Tristan de Vere Cole served in the Royal Navy from the age of 16 to 25,
and was then an actor and Assistant Stage Manager at the Bristol Old
Vic, before starting his career in television.
He directed episodes of many acclaimed series such as "Bergerac"
(1981-1991), "Secret Army" (1979) and "Warship" (1974-1976), as well as
the four-part classic serials
Kenilworth (1967) and
John Halifax, Gentleman (1974)
and many period plays including
Thirty-Minute Theatre (1965)
and The Game - Das Geschenk seines Lebens (1997) set in 1913. He also
directed Alan Plater's highly acclaimed
Trinity Tales (1975). He
directed the first ever episode of the long-running Yorkshire TV soap
"Emmerdale" (1972-)
Experience of shooting at sea proved valuable for his two feature films, which were both Anglo-Norwegian productions, Orion's Belt (1985), shot in Spitzbergen, the Arctic, the North Cape and Oslo, and Gefangen in der Tiefe - The Dive (1989), shot in the North Sea.
