Michael Cole was an American actor best known for his role as Pete Cochran on the television crime drama The Mod Squad (1968–1973). He was born on July 3, 1940 in Madison, Wisconsin.
Cole appeared in numerous films and TV shows, beginning in 1961 with a role in the drama film Forbid Them Not. His other film credits include the role of Mark in the 1966 science fiction film The Bubble, later re-titled Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth; Spivey in the western Chuka (1967); Alan Miller in The Last Child (1971), which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award; and as Cliff Norris in Beg, Borrow or Steal (1973). He did a great deal of stage work after The Mod Squad went off the air, including Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Cole also appeared on Gunsmoke in 1966 as Kipp. During the 1970s, he had many guest appearances on Wonder Woman, The Love Boat, and CHiPs, and in 1978 appeared in the made-for-TV thriller Evening in Byzantium. In the 1980s and 1990s, he worked on Nickel Mountain. He also worked on shows such as The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Murder, She Wrote, Fantasy Island, and Diagnosis: Murder. Later, Cole appeared as the disturbed adult Henry Bowers in Stephen King's 1990 two-part TV miniseries It. In 1991, he joined the cast of General Hospital in the role of Harlan Barrett.
Cole later played Charles Hadley in a 2006 episode of the television series ER. Also in 2006, he played opposite Clarence Williams III in Mystery Woman: At First Sight, an episode of the Mystery Woman film series that aired on the Hallmark Channel. Cole later made an appearance in the 2007 thriller Mr. Brooks as the attorney for Demi Moore's character of Detective Tracy Atwood.
Cole died at the Providence Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, on December 10, 2024, at the age of 84.
