The only producer ever to have won five Academy Awards, and the only foreign producer ever honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, the Swiss-born Arthur Cohn has built a reputation for producing films of uncompromising vision and artistry.
Born in Basel, Switzerland, Cohn studied international law, and was a journalist and author before turning to producing. His first film was the Oscar-winning documentary “The Sky Above, The Mud Below” (1961). Later in the decade, he teamed up with Vittorio De Sica, handling most of the director’s late films, including “A Place for Lovers” (1969), “We’ll Call Him Andrea” (1972), the Oscar-winning The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), and “A Brief Vacation” (1973).
Cohn captured his next two Best Foreign Film Oscars with “Black and White in Color” (1976), a satirical anti-war story set in Africa’s Ivory Coast, and the French-produced “Dangerous Moves” (1984), a drama set in the high-tension world of international championship… read more
The only producer ever to have won five Academy Awards, and the only foreign producer ever honored with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, the Swiss-born Arthur Cohn has built a reputation for producing films of uncompromising vision and artistry.
Born in Basel, Switzerland, Cohn studied international law, and was a journalist and author before turning to producing. His first film was the Oscar-winning documentary “The Sky Above, The Mud Below” (1961). Later in the decade, he teamed up with Vittorio De Sica, handling most of the director’s late films, including “A Place for Lovers” (1969), “We’ll Call Him Andrea” (1972), the Oscar-winning The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), and “A Brief Vacation” (1973).
Cohn captured his next two Best Foreign Film Oscars with “Black and White in Color” (1976), a satirical anti-war story set in Africa’s Ivory Coast, and the French-produced “Dangerous Moves” (1984), a drama set in the high-tension world of international championship chess, starring Michel Piccoli and Liv Ullman. He also made notable returns to the realm of documentary with “The Final Solution” (1983), a study of the Holocaust featuring Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and with Barbara Kopple’s landmark saga of a six-year labor dispute at a Minnesota meat-packing plant, “American Dream” (1990). The latter film’s Oscar for Best Documentary made Cohn’s total of five wins a unique achievement.
Cohn was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Boston University, and was bestowed the title Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. —Sony Pictures
