AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
SOW Dec 7, 1999


GL’s Prince Richard has lived a pretty exotic life so far, even by daytime standards. His portrayer, BC, has lived a pretty exotic life himself to date, even for an actor. Hordes of them will go wherever they have to for a paying job—but not that many American performers find their options most plentiful in Paris. For the majority of the past 17 years, CA native Cole has lived and worked in Paris, with gigs also taking him to London and other European locales.
    Which explains the mixed-bag accent? “A lot of people ask me where I’m from,” reports the talkative-but-shy Cole. “I’ll tell them CA, and they go, ‘Nah,’. So it works just to say this accent is mid-Atlantic, as in somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
    Cole’s high-mileage treasure hunt for a good job began devoid of notions about acting or learning fluent French. The 2nd son among five siblings reared in the LA are, Cole saw his grown-up self pitching in the major leagues. At Pepperdine U, the ballpark was his hangout of choice. It certainly beat sitting in classrooms studying for his business degree. “I hated business” the 40-year old Cole says with an oh-well shrug. “But it seemed practical, so I got the degree. Pro baseball was my pipe dream, you know? But I did play. Then toward the end of my junior year, I injured my left shoulder.” Good bye baseball. “It was a very weird turn of events. A couple of other players on the disabled list and I saw a sign about auditions for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest in the drama department, so we thought: Let’s have a laugh and go play some crazy guys. We figured maybe we could hook up with some of the actresses too. We went into the audition and acted like we were out of our minds, which wasn’t much of a stretch.”
    It still mystifies Cole that after the goofy lunatic bit, the director had him read for the lead role. But a few days later, a pal drove onto the baseball field hollering for him. “She asked if I’d seen the callback board, and I said ,”What’s a callback board?’ She said, ‘Never mind, you’re on it,’ and we got over to the theater right then.”
    The coveted Jack Nicholson role went to the dark blond jock with zero training or experience. “It wasn’t a very popular choice with the theater students,” Cole remembers wryly. The play’s director worked him 24 hours a day before they opened. At the year’s end, a panel of name producers, directors and actors from Pepperdine’s Malibu neighborhood voted Cole the department’s actor of the year. Good bye, ballpark; hello, stage productions and theater classes. “I felt like acting was made for me. After graduation, I waltzed into Hollywood, thinking I’d go out there with my little award and go to work as an actor. Then came the rude awakening.”
    For nearly two years, Cole did everything the experts said rookies should do to launch a career. He couldn’t even get an agent. “It came down to lots of chicken bologna and care packages from Mom with mac and cheese.  We did odd jobs, like drive trucks. One time in a grocery store, one of my friends grabbed a big chunk of raw steak right out of the butcher case and started eating on the spot. We were in tears laughing.”
    They were horrible times and wonderful times. On one hand, all that rejection felt too personal. On the other, Cole also viewed it through calm logic. “There were a thousand other guys out there like me. They looked like me . They sounded like me. We had the same background, and we were doing the same things.” Cole’s face says he didn’t see why he should get any special shortcut through the war zone. Still, getting through was costing him too much. “I knew if I stayed, I’d go crazy. To bring something to my craft, I had to get some knowledge. I had to experience some things. I was just 21 years old and I’d barely been our of CA. So just like that, I decided to see the world, and I picked up and left.”
    Five-year plans don’t hatch in Cole’s brain; they never have. This trip, he figured, was like one of those traditional post-college backpack adventures—a pre-adult fling, a couple months, maybe. He’d come home and get back to the Hollywood ritual. Greyhound buses took him across the US, and the plane landed in London. He survived by playing original tunes, plus classic rock songs, on guitar, singing with other musicians or solo, wherever they’d let him.  “Sometimes we slept on park benches. It was great.” Cole improved rapidly as a musician, traveling around the continent. Then he met Paris. “I fell in love with it. I knew I had to be there. It was a very visceral thing.” And French women? “Wonderful.”
