Trained for a stage career at the Morden Council School, 14-year-old George Cole made his London stage debut in the 1939 production White Horse Inn. Cole ascended to juvenile stardom as a young evacuee in 1940's Cottage to Let, repeating the role in the 1941 film version. As an adult, Cole specialized in light, semicomic characterizations on both stage and screen. His most cherished movie roles include the mother-dominated protagonist in the "Kite" segment of Quartet (1948) and shifty salesman Flash Harry in the first two St. Trinians farces of the 1950s. He entered the household-word category as a klutzy con man in the British TV series Minder, which ran from 1979 to 1984. George Cole's other weekly TV credits include Don't Forget to Write (1977-1979), The Bounder (1982-1988), Heggerty Haggerty (1984-1985), Comrade Dad (1986), and Root Into Europe (1992).
by Hal Erickson
biography
