Although born in Burbank, California, Tommy Cole grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Louisiana Cañada. His father was an editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His mother later worked part-time at movie studios as a welfare guardian for minor children.
He was self-motivated toward performing from an early age, despite some disapproval from his family. He has one older brother, John Cole. Make-up artist While acting in an episode of My Three Sons in 1963, Cole had started learning make-up technique from one of the show"s regular artists.
He soon joined the craft as an apprentice, working first for American Broadcasting Company, then later in the 1960s for National Broadcasting Company. He began freelancing as a make-up artist in the early seventies, gathering Emmy nominations in 1975 for Masquerade Party and 1978 for Once Upon a Brothers Grimm, before winning, along with Mark Bussan and Ron Walters, in 1979 for Backstairs at the White House.
Cole has since been nominated for Emmy awards for the miniseries Right to Die (1988), the television series Wings (1996), and most recently for the television special Gepetto (2000), for which he shared in winning the Hollywood Makeup Artists and Hairstylist Guild Award.
