An Evening Filled With Roy Cohn

The scene: The premiere of “Citizen Cohn,” HBO Pictures’ new biopic of lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn was chief counsel to Communist-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy and a powerhouse in New York and Washington society until his death in 1986. After the screening Thursday night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, guests attended an al fresco party in the parking lot.

Who was there: “Cohn” director Frank Pierson; stars James Woods and Joe Don Baker; and actors Hart Bochner, Michael Lerner, Frances Fisher, Grace Zabriskie, Bruce Davison, Anne Francis and Taylor Negron. Also on hand were several writers who were blacklisted.

Cohn-incidence or Cohn-spiracy?: Across town from where “Citizen Cohn” was screening, the Museum of Contemporary Art hosted Ron Vawter’s one-man theater piece about Cohn, with its own attendant party.

Dress Code: Come as you are, or as you want to be. Most people opted for casual blazers or summer dresses, but the aspiring actor/actress crowd went for their usual tight-denim and mousse ensembles--the kind of get-ups that make everyone look like contestants on “Studs.”

Chow: Chicken, pasta, pizza, salads and a dessert bar with the power to send guests into sugar-induced catalepsy.

Quoted: The movie painted Cohn as a Jew with anti-Semitic tendencies and a homosexual who publicly attacked other gays. Asked whether he thought Cohn should have been “outed,” Woods said, “I don’t approve of intrusions into anyone’s private life. After years of being persecuted by others, now (some gays) are persecuting themselves. It’s a new injected strain of bigotry. Some celebrities--and we all know who they are--choose to be private, and that’s their right.”

Noted: At the party, Al and Helen Levitt seemed impressed by Woods’ re-creation of Cohn. They should know: After being blacklisted, the Levitts’ writing careers were destroyed; they ended up working on situation comedies under pseudonyms. The film tries to explain what made Cohn so vicious, but the Levitts remember the pain he caused. “He was just so much the enemy,” sighed Al Levitt.

Glitches: Joe Don Baker was late for the screening, but he had a good reason: His car broke down on the way to the academy.

Exit line: “You wouldn’t know there was a recession,” said one guest to an HBO staffer, indicating the lavish party. The HBO-ite replied dryly, “Yeah, well, you should see our paychecks.”