James Best
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia James Best (born Jewel Franklin Guy; July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015) was an American television, film, character, voice, and stage actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician, whose career spanned seven decades of television. He appeared as a guest on various country music and talk shows. One of the busiest actors in Hollywood, who began his contract career with Universal Studios in 1949, where he met unfamiliar actors Julie Adams, Piper Laurie, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. Best's long career began in films in 1950. He appeared primarily in Westerns, playing opposite Audie Murphy in Kansas Raiders (1950), The Cimarron Kid (1952) and The Quick Gun (1964), Raymond Massey in Seven Angry Men (1955), George Montgomery in Last of the Badman (1957), Frank Lovejoy in Cole Younger Gunfighter (1958), and Randolph Scott in Ride Lonesome (1959). He also starred in the science fiction cult movie, The Killer Shrews (1959) and its sequel, Return of the Killer Shrews (2012). He is most known for playing bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action/comedy Dukes of Hazzard, a role that he revised in The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997) as his character was now "boss" of Hazzard County as well as sheriff, and again in The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000).
Born: July 26, 1926
Place of Birth: Powderly, Kentucky, USA
Known For
Filmography
as Self (archive footage)
as Paddy Kerrigan
as Thorne Sherman
as McClancy
as Hank Larson
as Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
as Rosco P. Coltrane
as Wilbur Johnson
as Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
as Rosco Coltrane (voice)
as Rosco P. Coltrane
as Cully
as Pacemaker Patient
as Texan
as Jim
as Pellegrino
as Dewey Barksdale
as Bingo Washington
as Sheriff Bert Hamilton
as Sheriff John Early
as Sheriff Charlie Young
as Rev. Emory Neill
as Henry Burroughs
as Clay Lynch
as Drew
as Sergeant Carnavan
as Yale Barton
as Dr. Ben Mizer
as Vince Zale
as Carter, Rebel Soldier
as Ralph Elkins
as Jethro Wyatt
as Scotty Wade
as Stuart
as Tucson, 'The Cowboy'
as Dan Murray
as Trenton
as Tom Carmody
as Curt Westley
as Jericho Larkin
as Jim Lindsey
as Niergaard
as Ted Evans
as Abel Waares
as Jeff Myrtlebank
as Billy-Ben Turner
as Jovan Wilanskov
as Sheriff Vern Schaler
as Sam Mullen
as Thorne Sherman
as Boland
as Sgt. David Brent
as Billy John
as Ben Travers
as Willie Cain
as Brock Quade
as Joe Best
as Danny Dakota
as Webb
as Stoner
as Luke Perry
as Rhidges
as Tom Folliard
as Kit Caswell
as Doug Gerhardt
as Allan Winford
as Martin Potter
as Jack Milhoan
as Ted Hamilton
as Kermit
as Millard Chilson Cassidy
as Det. Arnie Arnhoff
as Jim
as Crewman (uncredited)
as Bill Jackson
as Norman Frayne
as Hennessy
as Bish Darby
as Beal
as Charlie Noon
as Col. French's Orderly (uncredited)
as Jason Brown
as Fred Morgan
as Lt. Finlay (uncredited)
as Shag
as Lt. Robinson
as Barr
as Lt. JG Jorgensen
as Private Bliss
as Dr. Sidney K. Fuller
as Deputy Gig (uncredited)
as Primrose
as Corp. Gerad
as Hardy Coulter
as Harry
as Slate Morley
as Marvin Johnson
as Corporal Ransom
as Cpl. Hassett
as Joe Rakich
as Bitter Creek Dalton
as Bert Keon
as Jerry Connell
as Sgt. Ralph Phelps
as Cole Younger
as Crater
as Frank Addison
as Sam
as Driver (uncredited)