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