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Rich Cohen

{{short description|American non-fiction writer|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{other people||Richard Cohen (disambiguation)}}

{{use mdy dates|date=May 2016}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Rich Cohen

| image =

| pseudonym =

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1968|7|30}}

| birth_place = Lake Forest, Illinois, U.S.

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| occupation = Non-fiction writer, journalist, screenplay writer

| period = 1992–present

| subject =

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| notableworks = Tough Jews (1998)
Sweet and Low (2006)
Monsters (2013)
Vinyl (2016)

| spouse =

| partner =

| children =

| relatives =

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| website = {{url|https://authorrichcohen.com}}

}}

Rich Cohen (born July 30, 1968) is an American non-fiction writer. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. He is co-creator, with Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, of the HBO series Vinyl. His works have been New York Times bestsellers, New York Times Notable Books, and have been collected in the Best American Essays series. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut, with his wife and children.

He is not to be confused with Richard A. Cohen.

Early life

Cohen was born into a Jewish family in Lake Forest, Illinois, and grew up in Chicago's North Shore suburb of Glencoe.{{cite web |publisher=Barnes and Noble |title=Machers And Rockers by Rich Cohen |url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Machers-and-Rockers/Rich-Cohen/e/9780393052800 |accessdate=2008-03-20 |archive-date=June 8, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110608141003/http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Machers-and-Rockers/Rich-Cohen/e/9780393052800 |url-status=dead }} He received his BA from Tulane University in 1990. His father, the negotiator Herb Cohen, grew up with the broadcaster Larry King; Cohen worked on King's CNN show for a short time after graduation.Cohen, Rich, "King and I", Rolling Stone, November 14, 1996. His sister, Sharon Cohen Levin, is an Assistant United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York. His brother, Steve Cohen, a former aide to New York governor Andrew Cuomo, is a partner at the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder in New York City.Lovett, Ken, [http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/09/steve-cohen-lands "Daily Politics: Steve Cohen Lands"], New York Daily News, September 20, 2011. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111229210401/http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/09/steve-cohen-lands |date=December 29, 2011 }}

Career

=Journalism=

An admirer of the works of journalists A. J. Liebling, Ian Frazier, and Joseph Mitchell, Cohen took a job as a messenger at the offices of The New Yorker magazine,Ledbetter, C. S., [http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/cohen/csledbetter.html "The Education of A Writer"], Author's Desktop, Random House, retrieved 3-20-2008. where he published twelve stories in the "Talk of the Town" section in eighteen months.Cohen, Richard, Lake Effect: A Memoir, New York: Knopf, 2001. p. 180. After working as a reporter for the New York Observer, in 1994 Cohen joined the staff of Rolling Stone. Since 2007, he has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. In 2022, Cohen became a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-a-suburban-kid-there-was-no-purer-sport-than-wiffle-ball-11665754059 |title=For a Suburban Kid, There Was No Purer Sport Than Wiffle Ball |first=Rich |last=Cohen |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |date=2022-10-14 |accessdate=2022-10-18}}

=Author=

Cohen published his first book Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams—a non-fiction account of the Jewish gangsters of 1930s Brooklyn, notably those involved with Murder, Inc.—in 1998. Cohen's second work, The Avengers: A Jewish War Story (2000), follows a group of anti-Nazi partisans in the forests of Lithuania at the close of World War II.{{cite news |url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/86093 |title=A Final Mission |first=Rich |last=Cohen |work=Newsweek |date=2000-09-11 |accessdate=2008-03-20}}

Cohen's third work, the memoir Lake Effect was published in 2002. In 2006, Cohen published Sweet and Low: A Family Story, a memoir about the creation of the artificial sweetener, a product invented by Benjamin Eisenstadt, Cohen's grandfather.

In 2009, Cohen published Israel is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and its History. In 2010, Cohen co-wrote the memoir When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead, the story of American film producer Jerry Weintraub. The book was a New York Times bestseller.[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/books/review/InsideList-t.html Jennifer Schuessler, "Inside the List", The New York Times Book Review, April 23, 2010.]

