While not a major vocal public figure in the civil rights movement, Cole was a member of his local NAACP branch and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.

Cole received numerous accolades including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960) and a Special Achievement Golden Globe Award.

[11] Cole began formal piano lessons at 12,[12] learning jazz, gospel, and classical music "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff".

[20] One day in 1938, as he was relaxing in his hotel room, Bing Crosby heard the Nat Cole Trio for the first time from Jim Otto’s Steak House, and then took Johnny Mercer to hear them.

When a club owner asked him to form a band, Cole hired bassist Wesley Prince and guitarist Oscar Moore.

He was credited on Mercury as "Shorty Nadine", a derivative of his wife's name, because Cole had an exclusive contract with Capitol[26] since signing with the label the year before.

He used a variety of other pseudonyms for the same reason, including Eddie Laguna, Sam Schmaltz, Nature Boy and A Guy, "or whatever name for himself he could think of, but only as an instrumentalist, never as a vocalist.

[28][29] They performed on the radio programs Swing Soiree, Old Gold, The Chesterfield Supper Club, Kraft Music Hall, and The Orson Welles Almanac.

Cole's stature as a popular star was cemented by hits such as "All for You" (1943), "The Christmas Song" (1947),[32] "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66", "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons" (1946), "There!

[33] On June 7, 1953, Cole performed for the ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Chicago which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr..

Featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Shorty Rogers, Earl Bostic, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, and Louis Armstrong and his All Stars with Velma Middleton.

The show was in trouble financially despite efforts by NBC, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, and Mel Tormé.

After the change in musical tastes, Cole's ballads appealed little to young listeners, despite a successful attempt at rock and roll with "Send for Me",[24] which peaked at number 6 on the pop chart.

Like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett, Cole found that the pop chart had been taken over by youth-oriented acts.

In 1960, Cole's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle left Capitol to join Reprise Records, which was established by Frank Sinatra.

Riddle and Cole recorded one final hit album, Wild Is Love, with lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne.

Earlier on, Cole's shift to traditional pop led some jazz critics and fans to accuse him of selling out, but he never abandoned his jazz roots; as late as 1956, Cole recorded an all-jazz album, After Midnight, and many of his albums after this are fundamentally jazz-based, being scored for big band without strings, although the arrangements focus primarily on the vocal rather than instrumental leads.

In 1968, Nelson Riddle related an incident from some years earlier and told of music studio engineers, searching for a source of noise, finding Cole listening to a game on a transistor radio.

[48] In August 1948, Cole purchased a house from Col. Harry Gantz, the ex-husband of silent film actress Lois Weber, in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Shortly thereafter, a burning cross was placed on his front lawn and the property-owners association told Cole they did not want any "undesirables" moving into the neighborhood.

Cole was assaulted during a concert on April 10, 1956, in Birmingham, Alabama, while singing the song "Little Girl" on stage with the Ted Heath Band.

Local law enforcement quickly ended their invasion of the stage, but not until Cole was toppled from his piano bench and received a slight injury to his back.

Thurgood Marshall, then-the chief legal counsel of the NAACP, said "All Cole needs to complete his role as an Uncle Tom is a banjo."

Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, wrote him a telegram that said: You have not been a crusader or engaged in an effort to change the customs or laws of the South.

Until his death in 1965, Cole was an active and visible participant in the civil rights movement, playing an important role in planning the March on Washington in 1963.

[62] Against his doctors' wishes, Cole carried on his work and made his final recordings between December 1 and 3 in San Francisco, with an orchestra conducted by Ralph Carmichael.

Frank Sinatra performed in Cole's place at the grand opening of the new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center on December 12.

Billboard magazine reported that "Nat King Cole has successfully come through a serious operation and... the future looks bright for 'the master' to resume his career again".

[71] Honorary pallbearers included Robert F. Kennedy, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Mathis, George Burns, Danny Thomas, Jimmy Durante, Alan Livingston, Frankie Laine, Steve Allen, and Pat Brown, the governor of California.

[73] Cole's last album, L-O-V-E, was recorded in early December 1964—just a few days before he entered the hospital for cancer treatment—and was released just before his death.