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Lester Cohen (August 17, 1901 - July 17, 1963) was a US novelist, screenwriter and author of non-fiction. He was the author of the novels Sweepings and Coming Home, and the screen play for Of Human Bondage.
Early Life[edit]
Cohen was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Annie Harchovsky who came from the province of Minsk, Russia, and Dr. Hyman Cohen from Coidnov, also in the province of Minsk though they did not know each other until years later when they both lived in Chicago. Both of Lester’s parents came from remarkable families: Annie’s father was a lumberman and cantor, Hyman’s people wrote commentaries on the Talmud and other holy books. Both emigrated to this country in their early teens and worked in sweatshops. Hyman Cohen became a doctor, attended the noted old medical school known as P&S (Physicians and Surgeons, no longer in existence.) He was a pioneer in public health, an officer of the Chicago Public Health Department, for many years wrote what he called Healthgrams which were syndicated in numerous newspapers and the word has gone into the language. Later he became a specialist in the eye and taught his specialty at Rush Medical. Hyman was also a writer, author of several books both in his specialty and two novels.
Lester went to public schools in Chicago and briefly attended the University of Chicago. He dropped out claiming that it was boring. Lester Cohen started his career in writing as a poet (all later destroyed by Cohen), then worked in newspapers including the Chicago Daily News and the Graphic in New York Cityii (the subject of his 1964 book The New York Graphic: The World’s Zaniest Newspaper) among others. He was the advertising manager for the Boston Store in Chicago and Bloomingdale’s department store in New York.
When he was 19 he met Priscilla Pardridge (better known later as Eden Gray, Broadway actress, radio personality, publisher and author of several books on the Tarot cards and other subjects) at a poetry reading at the literary Dill Pickle Club. After several dates they agreed to move separately to NYC and then get married so that Eden could pursue her goal of being a Broadway actress. She left for the East and he followed a few weeks later. Priscilla found work as an artists’ model, in silent films (then being made in Brooklyn) before succeeding on Broadway. Cohen worked in advertising and later got a job as contest editor for McFadden’s “The New York Graphic”. The New York Times mentions their wedding: 25 January 1921, "Society Girl Weds Poet; Priscilla Pardridge of Chicago Marries Lester Cohen in New York.”iii Her family was not pleased. Lester and Eden had a son, Peter Gray Cohen (11/12/1925-9/7/2014) who was a painter, muralist and political activist.
Lester moved to a farm in Carversville in Bucks County, PA. in 1935 where he lived for almost 20 years.iv
Lester married Diana Peckham in 1947. Peckham was a mathematician who worked on early cosmic ray research. She left the field for a first marriage to Arthur Mason Heinemann. Their son, Peter Heinemann became a successful New York artist and art teacher at the School for Visual Arts. Diana went on to become a first a writer in Hollywood for Disney and other major motion picture studios and then a public speaker.
Political Commitment
Lester was a member of the Dreiser Committee which visited the Kentucky coal fields in 1931 to give the story to the world of the terrorism being practiced against miners in their struggle for a decent living. John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson and other notable American Writers were on this committee and their collective efforts resulted in improvement of conditions, after they as well as the miners were threatened by gun thugs and the writers were indicted by the State of Kentucky for criminal syndicalism.
He was a member of the League of American Writers, an affiliation of communist and communist sympathizers that was active between 1935 and 1943. It is uncertain how long Lester was a member or how deeply committed to communism he was.v
Lester Cohen represented the American League for a Free Palestine at the first United Nations Conference in San Francisco in 1945. He wrote material for the League which was published in full pages in New York and other papers resulting in the forcing out of the then High Commissioner for Great Britain in Palestine and loosened the hold of the British in Palestine.
Lester was proud to have been a founding member of the Screen Writers’ Guild. He was a member of the Authors’ Guild of America from 1926 to his death in 1963. He had no political or religious affiliations.
Writing Career
Lester Cohen was the author of nine published books, two (or more) unpublished works (including The Fabulous World of Horace Liveright about the founder of Boni-Liveright Publishers and his circle, and Fallen Nation, an epic unfinished at the time of his death); six full-length stage plays, many short plays and scripts for television; poetry; articles and stories for periodicals; reviews and editorials for Variety; and many screen plays and treatments for motion pictures.
Works
Books
Sweepings (1926, reissued 1957-8). A very-well reviewed best-seller about the rise and fall of a department store dynasty in Chicago based on his wife, Eden’s, family history. There were many editions in various languages. Published a month after he turned 25. Lester wrote in a letter to Dr. Harry Warfel of the University of Florida: “Sweepings was immensely successful both in literary terms and in sales. It was galled “great” by any number of reviewers and it was compared to Balzac (Saturday Review of Books) and Dreiser (by the NY Times, “A fine novel, with dignity, force and virility. Since Dreiser no book has been written which gives so well as Sweepings a full-bodied picture of the ruthlessness of American business.”)… In a way it was too successful, and to an extent its success turned my head.”vi
The Great Bear (1927). A story of the Chicago commodity market, also a best-seller about Eden’s family history was his second novel that paints a picture of the ability, vanity, ego and ultimate nothingness of the market speculator. When Lester was engaged to write for movies and was assigned to do an Indian story, he discovered they thought, "Great Bear" was an Indian.vii
Oscar Wilde: a play (1928). Published in book form. The play did not find a producer and there was speculation that there was too much prejudice to stage a frank portrayal of the subject. at that time.viii
Aaron Traum (1930). Written with his father, Hyman, about Hyman’s immigration to America. Published by Horace Liveright.ix
Two Worlds (1936). Based on a world tour he made with Eden. The idea, new at the time, about the world’s division into communist and democratic states from a personal perspective. While in Russia he was told that half a million copies of Sweepings and other of his books had been sold there.x
Billy Mitchell (1942). Written with Emile Gauvreau. First book about prophetic general of our air force. Mitchell was an early vocal advocate for the use of aircraft carriers and military projection of strength through the air.xi
Coming Home (1945, reissued 1957). Sold a million copies. The New York Times said, “An explosive account of a returning veteran’s fight against political corruption set amid the great steel mills of Pittsburgh.”xii, xiii
Mom and Pop (1963). A tender and moving story of his own parents. The Los Angeles Times said, “Everyone will want to read this book.”
