Yes, Sire

KING COHN by Bob Thomas. 381 pages. Putnam. $6.95.

Gazing at the miles of neighboring urban sprawl and walking through the TV treadmills of Desilu and Warner's, the casual visitor to Hollywood will find it difficult to believe that it was once the habitat of Cro-Magnon man. His name was Harry Cohn, president and production head at Columbia Studios, and he flourished during the movies' Pleistocene epoch--circa A.D. 1930-58--subsisting on the backbones of executives and the egos of movie stars. When he died in 1958, more than 2,000 people turned out for his funeral, prompting Red Skelton to compose the most quoted epitaph in movie history: "It only proves what they always say--give the public something they want to see and they'll come out for it."

After Cohn's funeral, other obituaries were added: "He was a song plugger and a louse," said Comedian Lou Holtz. "He never learned how to live," said Samuel Goldwyn. "He was," said Hedda Hopper, "a sadistic son of a bitch."

Wide Screen. Clearly, a man who can inspire such passion needs a tough-minded and sensitive biographer; instead he has Bob Thomas, 45, Hollywood reporter for the Associated Press, whose prose style seems derived largely from the wide-screen Hollywood novels of Harold Robbins. Nevertheless, Cohn was one of the last of the great movie despots, in whom absolute power and abysmal ignorance were fused, and he left behind a body of anecdotes that are worth examination.

At a writers' conference, for example, Cohn once bawled out his staff for creating an anachronism in an Arabian Nights fantasy. "It's all through this script, goddammit!" he complained. "You've got 'em all saying 'Yes, siree.' " The producer read the offending page on Cohn's desk. "But, Harry," he explained, "that's 'Yes, sire.' "

In a more benign mood, he once wooed a prospective screenwriter: "I'll do anything for you. You can't sleep with your wife any more? You're crazy about a starlet? I'll let you take her down to Stage Eight, and I'll stand outside and guard the door."

When he found that his first wife could not have a baby, he selected a minor actress, had her struck from the payroll, then came to her apartment with an offer that rivals Rumpelstilts-kin's: "I would like you to have a child by me. On the day you are certified to be pregnant, I will put $75,000 in a bank under your name. On the day the child is delivered to me, our relationship is over. . ." The proposal was turned down. Cohn restored the girl to her job--and never spoke to her again.

It was not the first time that the

King's edicts were defied. He was surrounded by jesters, many of them devastating. Once, at the climax of a dressing down, an alcoholic actor, Warren Hymer, urinated on Cohn's immaculate desk. Hymer was banished from Columbia. The desk was burned.

Writer Herman J. Mankiewicz once listened to Cohn brag: "When I'm alone in a projection room, I have a foolproof device for judging whether a picture is good or bad. If my fanny squirms, it's bad. If my fanny doesn't squirm, it's good. It's as simple as that." There was a momentary silence; then Mankiewicz abruptly terminated his employment: "Imagine--the whole world wired to Harry Cohn's behind!"

Nevertheless, there was something instinctive about Cohn's fancy, if not his fanny. He respected talent, and he succeeded in getting some of Hollywood's best people to work for him. Leo McCarey, Robert Rossen, Frank Capra and George Stevens directed his films; Humphrey Bogart, Jack Lemmon, William Holden, Gary Grant, Irene Dunne, Claudette Colbert and Judy Holliday acted in them. And some of Cohn's features are classics: // Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, All the King's Men, Born Yesterday.

Monster Misery. How could such a vulgarian be capable of producing good movies? Some of Cohn's detractors reply with the old saw about flowers springing from dunghills. Author Thomas conversely believes that Cohn's toughness was merely an act to keep his vulnerability and sensitivity from showing. The truth probably lies somewhere between. Cohn was a merchant. He made more than his share of shoddy products: the Blondie series, Boston Blackie, Crime Doctor. But the B pictures earned profits and gave Columbia a chance to trade up. It meant acquiring quality merchandise, and often Cohn paid the top wholesale price to get it.

But the price that others paid to work for him could be measured only in misery. They were not the only losers; like most dictators, Cohn eventually dehumanized himself by dehumanizing his subjects. Despite Biographer Thomas' cosmetic job, the outlines of the monster cannot be missed. In the new Hollywood, Cohn's kind of vulgarity can still be found--but not his kind of power. The absence of that power has made moviemakers' lives a lot better. The irony is that the same can seldom be said for their pictures.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.