Cody was born on February 22, 1884 (some sources say 1885) to Louis Joseph Côté and Elizabeth Sarah Côté (née Herbert). His father was French Canadian, with his ancestral lineage dating back to France and Germany, and his mother was a native of Maine. Cody and his younger brothers and sisters were born in
Waterville, Maine. After Elizabeth's death, Louis remarried to Marie Lena Rose Toussaint, and they had a daughter named Cecile Côté. The family moved to Berlin, New Hampshire, where Cody's father owned a drug store. In his youth, Cody worked at his father's drug store as a
soda jerk. He later enrolled at McGill University in Montreal where he intended to study medicine but abandoned the idea of setting up in practice and joined a theatre stock company in North Carolina. He made his debut on the stage in New York in
Pierre of the Plains. Cody moved to Los Angeles and began a minor film career at The Balboa Film Studios with
Thomas Ince. Cody had at least 99 film credits from 1914 to 1934. ==Personal life==