Cohen's story of United Fruit president and banana king Sam Zemurray, The Fish That Ate the Whale, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2012.{{cite news|url=http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-07/book-review-the-fish-that-ate-the-whale-by-rich-cohen |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120608223750/http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-07/book-review-the-fish-that-ate-the-whale-by-rich-cohen |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 8, 2012 |title=Book Review: 'The Fish That Ate the Whale,' by Rich Cohen |first=Daniel |last=Grushkin |publisher=Bloomberg Businessweek |date=2012-06-07 |accessdate=2012-07-02}} In 2013, Cohen published Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, a story of football through the eyes of the 1985 Chicago Bears. The book was a New York Times best seller.[https://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2013-11-24/hardcover-nonfiction/list.html "Best Sellers Hardcover Nonfiction"]. The New York Times November 24, 2013. Cohen's next book, a narrative history of The Rolling Stones called The Sun and The Moon and the Rolling Stones, was published by Spiegel and Grau in May 2016.[http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/237039/the-sun-and-the-moon-and-the-rolling-stones-by-rich-cohen/9780804179232/ The Sun and the Moon and the Rolling Stone], Penguin Random House Website. Accessed 2016-01-03. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307210035/http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/237039/the-sun-and-the-moon-and-the-rolling-stones-by-rich-cohen/9780804179232/ |date=March 7, 2016 }} Cohen had been on close terms with the Rolling Stones since the mid-1990s.[https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/warring-stones-stay-together-for-the-money-5hmw22n0s "Warring Stones"], The Times (U.K.), April 2, 2016.

In May 2022, Cohen published The Adventures of Herbie Cohen, World's Greatest Negotiator, about Cohen's father, Herb Cohen.

=Film and television=

On February 26, 2007, Paramount Pictures announced it had closed a deal to produce The Long Play, a screenplay which Cohen wrote several drafts for and did research on, for producers Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese, with Scorsese directing.{{cite web |last1=McClintock |first1=Pamela |last2=Fleming |first2=Michael |title=Scorsese, Monahan ready to ‘Play’ |url=https://variety.com/2007/film/markets-festivals/scorsese-monahan-ready-to-play-2-1117960184/ |website=Variety |date=27 February 2007}}

In 2012 and 2013 Cohen was an advisor on the Starz series Magic City.{{cite web |last1=Brook |first1=Daniel |title=Jewish Gangsters Get Their Day at Museum |url=https://forward.com/culture/154101/jewish-gangsters-get-their-day-at-museum/ |website=The Forward |language=en |date=3 April 2012}}

Cohen is a co-creator, with Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter, of the HBO series Vinyl.[http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/6865927/vinyl-tv-review-hbo Tim Goodmen, "'Vinyl': TV Review"], Billboard, February 2, 2016.

Critical reception

In 2013, NPR editor Tina Brown called Cohen's essay on the financier Ted Forstmann "very entertaining" and a "must read".[https://www.npr.org/2013/01/22/169355935/tina-browns-must-reads-hidden-lives NPR Staff, "Tina Brown's Must-Reads: Hidden Lives"], Morning Edition, January 22, 2013.

In The New York Times Book Review, writer Vincent Patrick called Cohen's book Tough Jews "marvelous and colorful" with "writing good enough to cause one, at times, to reread a page in order to savor the description".{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/12/reviews/980412.12patrict.html?_r=1&oref=login |title=This You Call A Stick-up? |first=Vincent |last=Patrick |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1998-04-12 |accessdate=2008-03-20}} Another New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, called it "exuberant" and "a vivid narrative"; Cohen's book had "taken the noise of these facts and turned it from gunfire into a kind of music".{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/16/books/books-of-the-times-hardly-our-crowd-a-jewish-underworld.html |title=Hardly 'Our Crowd': A Jewish Underworld |first=Christopher |last=Lehmann-Haupt |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1998-04-16 |accessdate=2013-01-31}}

Critic Michiko Kakutani called Cohen's Sweet and Low "a classic" ... "A telling—and often hilarious—parable about the pursuit and costs of the American Dream".{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/books/04kaku.html |title=Problems That Come in Little Packets |first=Michiko |last=Kakutani |newspaper=The New York Times |date=2006-04-04 |accessdate=2008-03-20}} In 2006, the book made the New York Times list of 100 notable books.{{cite web |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/books/review/20061203notable-books.html? |title=100 Notable Books of the Year |work=The New York Times|author= |date=December 4, 2006 |accessdate=January 19, 2019}}

