Michael Cole, the actor who played Pete Cochran in “The Mod Squad,” has died, Fox News Digital confirmed. He was 84.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cole died on Tuesday at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center. The cause of death has not been specified.
Cole’s representative told Variety that he died “peacefully this morning, surrounded by loved ones, after living a full and vibrant life.”
Cole was one of three young detectives on the ABC show “The Mod Squad” from 1968 to 1973. This is what made him famous. Peggy Lipton and Clarence Williams III were also in the show.
He was born on July 3, 1940, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. A report from The Hollywood Reporter says Cole never met his dad. Cole, his older brother, and his mother lived with his grandmother when he was young.
The news source said Cole started drinking when he was 12 and knew what it was like to get into trouble. He quit high school when he was 16 and married his girlfriend, who was having their first child at the time. The couple had two kids together, Candi and Jeff, before they split up.
Cole moved from Wisconsin to Las Vegas, where he met Tony Darin, who was an actor and singer at the time. A report from the Hollywood Reporter says Cole then moved to Los Angeles and lived below a freeway.
After that, he met Estelle Harman, an acting coach who changed his life in a big way. In 2018, Cole said Harman “knew what was in there before I did.” The news source said she let him sleep on the bed on the stage of her workshop and gave him free acting lessons.
Another few years went by before producer Aaron Spelling called Cole to offer him a part in “The Mod Squad.”
“I Played the White Guy,” Cole’s 2018 book, has more details about this event.
This is what Cole wrote in his book: “When Spelling offered me the part, I turned it down, telling him, ‘The show sounds stupid, and I hope it never gets on the air.'” “I didn’t want to play some guy who ratted on some other troubled kids.”
There were 123 episodes of “The Mod Squad” over the course of five seasons. Cole was in a bad car accident while he was on the show that sent him flying through the windshield. A report from The Hollywood Reporter said he needed 130 stitches.
Cole is survived by his third wife, Shelley Funes.