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Leonard Cohen
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Miami Vice Character
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Francois Zolan ("French Twist")
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Born
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September 21, 1934, Montreal, Quebec
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Died
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November 7, 2016, Los Angeles, California (age 82, undisclosed causes)
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Active
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1956-2016
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Children
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Two children with Suzanne Elrod
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Leonard Norman Cohen, CC, COQ (September 21, 1934 - November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, poet and artist, who appeared in the show Miami Vice as Francois Zolan, who was working with INTERPOL Inspector (and international terrorist) Danielle Hier (played by Lisa Eichhorn), to find and kill Sirat Bandi (played by Xavier Coronel) in the episode "French Twist".
Early life[]
Cohen was born in Montreal, Quebec. In 1951 he attended McGill University, where he was on the McGill Debating Union, becoming its' president. His literary influences include Yeats, Whitman and Federico Lorca (for whom is daughter is named for), and he wrote the poetry collections Let Us Compare Mythologies, The Spice-Box of Earth, and Flowers for Hitler as well as the novels The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers in the 1960s, while living in semi-seclusion.
Music career[]
Cohen moved to the United States in 1967 and began writing songs, including "Suzanne", released five albums from 1967-1974, and his music was featured in the movie McCabe and Mrs. Miller. He also toured with singer Jennifer Warnes ("Right Time of the Night", "Up Where We Belong", "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"), who later performed vocals on Cohen's albums in the 1970s and performed Cohen's music on her own solo album in 1987, Famous Blue Raincoat. He released two more albums in the late 70's, one was produced by Phil Spector. In the 1980s he released Various Positions, featuring Hallejuah, which is featured regularly in movies and TV shows and covered by many artists. His Vice appearance as well as the use of his song "Everybody Knows" in the movie Pump Up The Volume helped expose Cohen and his music to a younger audience. He continued to release albums in the 1990s and 2000's, and he toured twice, in 1994 (after which he secluded himself in the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles for five years) and 2008-09. In 2008 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2010 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, just after his 80th birthday, Popular Problems, his thirteenth studio album spanning six decades was released, and in 2016, his 14th and final studio album, You Want it Darker, was released.
Personal life/Death[]
Cohen was involved with Marianne Ihlen (1935-2016) during the 1960s, with Cohen writing the song "So Long, Marianne" in 1967 about her. In the 1970s he was involved with Suzanne Elrod, with whom he had a son, Adam (born 1972) and a daughter, Lorca (born 1974). He has also been linked to actress Rebecca DeMornay (Risky Business, And God Created Woman, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle) in the 1990s, and was in a relationship with American pianist Anjani Thomas. Cohen became a grandfather in 2011 when Lorca gave birth to a daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen; the father is singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (son of singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III) and his son Adam has Cohen's other grandson, Cassius. Cohen died on November 10, 2016, in Los Angeles, California of undisclosed causes, it was announced on his Facebook page.