80 new york | september 16–29, 2019
Doyouknowwhomadethat panel?
We don’t. We tried to find them. It’s an
anonymous person, but we have a letter
that they wrote about why they wanted
people to know who Cohn was. I’m hoping
maybe when the film comes out that this
person will come forward. We’ve bor-
rowed the title because, at the moment,
we both had this reaction like, Good, the
bastard. But then, simultaneously, Oh, the
poor bastard.
That is the feeling of the film.
I’m glad you felt that way. That is what
I was grappling with. Because it’s not so
simple. He’s not just evil. Well, he is evil,
but that’s not what’s interesting to me.
There was something about the fact that
this is a story that’s resonating again now
that made it important to tell. Angels in
America was coming back to New York;
Trump had been elected. I knew by then
that Cohn had been his mentor, his lawyer,
his good friend. I don’t believe he created
Trump. I think that’s overstated. But you
can pinpoint where Trump started to get
the idea that he could be president, and
Cohn had a lot to do with it.
He touches on so many aspects of our
history. He started with the Rosenberg
case, so that’s my entry point. Then he went
on to be [Senator Joseph] McCarthy’s
right-hand man, and then, and then, and
then ... But then he goes to Province town,
where he lives more openly and happily.
I find that poignant, that he could go there
and be that way. That was a part of his life
I wanted to bring out. I love Province-
town; I know a lot of people there.
Nich olas von Hoffman wrote a biography
of Cohn many years ago, called Citizen
Cohn, which became an HBO film with
James Woods playing him. That book
opens with Cohn in Provincetown.
I thought, Oh wow.
To access people who knew Cohn, you
had to navigate a kind of Establishment
that would automatically be dismissive of
you. How did you handle that?
Many of these people would not nor-
mally want to talk to me because they
would assume that I’m coming at this with
an agenda, that I’m just going to slam Cohn
and it’s going to be a one-note thing. But
I told them, “I’m not interested in that.
I want to hear your stories of Cohn.”
There’s an incredible treasure trove of
his personal materials in the film.
It’s his personal photo collection. They
show how happy he was there. It’s him
with all these young men, smiling and
shirtless and in Provincetown, and beau-
tiful Polaroids on the boat and family
photos of him as a baby. There’s this
black-and-white one that I love. There’s
three men next to him, all looking in the
same direction. It’s like he’s in his ele-
ment. As Nathan Lane says in the film,
Roy grew up in a time when he couldn’t
be open—and if he had been, he’d have
been incredibly brave, and he clearly
wasn’t. I think it turned him into a
malevolent force. The hypocrisy is one of
the worst things—that he would support
Reagan while he’s dying of aids and Rea-
gan’s not doing anything except helping
him get access to early trials of AZT.
One of my favorite parts of the film is
when this former male prostitute turned
gym owner decides to wage war on Cohn
by creating a magazine called Now East,
all about how he’s gay.
Isn’t that incredible? That story! [Jour-
nalist] Peter Manso had a box of materials
that I started going through. I actually
have footage of Peter going through the
magazine going, “Oh my God!” Laughing
his head off. It’s hilarious. And so inven-too perfect that he and Cohn worked
together and were so close.
I had read an article where Dershowitz
talks about Cohn having told him about
my grandparents’ trial and that Cohn had
said he’d framed guilty people. So of
course I wanted to know Dershowitz’s
take on that. And it turned out to be an
incredible interview. I can find hundreds
of left- wingers who will tell us that, but to
have a right-winger like him telling me,
telling us, telling the audience, telling the
world, that Cohn fixed the case ... And
Dershowitz himself thinks it’s one of the
greatest miscarriages of justice ever.
Why do you think Cohn told him that?
He wanted Dershowitz to like him, to
understand and respect him. And he
wanted New York Jews in particular to
understand why he did this. “We knew
they were guilty; that’s why we had to exe-
cute them.” He was concerned about his
reputation in the Jewish community. It
was important to distinguish yourself from
the so-called bad Jews. The good Jews ver-
sus the bad Jews. Which is why my
grandparents’ trial was stacked with a Jew-
ish judge and a Jewish prosecution team,
including Cohn.
It’s one of the interesting things
about living in this era of Trump: These
formulations of identity and place
within American culture are being taken
apart again. And you’re sort of like, “Oh
right, this is where that comes from.”
For many people, we thought this was
the past. We really thought we were in the
clear. And now we’ve been with Trump
long enough to know that’s not true.
That’s another quality Cohn shares
with the people who now surround
Trump. He’s aware of what’s happening to
other people and says, “It’s not going to
happen to me. I’m going to make sure the
system works for me.” He tried to game
the system. Meanwhile, his own uncle is
in Sing Sing.
I have that exchange with Roy’s cousin
David Marcus, where I say, “This is crazy.
I’m sitting here talking to you, and Roy
Cohn sent my grandparents to Sing
Sing,” and Dave Marcus’s grandfather,
Roy’s uncle, was in Sing Sing. Uncle Ber-
nie. I find that story pretty amazing
because he was the only Jewish banker
who ended up there. Of all the savings-
and-loan disasters, he was the only one
who got sent away. It was a Jewish com-
munity bank.
Marcus actually says, “Well, every fam-
ily has its Roy Cohn.”
Yeah, and his mom says, “I hope not.
The world would be a terrible place if
that happened.” ■The CULTURE PAGES
A cartoon from the magazine
Now East, outing Cohn.tive. One thing they did was create a fake
New York Times insert—like another sec-
tion that looked exactly like the New York
Times. It was all about how Cohn’s gay
and Cohn’s this and Cohn’s that. They
inserted it into the Sunday papers all over
the city. Like, in the middle of the night,
when the papers were dropped off at
newsstands, someone went around and
stuffed these in so that people woke up to
their Sunday paper and there was a fake
insert that outed Cohn. We didn’t even
put in half of what these guys were doing
to harass him.
John Waters steals the show, as usual.
He’s just such a pleasure to interview.
I was kind of playing with him, too. He was
talking about everyone doing cocaine and
Roy doing cocaine, and then I said, quietly,
“Did you ever do cocaine with him?” And
that’s when he goes, “I wouldn’t have my
nostril on the same straw as that pig.”
And then Alan Dershowitz. It’s almost