He was employed by the Bulova Watch Company where he spent seven years, becoming its director of advertising and publicity, a business that brought him into contact with theatre people.
They ran the gamut from comedies (Little Murders) to revues (At the Drop of a Hat, Beyond the Fringe) to dramas (84 Charing Cross Road, Anna Christie) to musicals (Dear World, A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine) to the classics (King Lear, Hamlet).
He also produced stage concerts for Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, and Yves Montand, and an evening of comic sketches with Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
His informal series of revues collectively titled "Nine O'Clock Musicals" included At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat (both featuring Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, Words and Music (Hollywood lyricist Sammy Cahn performing his own songs with a few back-up singers) and the semi-musical Good Evening with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
In 1972 Cohen tabled his Broadway plans in favor of a one-hour TV special starring Jack Cassidy, Ronnie Schell, and Lynn Redgrave.
Cohen abruptly closed the show in Boston and forfeited a million-dollar payment from the National Broadcasting Company televise the opening night on Broadway.
He also produced a number of Emmy Award presentations, specials with Plácido Domingo and Liza Minnelli, and the first and third editions of Night of 100 Stars, which featured a parade of entertainment and sports celebrities performing and/or appearing on the stage of Radio City Music Hall.
As well as producing, Cohen participated in the operation of a number of legitimate theaters, including the Morris Mechanic in Baltimore after its renovation, and the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto when it opened in 1960.
The New York Times reviewer stated that he had many a kind word for his friends and an arsenal of well-honed, acid-tipped barbs for those he loathed, among them rival producer David Merrick, Marlene Dietrich and Jerry Lewis.