Solihull-born Cole, who trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, after making her stage debut at the age of 17 – playing the 90-year-old medium Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
She went on to enjoy a lengthy career that spanned TV, radio and film and was perhaps best known for playing Dr Beatrice Mason in the 1980s wartime TV drama Tenko.
The series chronicled the lives of British women in Singapore after the Japanese invasion and their consequent confinement in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
Cole, in her breakout role, played a doctor who struggled to look after the women’s health, opposite Ann Bell and Claire Oberman.
During this same period, Cole also played the moody customer Mrs Delphine Featherstone, aka “The Black Widow” in the Ronnie Barker-starring Open All Hours.
She would go on to win the award for best TV comedy actress for her part as the sharp-tongued photojournalist Diana Trent in Waiting For God.
But she cited her earlier performance as Muriel in Alan Bennett’s monologue Soldiering On, as one of her proudest moments. The series also starred Maggie Smith and Julie Walters.
Her stage highlight, by her account, was in a West End production of A Passionate Woman.