R.I.P. Michael Cole, star of Mod Squad

Michael Cole, the star of Mod Squad, has died. As confirmed by his publicist Rachel Harris via The Hollywood Reporter, Cole died at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center Tuesday. He was 84.

Cole was born on July 3, 1940, in Madison, Wisconsin. The actor struggled to make it in Hollywood, landing jobs in the early ’60s on Gun Smoke and future Mystery Science Theater selection The Bubble. Fame didn’t come easy, and Cole was sleeping under freeways before landing Mod Squad in 1968. “At that time, when you’re that broke, you don’t know that it’s tough,” he said in 2018. “Because you’re too busy trying to survive.”

Best known as the rebellious, long-haired Pete Cochran on Mod Squad, Cole starred opposite Clarence Williams III and Peggy Lipton for five seasons on the Emmy-nominated series. While shooting an early episode, he marveled at a massive poster for the series hanging on the Paramount building above the freeway he lived under. The original Squad reunited for the 1979 TV movie The Return Of Mod Squad. A movie adaptation starring Giovanni Ribisi as Cochran was released in 1999.

After the series ended in 1973, Cole continued to work on television, appearing on episodes of Wonder Woman, CHiPs, Murder She Wrote, and The Love Boat. In the ’90s, he appeared as the adult Henry Bowers in 1990’s It mini-series and enjoyed a lengthy run on General Hospital as Harlan Barrett. In 2018, he released a memoir, I Played The White Guy.

Cole was married three times and is survived by his third wife, Shelley Funes, whom Cole claimed saved his life by pushing him to seek treatment for alcoholism. He had two children from his first marriage and one from his second. ‘