James Best
- Acting
- July 26, 1926 · Powderly, Kentucky, USA
- April 6, 2015
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).
Known for
Filmography
- Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! · Self
- Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia · Self
- The Sweeter Side of Life · Paddy Kerrigan
- Return of the Killer Shrews · Thorne Sherman, Writer
- Moondance Alexander · McClancy
- Hot Tamale · Hank Larson
- CMT: Inside Fame
- The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller · Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
- The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood · Rosco P. Coltrane
- The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! · Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
- E! True Hollywood Story
- Death Mask · Wilbur Johnson, Writer
- B.L. Stryker
- In the Heat of the Night
- The Dukes · Rosco Coltrane (Voice)
- Enos
- The Dukes of Hazzard · Rosco P. Coltrane, Director
- Centennial
- Hooper · Cully, Co-Writer
- The End · Pacemaker Patient, Associate Producer
- Rolling Thunder · Texan
- The Savage Bees · Pellegrino
- Nickelodeon · Jim
- Gator · Production Assistant
- Ode to Billy Joe · Dewey Barksdale
- The Runaway Barge · Bingo Washington
- Savages · Sheriff Bert Hamilton
- The Manhunter
- Hawkins · Sheriff John Early
- Sounder · Sheriff Charlie Young
- The Brain Machine · Rev. Emory Neill
- Run, Simon, Run · Henry Burroughs
- Lancer
- The Mod Squad · Clay Lynch
- Firecreek · Drew
- The Guns of Will Sonnett
- First to Fight · Sergeant Carnavan
- Felony Squad
- The Green Hornet · Yale Barton
- Hawk
- Three on a Couch · Dr. Ben Mizer
- Honey West · Vince Zale
- Shenandoah · Carter, Rebel Soldier
- Black Spurs · Ralph Elkins
- Daniel Boone · Jethro Wyatt
- Flipper
- The Quick Gun · Scotty Wade
- Shock Corridor · Stuart
- Redigo
- Burke's Law · Tucson, 'The Cowboy'
- Temple Houston · Gotch
- The Fugitive · Dan Murray
- The Gallant Men
- Combat! · Trenton
- General Electric True
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour · Tom Carmody
- The Virginian · Curt Westley
- Black Gold · Jericho Larkin
- Ben Casey
- Whispering Smith
- Surfside 6
- Stagecoach West
- The Andy Griffith Show · Jim Lindsey
- Michael Shayne
- The Barbara Stanwyck Show · Joe
- The Mountain Road · Niergaard
- Aftermath · Hardy Coulter
- Pony Express · Bart Gentry
- Overland Trail
- Hawaiian Eye
- Startime · Duke
- The Rebel · Ted Evans, Abel Waares
- The Twilight Zone · Jeff Myrtlebank, Billy-Ben Turner
- Men Into Space
- Lock-Up
- The DuPont Show with June Allyson · Jovan Wilanskov
- Laramie
- The Man and the Challenge
- Bonanza · Sheriff Vern Schaler
- Cast a Long Shadow · Sam Mullen