Arthur Cohn, Swiss Film Producer and Six-Time Oscar Winner, Dies at 98

Arthur Cohn, a Swiss film producer who won six Academy Awards, died on Dec. 12 in Jerusalem. He was 98. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his son Emanuel, an actor. Mr. Cohn produced a range of films that earned Oscars, including the Italian drama The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and the U.S.

labor-strike documentary American Dream. He also produced One Day in September (1999), about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics; the report says Mr. Cohn located Jamal al-Gashey in Africa and put a camera in front of him, and the film won the Oscar for best documentary feature.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, though Giorgio Bassani later disavowed it because of what he said were its distortions. Unusually for an independent producer, Mr. Cohn insisted on a free hand in creative matters such as editing and rewriting scripts.

He told interviewers he searched for projects "out of the ordinary, enriching and apt to be remembered for a long time," the obituary says. His films were not always obvious commercial draws—he said Finzi-Continis had been rejected by 31 distributors—and he prized authenticity, reshooting the film's ending to show Ferrara's empty streets and shooting Black and White in Color on location in Ivory Coast.

Key Topics

Culture, Arthur Cohn, American Dream, Finzi-continis, Munich Massacre, Vittorio De Sica