In The New York Times Book Review, writer Tony Horwitz said Israel is Real "accomplished the miraculous. It made a subject that has vexed me since childhood into a riveting story."{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/books/review/Horwitz-t.html |title=A Land and a People |first=Tony |last=Horwitz |newspaper=The New York Times |date=2009-07-26 |accessdate=2009-07-26}}

Critic and historian Mark Lewis called The Fish That Ate the Whale "Kiplingesque" and "fascinating."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/the-fish-that-ate-the-whale-by-rich-cohen.html |title=Banana Republican: 'The Fish That Ate the Whale,' by Rich Cohen |first=Mark |last=Lewis |newspaper=The New York Times |date=2012-09-16 |accessdate=2012-09-16}} In The Christian Science Monitor, critic Chris Hartman called the book "masterful and elegantly written ... a cautionary tale for the ages".{{cite news|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2012/1018/The-Fish-That-Ate-the-Whale |title=Book Review: The Fish That Ate the Whale |first=Chris |last=Hartman |newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor|date=2012-10-18 |accessdate=2012-10-18}}

Reviewing The Last Pirate of New York in the Wall Street Journal, Rinker Buck wrote, "'The Last Pirate of New York' is history-lite at its best, and readers will finish it with a satisfaction deeply relevant today."{{cite news|last=Ruck |first=Rinker|title=New York's Original Gangster: The Last Pirate of New York by Rich Cohen|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-last-pirate-of-new-york-review-new-yorks-original-gangster-11561732127|accessdate=July 2, 2019|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=June 28, 2019}}

=Awards=

Select bibliography

  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons and Gangster Dreams |date=1999 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-09-975791-7 |oclc=877546776 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Avengers: A Jewish War Story |date=2001 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-375-70529-8 |oclc=48155659 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Lake Effect |date=2003 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-09-928705-6 |oclc=1181426522 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock 'n' Roll |date=2005 |publisher=Profile |isbn=978-1-86197-766-3 |oclc=58554237 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Sweet and Low: A Family Story |date=2007 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=978-0-312-42601-9 |oclc=105485940 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Israel is Real |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-312-42976-8 |oclc=475447642 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King |date=2013 |isbn=978-1-250-03331-4 |oclc=809411728 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |others=Illustrated by Kelly Murphy|title=Alex and the Amazing Time Machine |date=2013 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-1-250-02729-0 |oclc=859394564 |language=English|author1-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-250-05604-7 |oclc=868276611 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones |date=2017 |isbn=978-1-4722-1804-9 |oclc=1073032200 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-250-19278-3 |oclc=1062803393 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation |date=2020 |isbn=978-0-399-58994-2 |oclc=1243500700 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent |date=2022 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-1-250-82953-5 |oclc=1246141700 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator |date=2022 |isbn=978-0-374-16961-9 |oclc=1264275629 |language=English|author-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last1=Cohen|first1=Rich|author-mask=1|title=When the Game Was War: The NBA's Greatest Season|date=2023|oclc=1346365436 |isbn=9780593229545|publisher=Random House}}

Ghostwritten

  • {{cite book |last2=Weintraub |first2=Jerry |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |title=When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man |date=2011 |publisher=Twelve |isbn=978-0-446-54816-8 |oclc=1073614353 |language=English|author1-mask=1}}
  • {{cite book |last2=Sharapova |first2=Maria |last1=Cohen |first1=Rich |author2-link=Maria Sharapova|title=Unstoppable: My Life So Far |date=2020 |isbn=978-0-221-07048-8 |oclc=1157294486 |language=English|author1-mask=1}}

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

External links

  • [https://authorrichcohen.com/ Official website]
  • NPR's Weekend Edition, [https://www.npr.org/2012/06/02/154153252/americas-gone-bananas-heres-how-it-happened The Fish That Ate The Whale]
  • CBS News, [http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7418014n The Fish That Ate The Whale]
  • Appearance on [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5418961 All Things Considered]
  • Appearance on NPR's [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2006/05/15 The Leonard Lopate Show 2006]
  • Appearance on NPR's [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2004/12/15 The Leonard Lopate Show 2005]
  • [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/books/review/17COHENRE.html On Hunter S. Thompson], in The New York Times Book Review
  • [http://www.newsweek.com/id/86093 The Avengers Excerpt], Newsweek Magazine
  • Random House [http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/cohen/desktopnew.html author page]

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Category:Tulane University alumni

Category:1968 births

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Category:American magazine journalists

Category:21st-century American Jews