Movie Theater Owner Sanford Cohen: King of Hearts
Sanford Cohen at the Homewood, circa 1981. (Photo by Tom Cruze; Suburban Sun-Times.)
I’ve been writing about people for more than 40 years. It has been a cinematic parade of characters, misfits, rogues, and dreamers. Some memories are starting to fade away into a winter horizon. Other figures remain for years, bringing common warmth to a random thought.
Sanford Cohen was one of those subjects.
From 1977 until 1984 Cohen was the effervescent owner of the Homewood Theatre, 18110 S. Dixie Highway in Homewood, south of Chicago. He was larger than life itself, to coin a Roger Ebert documentary. I met him in the early 1980s when I wrote a feature on Cohen and his theater for the Suburban Sun-Times. We kept in touch for several years and then we didn’t. The theater closed in 1984 and has since been razed.
Homewood was where the heart was. (Via Cinema Treasures)
Cohen resurfaced in 2020 when we released our documentary “The Center of Nowhere (The Spirit and Sounds of Springfield, Missouri).” He was living in Fox Point, WI., and became a champion of our film. He died Jan. 7 in a Milwaukee hospital. He was 78 years old.
Cohen was a regular P.T. Barnum at the 500-seat Homewood. He would introduce area celebrities such as the local State Farm insurance man and ask customers in the lobby if they wanted to bum a cigarette. “I’ll do anything to keep a customer happy,” Cohen told me during a 1981 visit to his theater. “If they don’t like the popcorn, I’ll give them a free box of popcorn. The only problem with this is that I’m too close to it personally.”
Cohen spent every night at the Homewood. He worked from noon until midnight on weekends. During the days he worked as a substitute teacher at several south suburban high schools. Cohen was theater within a theater.
Casey McDonough is the acclaimed bassist-vocalist for the bands NRBQ, the Flat Five, and others. He grew up in Homewood and lives in Homewood today. “You got a sense of how much he loved movies,” McDonough said on Tuesday. “I think 40 years’ time, I can say this now. I knew how to get to the roof of the theater, which was always a fun thing to do. My chums and I would crouch down into the marquee and yell at people coming in and out of the bars. But there was also the top floor where he kept an office. We would occasionally knock on his window and surprise him at work. He was always accommodating and took it all with what seemed like a good sense of humor. We’d shove the door open and come piling in like the Sweathogs in (Welcome Back) Kotter. He’d say, ‘We’re showing whatever movie, go on downstairs and tell them I said it’s all right.’ Okay!”
Cohen grew up in Danville, Il., the birthplace of fellow stars like pianist Bobby Short and Jerry and Dick Van Dyke. He liked to dance as a young man. He moved to Chicago in 1964 to attend Columbia College. Cohen received his bachelor’s degree in communications from Columbia in 1968. After graduation, he took a job as a general-education development trainer at the Cook County Jail. He also was part-time theater manager at the 53 Drive-In in suburban Palatine.
Sanford Cohen (provided photo.)
In 1976, while still working at the jail, Cohen bought the Ritz-Cinema, a small movie theater in downstate Chenoa for $5,800. Every week for a year, Cohen would make the two-hour drive to Chenoa to run the weekend-only house. “It was great,” Cohen told me with a laugh. “We did family movies early on Friday and Saturday, X-rated late on Friday and Saturday and Mexican movies on Sunday afternoon for the migrant workers.”
Cohen was a colorful character in Chenoa. At the time he weighed 285 pounds (he had dropped 105 pounds by the time I met him in Homewood) and he was proud to share clippings from the Chenoa newspaper showing him posing with children holding toy fish to promote the movie “Day of the Dolphin.”
After a year in Chenoa, Cohen sold the Ritz to a porno theater operator and bought the Homewood. The Homewood opened on Nov. 23, 1937, with Bing Crosby’s “Double or Nothing,” according to the Cinema Treasures website. Cohen told me rock revival movies and cult favorites such as “Harold and Maude” attracted the biggest audiences in Homewood. “Winter bummed us out,” he said. “We had five weeks during the cold weather where no one was coming. I was doing ‘Four Seasons’ (the 1981 Alan Alda comedy being adapted by Tina Fey for Netflix) and ‘The Jazz Singer’ (the 1980 Neil Diamond flop) and we had zero attendance. With ‘Reds,’ we got 200 on a weeknight.”
Cohen’s obituary from the Sunset Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Danville said, “….The big man lived life to the fullest. His happiest days were as owner of the Homewood Theater, hosting movie-goers with complimentary punch and coffee cake as if they were family…”
McDonough’s family moved to Homewood from Chicago when he was six years old. He is a graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School. “The theater was a great place in the heart of downtown Homewood,” McDonough said. “Back when we had three all-night restaurants, two guitar stores on either side of the street, a record store and this great movie theater. I saw (1978’s) ‘The Buddy Holly Story’ there. That may have been my first one. Then on weekends, there would be incredible double features like the ‘Blues Brothers’ and ‘Animal House.’ Midnight ‘Rocky Horror’ events. Good times for a 15-year-old. He’d have Beatle weekends where he’d show all Beatle films. It all got in there for me. I still love ‘The Buddy Holly Story’ as much a work of fiction as it is.
