James Best
Photoplayd Industry Rating
Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
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
Verboten! (1959)
as Sgt. David Brent
Winchester '73 (1950)
as Crater
Rolling Thunder (1977)
as Texan
Ride Lonesome (1959)
as Billy John
Nickelodeon (1976)
as Jim
Hooper (1978)
as Cully
Sounder (1972)
as Sheriff Charlie Young
Hot Summer Night (1957)
as Kermit
Kansas Raiders (1950)
as Cole Younger
Firecreek (1968)
as Drew
Shenandoah (1965)
as Carter, Rebel Soldier
The Yellow Tomahawk (1954)
as Private Bliss
City of Bad Men (1953)
as Deputy Gig (uncredited)
The Naked and the Dead (1958)
as Rhidges
Shock Corridor (1963)
as Stuart
The Mountain Road (1960)
as Niergaard
The Cimarron Kid (1952)
as Bitter Creek Dalton
The End (1978)
as Pacemaker Patient
The Left Handed Gun (1958)
as Tom Folliard
The Quick Gun (1964)
as Scotty Wade
The Rack (1956)
as Millard Chilson Cassidy
The Runaway Barge (1975)
as Bingo Washington
The Raid (1954)
as Lt. Robinson
Top of the World (1955)
as Col. French's Orderly (uncredited)
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000)
as Rosco P. Coltrane
Moondance Alexander (2007)
as McClancy
Riders to the Stars (1954)
as Dr. Sidney K. Fuller
Three on a Couch (1966)
as Dr. Ben Mizer
The Killer Shrews (1959)
as Thorne Sherman
One Way Street (1950)
as Driver (uncredited)
Return of the Killer Shrews (2012)
as Thorne Sherman
The Savage Bees (1976)
as Pellegrino
They Rode West (1954)
as Lt. Finlay (uncredited)
The Sweeter Side of Life (2013)
as Paddy Kerrigan
I Was a Shoplifter (1950)
Actor
First to Fight (1967)
as Sergeant Carnavan
Seven Angry Men (1955)
as Jason Brown
Black Spurs (1965)
as Ralph Elkins
Apache Drums (1951)
as Bert Keon
The Brain Machine (1972)
as Rev. Emory Neill
Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958)
as Kit Caswell
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! (1997)
as Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia (2013)
as Self (archive footage)
Run, Simon, Run (1970)
as Henry Burroughs
Flat Top (1952)
as Radio Operator
Comanche Territory (1950)
as Sam
Gaby (1956)
as Jim
Air Cadet (1951)
as Jerry Connell
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller (2002)
as Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
Francis Goes to West Point (1952)
as Corporal Ransom
The Battle at Apache Pass (1952)
as Cpl. Hassett
Calling Homicide (1956)
as Det. Arnie Arnhoff
Cast a Long Shadow (1959)
as Sam Mullen
Death Mask (1995)
as Wilbur Johnson
Ode to Billy Joe (1976)
as Dewey Barksdale
Seminole (1953)
as Corp. Gerad
Column South (1953)
as Primrose
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair (1952)
as Marvin Johnson
Target Unknown (1951)
as Sgt. Ralph Phelps
Savages (1974)
as Sheriff Bert Hamilton
Peggy (1950)
as Frank Addison
Last of the Badmen (1957)
as Ted Hamilton
Come Next Spring (1956)
as Bill Jackson
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists! (2021)
as Self
Return from the Sea (1954)
as Barr
Skip Taylor (1953)
Actor
Man on the Prowl (1957)
as Doug Gerhardt
Black Gold (1962)
as Jericho Larkin
Aftermath (1960)
as Hardy Coulter
Steel Town (1952)
as Joe Rakich