The Enigma of Roy Cohn

Roy Cohn is a villain in our history. While Angels in America takes some artistic liberty, many of the details of his life and personlity are true the real Roy Cohn.

  • Born February 20, 1927
  • Died August 2, 1986
  • Partially responsible for the Lavender Scare in the 1950s
    • Cohn persecuted gay politicians to force them out of office
  • Mentored a young Donald Trump
    • This story is fictionalized in the movie The Apprentice, which stars Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn
  • He helped engineer the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as Soviet spies, and acknowledged using illicit, back-channel conversations with the judge to get the death penalty.
  • Senior Counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led the Red Scare, which persecuted alleged communists in the US Government
  • Partied at Studio 54 with Nancy Reagan, Barbara Walters, Andy Warhol
  • True: He was disbarred a few weeks before his death for various criminal offenses
  • True: He denied he died of complications from AIDs, instead claiming he had liver cancer
  • Apparently had a habit of eating food off other people’s plates.
  • The miniseries Fellow Travelers tells part of the story about how Cohn was ousted from D.C.
    • Cohn reportedly threatened an Army General while trying to save a man from being drafted. Cohn reportedly loved/had relations with the drafted man.
  • Hated Russia
    • Despite his close relationship with Donald Trump, many historians believe that Cohn would hate Trump’s relationship with Russia.
  • Cohn was an only child