Tom Cole

Charles Thomas Cole (April 8, 1933 – February 23, 2009) was a playwright and screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for Smooth Talk. Charles Thomas (Tom) Cole was born in 1933 in Paterson, New Jersey. His father, David L. Cole, the son of Russian immigrants, was one of the early pioneers in arbitrating labor disputes, serving under every US President from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. Tom Cole attended public schools in Paterson then went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in American History & Literature. After graduating in 1954, he enlisted in the United States Army where he was assigned to study Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, California. He was assigned to Moscow in the Summer of 1959 as an interpreter at the American National Exhibition, which exhibited American art, culture, science and technology to residents of the Soviet Union. He was responsible for describing American farm machinery to visitors and was an observer at the impromptu Kitchen Debate, between Vice President of the United States, Richard Nixon and Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. He returned to Harvard, where he was awarded a master's degree in Slavic Languages and Literature. He was on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, teaching Russian and English literature from 1964 to 1971 and was instrumental in starting a film program there.