Robert Cohn; Producer, Son of Columbia Founder

Robert Cohn, 75, film producer and scion of the founders of Columbia Pictures. The son and nephew respectively of Jack and Harry Cohn, he graduated from the University of Michigan and went to work for Columbia in 1938. During World War II, Cohn earned a Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross as an Army captain. Back on Columbia’s sets, he once tangled with an escaped cougar used in one of his films. Cohn worked as a studio executive in Europe and produced such films as “The Barefoot Mailman” with Robert Cummings and “Mission Over Korea” with John Derek. His later work included the documentary “Young Americans,” which won and then forfeited an Academy Award for 1968 because it had been given a test run in a previous year. Cohn also produced “Why,” the film debut of O.J. Simpson. On Monday in Los Angeles of heart failure.