    The early 80s storyline in Cole’s life is jammed with fast personal change, geographical bounces that included another fruitless tour of LA and 6 months in NY, and finally, a success. He played a fat role in a Paris-based British theater production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe? Then quickly, a second success: Cole and some other Yanks co-founded a Paris theater group to stage contemporary American plays. Their debut drew celebs and rave reviews. “It was the top of the world.” By 1984, he’d decided to live and work in Paris, indefinitely. “I do believe in fate, and God’s plan for each of us,” he says.  “There’s no doubt in my mind that we all have our paths to follow.”
    Months added up to years of credits in theater, tv, and movies. Sometime Cole wondered if his choice to become an expatriate was hurting his parents and siblings in some way. Every time, he reminded himself that thinking that way wasn’t good for any of them, or for him. His divorce parents and his siblings have always given Cole a sense of home, the kind that separations can’t devalue. He knows it’s a rare gift. “Some songs I’ve written are directly about or for certain members of my family. I haven’t told them,” he adds, with a chuckle and lowered voice, “because it would embarrass them.” Lots of inspiration and “absolute joy” run through Cole when he hangs out with his older brother, sister-in-law, and their 2 children. “I can see myself in that setting. Absolutely.” But there are no plans, no hurry. “To talk about wanting marriage and children—don’t you think meeting the right woman has to come first?”  Cole’s pale green eyes glance way briefly. “And maybe I’ve met her, only I don’t know it yet.”
    It almost sounds likely, given the freeform intricacies of Cole’s path. Another example: At long last, he’d found American agents, through his reps in Paris and London. One, an gent in Hollywood, tugged hard not long ago, trying to pull Cole to LA for some readings. At the time, he was coming off a Paris play co-starring French stage and film legend Jean-Paul Belmondo; more good work chances waited right around the corner. But Cole agreed to the trip if it could be quick.
    GL showed the most persistence afterward, sending some Prince Edmund scenes for an audition. Cole prepared for a week, tuning his accent with a British friend. Former GL casting director Glenn Daniels took one look at Cole in person and handed him a Prince Richard scene. He’s have 5 minutes to prepare this one. To Cole’s pleasant surprise, good guy Richard appealed to him as much as Edmund’s twisted patriotism. Cole and Kim Zimmer met, the audition seemed to go well. Everybody expressed their interest. Then Cole hustled back to Paris and the “other stuff cooking over there.” GL called a week later offering him the role.
    “I knew I could work in Pairs. I’d worked in London . I didn’t want to go back to LA, really. My younger brother works in theater in NY, and I have lots of friends. So I thought, maybe NY was the next step.” A big smile lights his face. “I was so happy to get the part! I think the real key was meeting Kim—we hit it off really well, as I recall. I actually believe I got it because of her.”
    Zimmer and the rest of the posse made Cole feel very welcomed, a needed warmth he scarcely had time to enjoy. He’d done a couple soaps in Europe, but this was a pace that broke the sound barrier, and 5-day work weeks challenged every creative cell in his brain. “I was worried about that,” Cole explains. “I felt like, ‘Oh sh--, I’m going to be stepping on toes here.’ There are God knows how many contract players already on the show, and only so much airtime. New character taking up lots of air time means that other actors aren’t working. And it pisses off fans, too. They want to see the character to whom they’ve built up loyalty, and suddenly they’re being force-fed something else? Luckily, Kim, and David and Crystal are so good, and there’s so much chemistry all around.”
    As the five day work weeks ease up, Cole will record demos for his SECOND ALBUM.  The 1st was done for a European label, and recorded in Nashville, under a 17-year contract he just got off his back. No, you can’t get a copy.  “The music I’m doing now is different—I’d want the new direction heard. Plus, I don’t want to promote any stuff done under the old contract, for various reasons.” While Cole waits for studio session time, the music moves on. “I’ve been coming home from the GL studio, and playing. I think it was in Europe, when the guitar kept me alive—playing became a safe haven. I can just pick up and start a song, and I’m safe, and I’m going to this other place.”