Jeffrey Bertan Cohen, B.S., J.D. is an American attorney and former child actor
best remembered for appearing as Chunk in the 1985 Steven Spielberg production
The Goonies. Life and career
Cohen was born Jeffrey Bertan McMahon in Los Angeles, and took his stage name
from the maiden name of his mother, Elaine Cohen. Since the part of "Chunk"
entailed a lot of mockery at Cohen's considerable girth, he took up high
school football and has since lost a great deal of weight as an adult. Cohen
was one of the kids describing words to the contestants on the 1982–83 CBS game
show Child's Play, and during the summer of 1985 he appeared as a celebrity on
Body Language. According to a 2014 story on Cohen in the magazine of the American
Bar Association, the ABA Journal, "puberty hit and forced Cohen into early
retirement." Cohen attended the University of
California, Berkeley, earning a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas
School of Business in 1996. While at UC Berkeley, Cohen was a resident assistant
during the 1994–1995 academic year at Unit I's Putnam Hall and later on in
Norton Hall. He became President of the Associated Students; his campaign
posters featured a picture of himself from his Goonies days and the simple
slogan "Chunk for president". He was also known for his energy at football
games serving as the "Mic-Man" and performing the now-famous Truffle
Shuffle on the sidelines to raise applause from the crowd. While at
Berkeley, Jeff also was initiated as a brother into the Alpha Epsilon Pi
Fraternity. Cohen also used introductions from
Goonies director Richard Donner to get summer jobs on the business side of
movie studios; he would say about that time in the ABA Journal story, "I grew
up loving the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers, but suddenly I had a new crop
of heroes." He chose to pursue a legal career upon finding out that many of the
most important figures on the business side of Hollywood had law degrees.
After his time at Berkeley, Cohen graduated from the UCLA School of Law in
2000 and later became an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. In 2002, he
co-founded the Cohen & Gardner firm in Beverly Hills. In the September 24, 2008
issue of Variety, Cohen was profiled in the Dealmakers Impact Report.
Additionally, Cohen was named to The Hollywood Reporter's Next Generation:
Hollywood's Top 35 Executives 35 and Under in their November 5 issue.
Cohen claimed in The Goonies DVD commentary track that every role he
played as a child had him wearing either a Hawaiian shirt or a pair of plaid
pants, and director Richard Donner had the brilliant idea to put him in both
for The Goonies. Before The Goonies started filming, Cohen contracted
chicken pox. Afraid that they would re-cast the role, he told no one of his
illness and showed up to work anyway. According to the commentary track on The
Goonies DVD, you can see the chicken pox on Cohen's chest during the famous
"Truffle Shuffle" sequence. Cohen's sister, Eydie Faye, is a
successful playwright and actress. In the final scene of The Goonies, when the
families gather on the beach, Faye has a cameo as Chunk's sister. In another
scene, Chunk tells the Fratellis that he once pushed his sister Eydie down the
stairs and blamed it on the dog. Cohen was named to Variety's Dealmakers
Impact Report in 2013. The American Bar Association profiled
Cohen in 2014. As of February 2014, he periodically
"writes about business, legal and political matters for the Huffington
Post and CNBC." Filmography
References External links
Cohen Gardner LLP Jeff Cohen at the Internet Movie
Database