NEW YORK — Sam Cohn, a powerful talent agent for some of Hollywood and Broadway’s biggest stars as well as a pantheon of directors, writers and playwrights, has died. He was 79.

Family friend David Richenthal said Cohn died Wednesday at New York Presbyterian Hospital following a brief illness.

During his career, Cohn’s clients at International Creative Management were a who’s who of show business, most prominently in the 1970s and ’80s. They included Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Woody Allen, Lily Tomlin, Kathleen Turner, Vanessa Redgrave, Arthur Miller, Mike Nichols, Nora Ephron, Robert Altman, Bob Fosse, Sigourney Weaver, E.L. Doctorow and Jackie Gleason.

Cohn retired earlier this year from ICM, which he co-founded in the mid-1970s.

Known as a master dealmaker, Cohn acquired an almost mythical status, particularly after the publication of a New Yorker profile in 1982.