after a several decade absence and the last film she ever did, but no matter how you slice it, to this gay kid from Falls Church, Virginia who found himself now producing movies for Steven Spielberg, it was a VERY BIG DEAL… and I leapt into action. My goal was to produce her return to the movies in a manner befitting her magnificence and to accomplish that, for starters, I selected and purchased an elaborate series of start gifts, thanks to a personal check from Steven, at her favorite store (it was a Hollywood legend that she expected elaborate gifts at the start of each production which she confirmed for me at her costume fitting by whispering in my ear “Cartier, dahling”). On her first day of filming, I had her trailer filled with purple flowers (famously her favorite color) and had a purple carpet put down for her entrance back on the soundstage after all those years, in a scene right out of SUNSET BOULEVARD. As the piece de resistance, I had learned that when she was a contract player in the early sixties on the Universal lot, where we were filming, the entire crew wore dress shirts and ties to work every day and so I communicated to our crew (see what I did there?) to please do the same for La Liz’s first day. And when she walked down the purple carpet onto the stage, holding onto my arm, and saw the whole crew applauding her historic return in shirts and ties, she burst into tears.

Twenty-nine years later, I am currently in production on my 16th film as a producer or executive producer, including AMERICAN BEAUTY, BIG FISH, MILK, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and the upcoming RUSTIN. I have produced television series, mini-series and specials, including PUSHING DAISIES and THE ACADEMY AWARDS, the Broadway musical version of BIG FISH, co-produced two Broadway plays, THE INHERITANCE and SLAVE PLAY, as well as producing countless live events, award shows and fundraisers, protests, marches, parties and memorials, because I believe EVERYTHING needs a good producer, especially if they are bringing their vision and communication skills to the table. I hope I have been a credit to the producing profession, I hope my projects have made audiences around the world laugh and cry, I hope they have maybe even changed the world a little, but most importantly, I hope I have made Steven, Kathy and Frank proud…. and, of course, my mom.