The New York Graphic: The World’s Zaniest Newspaper (1964)xiv
Motion Pictures
Cohen was in the motion pictures industry for 20 years and sold many original stories to a variety of major studios including: The Dam (MGM, 1941), Mamie Q (sold first to Warner Brothers in 1941 and then to RKO in 1942), and Women at War (Columbia, 1942). Although he worked on Pride of the Yankees in 1933-34, he refused credits as he did on several other pictures and unfinished projects. His major successes were
Sweepings (RKO 1933) with Lionel Barrymore and Gregory Ratoff (his first starring role). Sweepings was made again in 1939.xv,xvi,xvii
One Man’s Journey (RKO 1933) (with long-time friend and collaborator Sam Ornitz) starring Lionel Barrymore, May Robson and Joel McCrea.xviii
Of Human Bondage (1934) starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis. Davis was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance which she considered her best.)xix, xx
Break of Hearts (RKO 1935) starring Katherine Hepburn and Charles Boyer. This was based on Cohen’s original story and he also wrote the screenplay.xxi, xxii
Plays
Of Human Bondage. Maugham gave Cohen world wide dramatic rights to Bondage for the length of copyright (2004) presumably because Cohen had put him on the screen, a success that had elude Maugham until then.xxiii
House in Ohio with Diana Peckham.xxiv
Coming Home, based on his novel.
The Web and the Rock. This was the first dramatization done of a work by Thomas Wolfe. The play toured from 1949-50.xxv
Benjamin Franklin: a play of America. Sold to television.
Oscar Wilde (previously mentioned.)
Magazine Articles and Stories
Cohen covered the 1956 political convention for Esquire Magazine, the near book-length piece was titled You Are There: Convention 1956.
He wrote other articles for Esquire including studies of Estes Kefauver and Horace Liveright. (a book by Cohen, The Fabulous world of Horace Liveright, was never published and only exists in manuscript form.)
A long article, Theodore Dreiser: a personal memoir was based on Cohen’s long time friendship and appeared in Discovery 4. It was later republished and translated in other languages.
The Man Who Laughed Too Much with Arnold Gingrich, Esquire Publisher devoted his Publisher’s Page to for February 1955 said was the “star feature of this issue. This long short story or demi-novelette, is by Lester Cohen who, for all the Hollywood loot and Broadway luster that he has accrued to his name… writes a terrific story… one of the most refreshingly original creations of this or any year.”
Apply Kaliades or The Man Who Made a Deal, in Esquire, June 1956.
Harlan Miners Speak Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields, Report of the Dreiser Committee. Cohen wrote one of the pieces in the book put together by the Dreiser Committee published in 1932 by Harcourt Brace.
Among many reprints is the Kefaver piece in The Writers Craft by Frederic A. Birmingham, 1958, in which the editor states: “Lester Cohen—a famous name in playwrighting and a kind of fiction which requires supreme stagecraft and complicated trappings—has evolved a spare electric style which is almost shocking in its simplicity. But his spotlight never wavers, in fact it throws a glow on his subject so that you stand there with him, hearing and seeing and feeling.”
References[edit]
i NYT, July 19, 1963, P. 25
ii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Graphic
iii BOOKS OF THE TIMES. “IF your memory goes back fifteen years you will recall that, according to the headline writers, Society Girl Wed Poet early in 1921. The society girl was one Priscilla Pardridge of Chicago; the poet was one Lester Cohen. About five years later, by virtue of a novel entitled "Sweepings," the poet came to be designated Lester Cohen, without the humbling adjective.” By RALPH THOMPSON, June 24, 1936, P. 21
iv http://www.michenermuseum.org/bucksartists/artist.php?artist=53
v https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_League_of_American_Writers
vi The Realism of Business, by Ernest Sutherland Bates. THE SATURDAY REVIEW of LITERATURE, DECEMBER 4, 1926, p. 366
vii The Talk of the Town, The New Yorker, June 22, 1929 P. 11
ix http://www.michenermuseum.org/bucksartists/artist.php?artist=53
x Vivid and Telling Pictures Of a Turbulent World; Lester Cohen Records Far-Wandering Travels in Europe And the Countries of the East TWO WORLDS. By Lester Cohen. Illustrated. 412 pp. New York: Covici-Friede. Reviewed by By MICHAEL T. FLORINSKY, July 05, 1936, Section BOOK REVIEW, Page BR4
xi http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9C01EEDC163EE233A25752C2A9639C946091D6CF
xii https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lester-cohen-6/coming-home-5/
xiv http://www.bernarrmacfadden.com/graphic/index.html
xv http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940DE2D91E3AE333A25757C2A9659C946294D6CF
xvi http://immortalephemera.com/45787/sweepings-1933/
xvii http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1839/Sweepings/articles.html
xviii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Man%27s_Journey
xix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Human_Bondage_(1934_film)
xx http://www.allmovie.com/movie/of-human-bondage-v35970
xxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_of_Hearts
xxii http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026134/
xxiii http://www.worldcat.org/title/of-human-bondage-a-play/oclc/712024036
xxiv http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/pdf/00504.pdf
xxv http://www.worldcat.org/title/web-and-the-rock-typescript-1950/oclc/270701837