Cole Hauser

Early life

Hauser was born in Santa Barbara, California, son of Cass Warner, who founded the film production company Warner Sisters, and actor Wings Hauser. His paternal grandfather was Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dwight Hauser. Cole Hauser's maternal great-grandfather was famous film mogul Harry Warner, a founding partner of Warner Bros., and his maternal grandfather was Milton Sperling, a Hollywood screenwriter and independent film producer. Hauser's maternal grandmother, Betty Mae Warner, a painter, sculptor, political activist and gallery owner, is now married to Stanley Sheinbaum, a noted political activist, economist, philanthropist, and a former Los Angeles Police Department commissioner. Hauser is of Irish and German descent on his father's side and Jewish on his mother's.

Hauser's parents divorced in 1977, when he was two years old. According to him, at roughly fifteen, he first met his father after the relocation-induced years of separation. His father took him in for a year and taught him about auditioning. Prior to that, his mother had moved Hauser and his half brother and sisters from Santa Barbara to Oregon to Florida and then back to Santa Barbara within a 12-year-span. At the time, he participated heavily in sports, but half-heartedly pursued school. He was admitted to the short-listed circle of talent at a talent summer camp in New England, then won the leading role of the stage play named Dark of the Moon, which earned him standing ovations for his performance. At 16 years old he decided to leave high school to try to break into acting.

Career

Hauser made his film debut in School Ties (1992), which starred many young and up-and-coming actors such as Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell and Ben Affleck. A role in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused also starring Affleck came along subsequently. In 1995, Hauser played the role of the leader of the campus neo-Nazi skinheads in the John Singleton film Higher Learning. Hauser would later re-team with Affleck and Damon when they appeared together in Good Will Hunting (1997). In 2000 he played William J. Johns in Pitch Black and voiced the character in the prequel video game.

In 2002, he played a racist American prisoner-of-war in Hart's War with Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell. Then in 2003, he played a Navy SEAL in Tears of the Sun alongside Bruce Willis. He also appeared as a mob boss in 2 Fast 2 Furious. He has since had several leading roles in Hollywood films, including the Mel Gibson-produced Paparazzi and The Cave.

In 2007, he starred with Anthony Anderson in the FOX series K-Ville. The show was canceled after ten episodes. That same year, Hauser starred in The Stone Angel adapted from a novel by Margaret Laurence. The film played in various festival circles and had a limited release in Canadian theaters in May 2008. During that same year, Cole filmed other indie productions such as Like Dandelion Dust from a novel by Karen Kingsbury, Tyler Perry's The Family that Preys and the CBS television pilot The Tower.

Personal life

Hauser's wife is former actress and photographer Cynthia Daniel, who played Elizabeth Wakefield in the TV series adaptation of Francine Pascal's hit novel series Sweet Valley High alongside her twin sister Brittany Daniel. Hauser and Daniel have three children: two boys, one born in 2004, the other in 2008; one girl, born in 2013.