Good Genes

Montecito arborist Gene Tyburn is one proud dad.

His documentary maker son Matt Tyrnauer‘s latest project Where’s My Roy Cohn?, the Svengali behind Joseph McCarthy and President Donald Trump, is currently airing on the Starz TV channel.

Matt has made a number of notable documentaries while writing for Vanity Fair magazine, including 2009’s Valentino: The Last Emperor, shortlisted for an Oscar for best documentary feature, and 2018’s Studio 54, about the legendary Manhattan discotheque, where I was regular in the ‘70s when I was gossip columnist on Rupert Murdoch’s Star magazine.

Tyrnauer’s latest project, which is co-produced by a former New York Magazine colleague, Marie Brenner, focuses on Manhattan lawyer and top political fixer Roy Cohn, who died of AIDS in 1986 at the age of 59.

I would often see him at parties in the Big Apple, as well as frequent lunches at the Eurofluff watering hole Cafe Reginette, and in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Cohn was also the prosecutor in the 1951 espionage trial of Julia and Ethel Rosenberg, and their subsequent controversial execution.

Tyrnauer’s next documentary is Once Upon a Time in Beverly Hills, based on a Vanity Fair story he penned in 2011.

“I couldn’t’ be prouder,” says Gene. “And he has done it all on his own.”