Herman Cohen, a Hollywood producer and writer who launched the terrorized-teenager sub-genre of horror movies in 1957 with the cult classic “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” starring an unknown actor named Michael Landon, has died. He was 76.
Mr. Cohen, who had throat cancer, died June 2 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“In the ’50s, he was one of the kings of the drive-in horror movies. His pictures helped put AIP on the map,” said movie historian Tom Weaver, who interviewed Mr. Cohen several times.
Among the best known of the seven movies Cohen produced for American International Pictures, in addition to “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” are “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein,” `Horrors of the Black Museum” and “How to Make a Monster.”
Mr. Cohen also produced thrillers in England in the 1960s, including “A Study in Terror”; “Berserk,” which starred Joan Crawford; and “Trog,” a box-office bomb notable for being Crawford’s last picture.
A one-time teenage movie theater usher and assistant manager in Detroit, Mr. Cohen progressed from producing low-budget independent films in the early 1950s to more mainstream fare, including “Crime of Passion” starring Barbara Stanwyck, before finding his niche in teenage horror.
The switch came after an old friend, James H. Nicholson of the fledgling American International Pictures, invited Mr. Cohen to produce a picture for AIP.
At the time, according to Weaver, Mr. Cohen had been analyzing changes in the film industry and discovered that nearly 72 percent of the audience was between the ages of 12 and 26. Mr. Cohen knew horror pictures were popular with young audiences but believed that having a cast of teenage characters would greatly boost box office potential.
Made for less than $100,000, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” became a surprise hit that earned more than $2 million at the box office.
Six of Mr. Cohen’s post “Werewolf” movies featured a teenager who is manipulated by or transformed into a monster by an evil adult.
Like director Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. Cohen frequently made uncredited cameos in his pictures–he’s the man with the crime scene photos in “I Was a Teenage Werewolf.” And as a co-writer on many of his films, he often named characters after relatives and friends.
After wartime service in the Army, Mr. Cohen worked as sales manager for the Detroit branch of Columbia Pictures and, after moving to Hollywood, he joined the publicity department of Columbia Pictures.
He earned his first screen credit in 1951, as assistant producer of “Bride of the Gorilla” and a year later served as associate producer of “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.”
Mr. Cohen stopped producing movies in the 1970s and formed Cobra Media, a domestic distribution company , in 1981.
He is survived by a brother, Aaron Cohen of Las Vegas, and a sister, Dorothy Droz Mills of Southfield, Mich.
