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A veteran of more than 50 movies, telefilms and television series, GARY COLE (Rich Garces) is among the most in-demand actors in Hollywood. Last summer, audiences watched Cole in a comedic turn they won't soon forget in Columbia Pictures' Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Cole played trailer-park papa Reese Bobby to Will Ferrell's Ricky Bobby—a win-at-all-costs NASCAR driver and fan favorite who is challenged by flamboyant French Formula One driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) for NASCAR supremacy. Of his performance in Nights, Ain't It Cool News raved, "Three cheers for Gary Cole as Ricky's self-destructive, alcoholic father who shows up to retrain him how to drive! As Reese Bobby, he owns every scene he's in and conclusively answers the question, ‘Is there anything Gary Cole can't do?' That would be NO!”

Cole has a starring role in two films set for a 2007 release: The American Pastime and Forever Strong. The American Pastime features Cole as a washed up minor league ball player who becomes a guard at a WWII internment camp after his son is killed at Pearl Harbor. The indie Forever Strong is based on the true story of legendary volunteer high school rugby coach Larry Gelwix (played by Cole). The film also stars Sean Faris, who comes to play for Gelwix and competes against his father's (Neal McDonough) team after a run-in with the law.

Cole's recent television roles include top-lining Wanted, a gritty TNT original crime drama, and a recurring role as vice president Bob "Bingo” Russell on the Emmy- winning drama The West Wing. Other recent film credits include Mozart and the Whale, The Ring Two, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and One Hour Photo. Cole shot to cult status with his dead-on impersonation of Mike Brady in The Brady Bunch films and telefilms, as well as for his heartless boss Bill Lumbergh in Mike Judge's Office Space.

Cole's national breakthrough came with the 1984 NBC miniseries Fatal Vision, in which the relatively unknown actor was cast in the starring role of Capt. Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D., the infamous ex-Green Beret accused of killing his wife and children. Lead roles in Midnight Caller, the ABC epic miniseries Son of the Morning Star, CBS thriller American Gothic, the HBO award-winning miniseries From the Earth to the Moon and the WB update of Family Affair soon followed. He also voices characters on The Disney Channel's Kim Possible and Cartoon Network's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, as well as for Fox's Family Guy.

Hailing from Chicago, Cole helped form the Remains Theatre Ensemble with current CSI star William Peterson. His main theater base continues to be Chicago, where he has starred in productions of Closer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Balm in Gilead, And a Nightingale Sang and Bang!, for which he won the Joseph Jefferson Best Actor Award for Chicago Theatre Excellence. He has also tackled Sam Shepard's True West in New York and Los Angeles, as well as starred in a production of The Collected Works of Billy the Kid at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.

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