Michel Côté

Michel Côté OC CQ MSC (June 25, 1950 – May 29, 2023) was a Canadian actor from Quebec. He is known for his performances in the films Cruising Bar, Life After Love (La vie après l'amour) and C.R.A.Z.Y., the theatrical show Broue and the television series Omertà.

Born in Alma, Quebec, he did not originally aspire to become an actor, but took up the profession after starting to take amateur theatre roles as part of his university studies, and later enrolled at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Côté taught introductory acting and improvisation at the Option Théâtre in Sainte-Thérèse until 1977. He subsequently cofounded a small theatre, Voyagements. In 1979, Côté began performing in the play Broue at the theatre; the play was intended to have a one-month run, but ended up being staged in many cities across Canada, and Côté continued to perform in all of the more than 2,000 performances that had happened by 2008. Côté, Marc Messier and Marcel Gauthier performed Broue for nearly 40 years, with Côté's last performance occurring in 2017. In order to reduce costs, the actors performed all the roles themselves.

Côté played the lead role in the film Cruising Bar, and was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in 1990. He also played the lead role in the film C.R.A.Z.Y., and won a Genie in the same category for this film in 2005. In 2008, he revived his Cruising Bar characters in the sequel film Cruising Bar 2, for which he received a Jutra Award nomination for Best Actor at the 11th Jutra Awards,

In 2009, Côté played a lead role in the film Father and Guns (De père en flic), which took in $10.5 million at the box office in Quebec. In 2010, he appeared as pilot Robert Piché in the film Piché: The Landing of a Man (Piché, entre ciel et terre), and in 2011 he starred as Roger Gendron in A Sense of Humour (Le sens de l'humour).

Côté was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in the 2023 Canadian honours, "for his distinguished career as one of Quebec's most prominent actors on stage, on television and in film."

In 2025, the book Michel Côté et nous was published by Éditions de l'Homme. This work, by Pierre Gince and Maxime le Flaguais, brings together about fifty testimonies from those close to Michel Côté.

Côté was married to French actress Véronique Le Flaguais. They had two sons Charles and Maxime. The latter is also an actor. Côté died on 29 May 2023, at the age of 72.