Casey McDonough; great musician, great prankster.
“It was such a cool place to hang. He had ‘Diner’ there for what seems like half a year. I must have seen it ten times at his theater. I love ‘50s and ‘60s stuff anyway. You got Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, and diners. I had a job as a dishwasher at a diner around the corner as a result of having seen it so many times. I thought, ‘That could be cool.’ But it was more fun hanging out there than working there.” His diner, Tom’s Family Restaurant was originally known as the Homewood Sweet Shop. Tom’s closed in 2012 after a 65-year run.
McDonough was in the high school choir with Sanford’s daughter Cindy. “That added another level,” he said. “He was a groovy guy to be doing all this stuff and booking all these movies—’We’re going to have ‘Reds’ next weekend!’ There was an intermission during ‘Reds’ and he served pastries in the lobby.” Cindy (Cohen) Kostrubala died in August 2021 in Elgin, IL. She was 52 years old.
Cindy and Sanford, circa 1983-85 (provided.)
In a Thursday morning Facebook post his daughter Genny wrote, “My dad made my childhood so fun and entertaining! What other kid grows up going to hundreds of movies, hundreds of baseball games, and college football games as well as hundreds of concerts?…He took me to daddy/daughter dances and showed up to every single one of my softball games unless he had to work. He was the dad that always showed up.”
After leaving Homewood, Cohen managed a movie theater in Boaz, AL. where he stayed until 2005. After that, he managed a movie theater in West Bend, WI., and settled in Fox Point. Most recently he was a greeter at the Marcus North Shore Cinema in Mequon, WI. In his final years, Cohen also became a major live music fan in Milwaukee.
On January 9 the Pabst Theater Group in Milwaukee posted a Facebook tribute to Cohen along with a playlist dedicated to him. The Pabst said that between 2021 and 2024 he came to 52 events at Pabst Theater Group venues as well as other venues in Milwaukee. Pabst called Cohen, “A true character in the Milwaukee music scene known for marching to the beat of his own drum, making people laugh, and loving live music….one thing was for sure, he didn’t care if he was the oldest person in the room. So long as there was live music and good conversation, he was there!” The memorial playlist includes Al DiMeola’s “Mediterranean Sundance” and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Where the Wild Roses Grow.”
Marc Solheim, Riot Fest talent buyer wrote, “Sanford Cohen was a force in our world that I’ll never forget. Whether it was a local band, the buzzy new artist or classic rock act you could count on him being there with a smile. His support and love for live music and independent venues is second to none. I already miss our conversations. Hold on to your friends.”
Sanford Cohen, Circa 2015
Randy Kastner is owner of RK Metal Promotions that has been booking metal shows in Milwaukee and Madison since 2008. He got to know Cohen late in his life—at his Milwaukee metal concerts. “It was weird,” Kastner told me on Wednesday. “About five years ago I started seeing this old guy at my shows. As usual, I went to befriend the man. He was cool. I never see seventy-something dudes at metal shows. You meet all kinds of random cats, but he was one dude that stood out. He started to let me know when he was coming. He even came to a three-day metal fest I did about a year and a half ago at Club Garibaldi (in Milwaukee.) I made sure he had a seat where he wasn’t going to get bumped into. He had a great time.”
Kastner said that Cohen would lean into more traditional metal bands like The Three Tremors (not the opera singers.). He last saw Cohen in November 2022 at a W.A.S.P. and Armored Saint concert at the Pabst Theater. “I knew he was sick and he would tell me things,” Kastner said. “I didn’t want to bother him when he was doing hospital stuff. But he was the kind of dude who would come right out of the hospital to a show. When I met him he had a cane, the last time I saw him at one of my shows he had a walker. I’d take care of him.”
Sanford enjoying the metal band The Three Tremors (Courtesy of Randy Kastner)
The power of music helped deliver Cohen to the final curtain. “It doesn’t matter if it’s metal, blues, 60s,” Kastner said. “Music can change your perception or at least make you happy and comfortable.”
Kastner’s favorite record of all time is “Awaken the Guardian,” a 1986 release from the Hartford, CT. band Fate’s Warning. “When I’ve had some bad times I listen to that,” Kastner said. “ Now I have a big tattoo of it on my back. Some people do drugs and liquor. Some people like Sanford rocked out with music. One day when I’m 77 I hope I can go to shows too. People will go, ‘What the hell?’ But it was his purpose. Sanford is definitely a dude I will never forget.”
Sanford Alan Cohen is survived by his daughter Genny Faith Cohen, his companion Rosemary Murtha, and grandchildren Justin Edward Gray, Ashley Collette Brown (Alec Davis) , and Jack Gabriel Brown. Interment has been held at Spring Hill Cemetery in Danville. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. on Jan. 21 at Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid (CBINT), 6880 N. Green Bay Ave. in Glendale, WI.. All are welcome. The service will be streamed. Shiva will be private.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Sanford’s memory to Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid, Cohen Hillel at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, or a charity of your choice.
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