Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn

By: Kelly Kearney

Infamously known as New York’s “fixer,” Roy Cohn was catapulted into legal stardom at age twenty-seven when he joined Joseph McCarthy’s Hollywood red scare in search of Russian loyalists at the start of the cold war. What cemented his monstrous brand came later when he prosecuted accused Russian spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a fact that is still hotly debated to this day. Thanks to director Ivy Meeropol, the Rosenberg’s granddaughter, we get a glimpse of what sent Roy the path to becoming the most infamous and influential mover and shaker the United States has ever had the misfortune of knowing, as well as the truth behind her grandparents’ role in his success.

Who Is Roy Cohn?

As one of the most notorious men of the 20^th century, Cohn’s success largely came from manipulating the media. He used his contacts and friendships with journalists to cover for his closeted lifestyle as much as his lawless wrath on anyone who got in his way. After the Rosenberg’s went to the electric chair, their son Michael Meeropol (who took his adoptive parent’s surname) worked tirelessly to clear his parents’ names. His journey led him to a truth Roy viciously tried to hide, both about the Rosenbergs and about his own closeted lifestyle. So, woven together were his secrets that they formed a quilt of lies that ended in his own painful demise.

Through interviews, clips and television appearances Ivy masterfully tells the story of a relentless legal mind who found success in skirting the very law he was sworn to uphold. From McCarthy to the Provincetown gay scene, Roy was a constant in the political arena while hiding in the shadows of the Hollywood gay scene forcing his public persona to be at odds with his private life. He was known as the mouthpiece for the Gambino crime family, a loyal Reaganite, the silent owner and lawyer for Studio 54 and a friend and confidant to a young outer borough millionaire desperately in need of a courtroom win.

The Protégé

To understand Roy all one has to do is look at Donald Trump – someone who ranks winning and power above ethics and decency.  If there is one thing Roy could deliver on was a win at any costs and in 1973 Donald Trump found his savior and mentor in Roy.  At the time their friendship began a young Donald was up to his quaffed hair in legal troubles thanks to the largest civil rights case New York had ever seen. After years of being accused of denying apartment rentals to people of color the city dropped the legal hammer on Donald, risking his newly inherited fortune that had already been dwindling by the day. Having been sheltered from the Manhattan scene, Donald was out of his element and bleeding out his inheritance on one bad deal after another. With the lawsuit hovering over his head like a Sword of Damocles, he needed a rabid dog of a lawyer to get him off the financial hook. That mouthy mutt was Cohn and throughout their partnership a friendship and mentorship was born. Some might even say we can thank Trump’s rise to political power to the lessons he learned from Cohn – use the media, friendships and your wealth to your advantage and you can live in the shadows of well-crafted façade. He was the King of Manipulation and with his influence Donald learned how to become the Prince of Propaganda.

Outside of his clients and friendships, Meeropol manages to delve deep into Cohn’s hidden life offering a peek into the other Roy he hid from the public. In private he was known as the Jewish gay party boy who could be found at any Provincetown pride parade or back room in Studio 54, but in public eye he never missed a chance to throw his fellow Jews and gays under the bus. His fortune was literally built on the shaky grounds of hypocrisy, so it’s no wonder he used threats and his powerful friends to keep the cover up going. Everything Roy did was in direct opposition to his private life and, thanks to his terrifying reputation, he was able to toe the line between those two worlds right up until his death from AIDS, which found him alone, without his law license and, most importantly, abandoned by his friend Trump. From fame and fortune to an all but forgotten man whose epitaph is sewn into a panel on the AIDS quilt that reads, “Bully. Coward. Victim. Roy Cohn.” Much to his probably dismay, he is remembered as a monster who helped create the man we call today the President of the United States.

The Best Cohn Documentary to Date

This must-see documentary does an incredible job of tying together all of Roy’s personality quirks to his rise to stardom and his fascinating fall into infamy. With each interview from friends, enemies, journalists and actors Meeropol is able to do what her father spent decades trying to accomplish – to rip the mask off the monster and study the evil that will forever be tied to her family’s name. In doing so she is able to get to the likely truth about her grandparents’ case and why they were used as pawns in a much bigger conspiracy. Without focusing solely on the Rosenbergs’ story, we are able to get a well-rounded picture of not only the vicious lawless God he thought he was, but the lonely and broken mortal who in Cohn’s last days was abandoned by his powerful friends. As an American watching the country struggle to determine fact from fiction, while trying to overcome its’ bigotry to unite as a nation under the law, Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn is a frightening look at the power of media, political agenda, and how truth can often be a well-crafted and paid for lie. Out of the recent biographical looks into Cohn’s life, Ivy Meeropol’s documentary, in all of its factual glory, is the one that cannot be skipped.