James Best
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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
Credits
Hot Tamale (2006)
as Hank Larson
Forbidden Planet (1956)
as Crewman (uncredited)
The Caine Mutiny (1954)
as Lt. JG Jorgensen
Sounder (1972)
as Sheriff Charlie Young
Hooper (1978)
as Cully
Winchester '73 (1950)
as Crater
Firecreek (1968)
as Drew
Shock Corridor (1963)
as Stuart
Ride Lonesome (1959)
as Billy John
Shenandoah (1965)
as Carter, Rebel Soldier
Rolling Thunder (1977)
as Texan
The Rack (1956)
as Millard Chilson Cassidy
Nickelodeon (1976)
as Jim
The End (1978)
as Pacemaker Patient
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000)
as Rosco P. Coltrane
Flat Top (1952)
as Radio Operator
The Left Handed Gun (1958)
as Tom Folliard
The Quick Gun (1964)
as Scotty Wade
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997)
as Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
Moondance Alexander (2007)
as McClancy
The Raid (1954)
as Lt. Robinson
The Battle at Apache Pass (1952)
as Cpl. Hassett
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller (2002)
as Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
Seminole (1953)
as Corp. Gerad
The Naked and the Dead (1958)
as Rhidges
First to Fight (1967)
as Sergeant Carnavan
Kansas Raiders (1950)
as Cole Younger
The Killer Shrews (1959)
as Thorne Sherman
The Savage Bees (1976)
as Pellegrino
Verboten! (1959)
as Sgt. David Brent
Apache Drums (1951)
as Bert Keon
Comanche Territory (1950)
as Sam
Francis Goes to West Point (1952)
as Corporal Ransom
The Yellow Tomahawk (1954)
as Private Bliss
One Way Street (1950)
as Driver (uncredited)
Run, Simon, Run (1970)
as Henry Burroughs
Target Unknown (1951)
as Sgt. Ralph Phelps
Death Mask (1995)
as Wilbur Johnson
Black Spurs (1965)
as Ralph Elkins
Peggy (1950)
as Frank Addison
Three on a Couch (1966)
as Dr. Ben Mizer
The Mountain Road (1960)
as Niergaard
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! (2021)
as Self
Cast a Long Shadow (1959)
as Sam Mullen
Black Gold (1962)
as Jericho Larkin
Steel Town (1952)
as Joe Rakich
Ode to Billy Joe (1976)
as Dewey Barksdale
Savages (1974)
as Sheriff Bert Hamilton
The Sweeter Side of Life (2013)
as Paddy Kerrigan
City of Bad Men (1953)
as Deputy Gig (uncredited)
I Was a Shoplifter (1950)
Actor
Hot Summer Night (1957)
as Kermit
Air Cadet (1951)
as Jerry Connell
The Cimarron Kid (1952)
as Bitter Creek Dalton
Seven Angry Men (1955)
as Jason Brown
Last of the Badmen (1957)
as Ted Hamilton
Column South (1953)
as Primrose
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (2013)
as Self (archive footage)
Return of the Killer Shrews (2012)
as Thorne Sherman
Gaby (1956)
as Jim
The Runaway Barge (1975)
as Bingo Washington
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952)
as Marvin Johnson
Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958)
as Kit Caswell
They Rode West (1954)
as Lt. Finlay (uncredited)
Return from the Sea (1954)
as Barr
Riders to the Stars (1954)
as Dr. Sidney K. Fuller
Man on the Prowl (1957)
as Doug Gerhardt
Come Next Spring (1956)
as Bill Jackson
Top of the World (1955)
as Col. French's Orderly (uncredited)
Calling Homicide (1956)
as Det. Arnie Arnhoff
Skip Taylor (1953)
Actor
Aftermath (1960)
as Hardy Coulter
The Brain Machine (1972)
as Rev. Emory Neill