James Best
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
Hank Larson
Hot Tamale
Drew
Firecreek
Henry Burroughs
Run, Simon, Run
Carter, Rebel Soldier
Shenandoah
Texan
Rolling Thunder
Stuart
Shock Corridor
Wilbur Johnson
Death Mask
Billy John
Ride Lonesome
McClancy
Moondance Alexander
Crater
Winchester '73
Tom Folliard
The Left Handed Gun
Bitter Creek Dalton
The Cimarron Kid
Thorne Sherman
The Killer Shrews
Rhidges
The Naked and the Dead
Cully
Hooper
Corp. Gerad
Seminole
Det. Arnie Arnhoff
Calling Homicide
Millard Chilson Cassidy
The Rack
Bert Keon
Apache Drums
Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
Sgt. David Brent
Verboten!
Rev. Emory Neill
The Brain Machine
Sam
Comanche Territory
Kermit
Hot Summer Night
Cole Younger
Kansas Raiders
Niergaard
The Mountain Road
Scotty Wade
The Quick Gun
Jim
Gaby
Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
Rosco P. Coltrane
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
Doug Gerhardt
Man on the Prowl
Kit Caswell
Cole Younger, Gunfighter
I Was a Shoplifter
Thorne Sherman
Return of the Killer Shrews
Driver (uncredited)
One Way Street
Jim
Nickelodeon
Sheriff Bert Hamilton
Savages
Sam Mullen
Cast a Long Shadow
Col. French's Orderly (uncredited)
Top of the World
Paddy Kerrigan
The Sweeter Side of Life
Pacemaker Patient
The End
Jericho Larkin
Black Gold
Sgt. Ralph Phelps
Target Unknown
Deputy Gig (uncredited)
City of Bad Men
Dewey Barksdale
Ode to Billy Joe
Bill Jackson
Come Next Spring
Ted Hamilton
Last of the Badmen
Dr. Ben Mizer
Three on a Couch
Jerry Connell
Air Cadet
Sheriff Charlie Young
Sounder
Cpl. Hassett
The Battle at Apache Pass
Hardy Coulter
Aftermath
Crewman (uncredited)
Forbidden Planet
Lt. Robinson
The Raid
Sergeant Carnavan
First to Fight
Bingo Washington
The Runaway Barge
Ralph Elkins
Black Spurs
Private Bliss
The Yellow Tomahawk
Self
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!
Lt. JG Jorgensen
The Caine Mutiny
Barr
Return from the Sea
Thorne Sherman (archive footage)
The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made
Cpl. Ransom
Francis Goes to West Point
Frank Addison
Peggy
Jason Brown
Seven Angry Men
Primrose
Column South
Joe Rakich
Steel Town
Dr. Sidney K. Fuller
Riders to the Stars
Marvin Johnson
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Pellegrino
The Savage Bees
Skip Taylor
Personal Info
Known For
Acting
Known Credits
71
Gender
Male
Birthday
1926-07-26
Place of Birth
Powderly, Kentucky, USA
Also Known As
Jewel Franklin Guy