James Best
Born: 1926-07-26 in Powderly, Kentucky, USA
Died: 2015-04-06
Known For: Acting
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).
Filmography
2013
- The Sweeter Side of Life as Paddy Kerrigan
- Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia as Self (archive footage)
2012
- Return of the Killer Shrews as Thorne Sherman
2007
- Moondance Alexander as McClancy
2006
- Hot Tamale as Hank Larson
2005
2002
- The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller as Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
2000
- The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood as Rosco P. Coltrane
1997
- The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! as Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
1995
- Death Mask as Wilbur Johnson
1989
1983
- The Dukes as Rosco Coltrane (voice)
1980
1979
- The Dukes of Hazzard as Rosco P. Coltrane
1978
- Centennial
- Hooper as Cully
- The End as Pacemaker Patient
1977
- Rolling Thunder as Texan
- The Savage Bees as Pellegrino
1976
- Gator ... (Production Assistant)
- Nickelodeon as Jim
- Ode to Billy Joe as Dewey Barksdale
1975
- The Runaway Barge as Bingo Washington
1974
- The Manhunter
- Savages as Sheriff Bert Hamilton
1973
- Hawkins as Sheriff John Early
1972
- Sounder as Sheriff Charlie Young
- The Brain Machine as Rev. Emory Neill
1970
- Run, Simon, Run as Henry Burroughs
1968
- The Mod Squad as Clay Lynch
- Lancer
- Firecreek as Drew
1967
- The Guns of Will Sonnett
- First to Fight as Sergeant Carnavan
1966
- Felony Squad
- The Green Hornet as Yale Barton
- Hawk
- Three on a Couch as Dr. Ben Mizer
1965
- Honey West as Vince Zale
- Shenandoah as Carter, Rebel Soldier
- Black Spurs as Ralph Elkins
1964
- Daniel Boone as Jethro Wyatt
- Flipper
- The Quick Gun as Scotty Wade
1963
- The Fugitive as Dan Murray
- Burke's Law as Tucson, 'The Cowboy'
- Temple Houston as Gotch
- Redigo
- Shock Corridor as Stuart
1962
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as Tom Carmody
- The Virginian as Curt Westley
- Combat! as Trenton
- General Electric True
- The Gallant Men
- Black Gold as Jericho Larkin
1960
- The Andy Griffith Show as Jim Lindsey
- Surfside 6
- The Barbara Stanwyck Show as Joe
- Stagecoach West
- Michael Shayne
- Overland Trail
- Pony Express as Bart Gentry
- The Mountain Road as Niergaard
- Aftermath as Hardy Coulter
1959
- Bonanza as Sheriff Vern Schaler
- The Twilight Zone as Jeff Myrtlebank
- Rawhide as Willie Cain
- Hawaiian Eye
- Laramie
- The Rebel as Ted Evans
- The DuPont Show with June Allyson as Jovan Wilanskov
- Lock-Up
- Black Saddle as Ben Travers
- Startime as Duke
- Men Into Space
- The Man and the Challenge
- Ride Lonesome as Billy John
- The David Niven Show as Boland
- Cast a Long Shadow as Sam Mullen
- Verboten! as Sgt. David Brent
- The Killer Shrews as Thorne Sherman
1958
- The Rifleman
- Wanted: Dead or Alive as Stoner
- 77 Sunset Strip
- Bat Masterson as Joe Best
- The Texan
- Bronco
- Behind Closed Doors as Webb
- The Left Handed Gun as Tom Folliard
- The Naked and the Dead as Rhidges
- Cole Younger, Gunfighter as Kit Caswell
1957
- Perry Mason as Allan Winford
- Have Gun, Will Travel
- Richard Diamond, Private Detective as Jack Milhoan
- Trackdown
- Tombstone Territory
- Last of the Badmen as Ted Hamilton
- Man on the Prowl as Doug Gerhardt
- Hot Summer Night as Kermit
1956
- West Point
- Forbidden Planet as Crewman (uncredited)
- The Rack as Millard Chilson Cassidy
- Come Next Spring as Bill Jackson
- Calling Homicide as Det. Arnie Arnhoff
- Gaby as Jim
1955
- Cheyenne
- Gunsmoke as Beal
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Norman Frayne
- The Millionaire as Fred Morgan
- Frontier
- Buffalo Bill Jr.
- Top of the World as Col. French's Orderly (uncredited)
- Seven Angry Men as Jason Brown
1954
- Climax! as Shag
- Stories of the Century
- The Caine Mutiny as Lt. JG Jorgensen
- The Lineup
- They Rode West as Lt. Finlay (uncredited)
- The Raid as Lt. Robinson
- The Yellow Tomahawk as Private Bliss
- Return from the Sea as Barr
- Riders to the Stars as Dr. Sidney K. Fuller
1953
- General Electric Theater as Hardy Coulter
- City of Bad Men as Deputy Gig (uncredited)
- Seminole as Corp. Gerad
- Skip Taylor
- Column South as Primrose
1952
- Cavalcade of America
- Hopalong Cassidy
- The Battle at Apache Pass as Cpl. Hassett
- The Cimarron Kid as Bitter Creek Dalton
- Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair as Marvin Johnson
- Francis Goes to West Point as Corporal Ransom
- Flat Top as Radio Operator
- Steel Town as Joe Rakich
1951
- The Adventures of Kit Carson
- Hallmark Hall of Fame
- Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
- Apache Drums as Bert Keon
- Air Cadet as Jerry Connell
- Target Unknown as Sgt. Ralph Phelps
1950
- Lux Video Theatre as Clem Wallace
- The Gene Autry Show
- Winchester '73 as Crater
- Comanche Territory as Sam
- Kansas Raiders as Cole Younger
- I Was a Shoplifter
- One Way Street as Driver (uncredited)
- Peggy as Frank Addison