In June 1971, she married actor Richard Venture, one of the few to enter an interracial marriage in Hollywood, at that time. They would later divorce in 1984. She retired in 1995, but later returned to acting.
She was an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. In film, she appeared in Heroes (1977), Coming Home (1978), Some Kind of Hero (1982), Go Tell It on the Mountain (1984), Big Shots (1987), more recently in First Sunday (2008), as well as in the television movies Something About Amelia (1984) and The Women of Brewster Place (1989).
She was also known for her role as Maggie Rogers in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House, for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Cole became the very first African American Actress to win an Emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Television Movie, for her performance as 'Mathilda' in Roots.
Cole was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Arvelia (née Cage), a tennis player and instructor and william Calvin Cole, a worker for Grumman. After graduating from Manhattan’s Hunter College High School in 1960, she studied drama at Bard College in New York and earned a scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she graduated with honors in 1964. After returning to the United States, she earned a master’s degree in theater arts with minor in Scandinavian studies in 1967 from the University of Minnesota. She made her screen debut in the daytime soap opera Guiding Light in 1969 and later appeared in over 30 shows and films.
