Sam Cohn, at 79; was first of show business's superagents

His death was confirmed by Maarten Kooij, a longtime colleague of Mr. Cohn's at International Creative Management, the mammoth talent agency widely known as ICM. Kooij gave no cause other than to say Mr. Cohn died after a short illness.

Mr. Cohn was a principal figure in the 1974 birth of ICM, which for the next decade and a half played puppet master to more projects in the movies, theater, and publishing than perhaps any other corporate entity. Mr. Cohn was the lead puppeteer, putting clients together with collaborators and negotiating deals with producers and studios to maximize his clients' artistic freedom.

In the 1980s he arranged for Woody Allen to make 10 movies for Orion Pictures without studio interference as long as Allen adhered to an agreed-upon budget. Cohn also made sure that ownership of the pictures eventually reverted to Allen. In 1982, in a profile in The New Yorker, one competing agent was quoted as saying that Mr. Cohn's involvement in moviemaking was as significant "as the role the studio pioneers played in the early days."

The previous year, 10 movies and nine Broadway or off-Broadway plays opened with Sam Cohn clients as writers, directors or stars. Many involved more than one: The 1981 movie thriller "Eyewitness" was written by one client (Steve Tesich) and directed by another (Peter Yates) and starred three more (Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Plummer, and Irene Worth).

An abbreviated list of those he represented includes the actors Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, Liza Minnelli, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Roy Scheider, Hume Cronyn, Zero Mostel, Jackie Gleason, and Macaulay Culkin; the directors Robert Altman, Robert Benton, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, Arthur Penn, Nora Ephron, and Louis Malle; the writers Peter Maas, John Guare, and E.L. Doctorow; and the songwriters Elizabeth Swados, John Kander, and Fred Ebb.

"The first superagent of the modern age," Time magazine called Mr. Cohn in 1993.

Doctorow, a client since the mid-1970s, said Cohn's distinction as an agent was that "he worshiped creative people, was in awe of creative minds."

"It wasn't just a money thing for him," Doctorow said. "It was about the quality of the project and its potential. I wrote a play called 'Drinks Before Dinner,' and Sam got Mike Nichols to direct, and Chris Plummer signed on. We did it at the Public Theater, and it was all Sam's work. He was virtually the producer of the play."

Mr. Cohn cut a unique figure in the entertainment business. For one thing he was a confirmed New Yorker who hated Los Angeles, avoided traveling there whenever possible and, when he could not avoid it, got out as soon as possible. For another, he loved theater and did not think of it as merely something an actor or director did between movies.

He conformed to none of the agent stereotypes: not the oily, luv-ya-baby baloney-meister; not the meek and solicitous Danny Rose-like sycophant; not the sleekly groomed, power-hungry packager. He dressed with indifference - sweaters often worn at the elbows, jackets rumpled and trousers soiled - and he could be shy socially. He had a regular lunch table at the Russian Tea Room, but grew to abhor the show business instinct for the limousine and even the taxicab; he preferred the subway.

Exceedingly selective about whose phone calls he would take and even more so about whose he would return, he was known to frustrate a lot of people. But he was a whirlwind of ideas, both impulsive and contrived, and spoke with a staccato fervor and needling advocacy on behalf of his clients. He was a virtuoso of the conference call and the pitch meeting and a sly negotiator who understood the businesses of studios and producers as well as he understood his own.

His most notorious tic was that he often absently nibbled on paper. "This is the quintessential thing about Sam," Ephron said in a telephone interview. "You'd be having a perfectly serious conversation with him, and he starts chewing his napkin."