James Best

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 Bests 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 actioncomedy 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