Kent Victor Schuelke uses the stage name Kent Cool. As an Iowa college journalist, Schuelke landed a rare interview with legendary actor Cary Grant. When Grant died a few months later, Schuelke sold the piece to Andy Warhol's trendy New York magazine, Interview. Born and raised the son of a car salesman in an Iowa farming village, Kent Cool earned his non de plume in the second grade when he entertained local high schoolers with his energetic acting, dancing and singing. The Jackson Five had its own Saturday morning cartoon show that year and Mr. Cool became an instant hit with his rendition of "The Love You Save" and his interpretation of the Gary-Indiana boyz signature dance moves.Schuelke spent one year as an intern in the story development department of Francis Ford Coppola's San Francisco film company, American Zoetrope. Coppola had a metal shed near his Napa, California crib, where the directing god housed keepsakes from his storied career, a trove reminiscent of Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu. Schuelke loved visiting this catacomba di cinema during work assignments, and also skinny-dipping in Coppola's pond.Kent Cool was a guest at Merry Pranksters Ken Babbs and Ken Kesey's annual 4th of July Party. While Babbs stood on a hay-rack stage and wore a hound-dog mask and strummed a ukulele, the author of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest entertained Schuelke with an etymological explanation of the men's similar given names.The wild, wacky and twisting path of Cool's life has intersected with enough 20th Century culture makers to inspire a sycophant's blush. Besides the aforementioned Grant, Coppola and Kesey, Mr. Cool has enjoyed memorable encounters with such cats as River Phoenix, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Stipe, Gus Van Sant, Paul Reubens, Seymour Cassel, Peter Falk, Philip Baker Hall, Harvey Fierstein, former Black Panther Angela Davis, Parker Posey, David Carradine, Gary Busey, George Lucas, Charlton Heston and Robin Williams. Fair-skinned like Williams, Schuelke worked as the comic's movie stand-in.After driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on his way home to do a phone interview with director Van Sant to promote the soon-to-be released, Drugstore Cowboy, Schuelke was thrown into the real life drama of a 7.1 earthquake shaking his beloved San Francisco. In 1991, Schuelke walked out of a San Francisco movie theater and saw the skies overhead transforming into a glowing orange pyre - the Oakland hills were on fire - the second major tragedy to strike the Bay Area within two years! The film screening that Schuelke just departed was one of Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho. Strangeways, here they come! But Mr. Cool defers from discussing such queer life coincidences - he prefers to limit discussions to only those concerning his body of work and his unique physical beauty.Schuelke worked hard for more than two years as an intern on the documentary feature The Celluloid Closet. He's particularly proud of the film's "faggot montage" for which he did a lion's share of research. In 1993 he was a key member of the team which produced the first-ever gay and lesbian comedy special for national television - Comedy Central's Out There. The show was a smash and Mr. Cool was hired to be associate producer of two Out There sequels.Mr. Cool could not escape the 90s technology revolution. He spent eight years in the video game business, which now earns annual grosses greater than those earned by the motion picture industry. Even software makers found use for Cool's formidable talents as a performer, as a host and as a producer of spectacles.Kent Cool resides in a yellow Culver City cottage a few blocks from where Judy Garland danced down The Yellow Brick Road. Schuelke is an amateur Hollywood historian. His hobby is locating the real-life filming locations of his favorite movies. Engaged in this endeavor since 1996, Mr. Cool gives exclusive and private tours of Los Angeles filming locations, a 3-hour odyssey humbly dubbed "Kent Schuelke's World-Famous Hollywood Tour."In the second stage of what Neal Cassady called life's "thirds," Kent Cool now focuses on his acting roots. Schuelke applies his larger-than-life character to become the best character actor in show business. In addition to acting, Mr. Cool continues to write and to produce.
