Michael Cole, an actor best-known for his role on “The Mod Squad,” has died. He was 84.
Cole died at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center near Los Angeles, publicist Rachel Harris said. No cause of death was announced.
Produced by Aaron Spelling, “The Mod Squad” aired on ABC for five seasons between 1968-1973 (and for a 1979 TV movie). Cole played Pete Cochran, one of three juvenile delinquents turned undercover cops, alongside Clarence Williams III and Peggy Lipton. Neither of the three appeared in the 1999 movie adaptation starring Giovanni Ribisi, Claire Danes and Omar Epps.
The show was one of the first U.S. TV series to focus on the counterculture.
The tagline for the hit show was “One white, one black, one blonde,” which later inspired Cole to title his 2018 memoir “I Played The White Guy.”
He was the last survivor of the team following Lipton’s death in 2019 and Williams’ in 2021.
Cole was born on July, 3 1940 and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. After marrying and divorcing young, he decamped for Las Vegas where he worked as a bartender. Then, on the advice of singer Bobby Darin, he moved to Los Angeles.
Under the tutelage of legendary acting coach Estelle Harman, he started booking gigs, including an episode of “Gun Smoke” and “The Bubble,” a movie famously lampooned on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” He caught the eye of Spelling on the Paramount Studios lot after accompanying another Harman student to an audition, leading to his being cast on “The Mod Squad.”
Apprehensive at first — “I didn’t want to play some guy who ratted on some other troubled kids,” he wrote in his book — he eventually took the part.
He continued to work primarily in TV, with guest spots on shows like “CHiPs” and “Murder She Wrote.” He memorably played the villainous in the 1990 miniseries based on Stephen King’s “It” and was Harlan Barrett on “General Hospital.”
He is survived by his third wife, Shelley Funes, whom he credited with helping him treat his alcoholism, and three children from his previous two marriages.