Oscar Films Louis

Louis Armstrong’s life story is the subject of a new major motion picture and the executive producer is his former manager, Associated Booking Corp.’s Oscar Cohen.

Bruce Kaufman of ICM is the film’s packager.

Toby Ludwig of management company 21st Century Artists, who told Pollstar Cohen is “a great friend and a bit of a second father to me,” acted on Cohen’s behalf in negotiations with Kaufman.

The film, starring and directed by Forest Whitaker, is the first to be authorized by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ron Bass of “Rain Man” fame is also on board. It is unclear when the film is slated for production.

Cohen will share his personal accounts of Armstrong’s life in biographical form, according to a statement.

After getting his start as an office boy in the late 1940’s, Cohen followed the singer throughout his career to become Satchmo’s road manager and later his manager after the death of Joe Glaser.

Glaser formed Associated Booking Corp. with Louis Armstrong in 1940.