I met Bob Cole too late. I had taken journalism in high school, but left that behind when I came to Trenton State College.
I took a Journalism 101 course in an effort to satisfy some credits and fell in love with this big bear of a guy with little round glasses and a big laugh. When I heard he was teaching an honors course on the depiction of the journalist in film, I signed up immediately.
What a great class. In addition to the classic journalist-in-film movies (i.e. "All The President's Men), Bob introduced me to one of my favorite movies of all time, Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" - a fictionalization of the Floyd Collins cave trapping.
Whenever one of these movies comes on TV, I think of Bob. I think of how the casting of the plates for the newspaper press coincides with the casting credit in "Absence of Malice," and how my first student TV project opened with a long dolly shot down a hallway of New Res, much like Fuller's Shock Corridor did - well, except Fuller used a mental institution ... (well maybe it's not as different as I thought).
Bob taught me a way of looking at things. There aren't many professors that made that much of an impression on me, but Bob is one of the rare few ... and I'm not the only one. Thanks, Bob.
