James Best
Acting
- Born:
- 1926-07-26
- Died:
- 2015-04-06
- Place of birth:
- Powderly, Kentucky, USA
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
Filmography
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
The Sweeter Side of Life
Return of the Killer Shrews
Moondance Alexander
Hot Tamale
CMT: Inside Fame
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
E! True Hollywood Story
Death Mask
B.L. Stryker
In the Heat of the Night
The Dukes
Enos
The Dukes of Hazzard
Centennial
Hooper
The End
Rolling Thunder
The Savage Bees
Nickelodeon
Ode to Billy Joe
The Runaway Barge
Savages
The Manhunter
Hawkins
Sounder
The Brain Machine
Run, Simon, Run
Lancer
The Mod Squad
Firecreek
The Guns of Will Sonnett
First to Fight
Felony Squad
The Green Hornet
Hawk
Three on a Couch
Honey West
Shenandoah
Black Spurs
Daniel Boone
Flipper
The Quick Gun
Shock Corridor
Redigo
Burke's Law
Temple Houston
The Fugitive
The Gallant Men
Combat!
General Electric True
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
The Virginian
Black Gold
Ben Casey
Whispering Smith
Surfside 6
Stagecoach West
The Andy Griffith Show
Michael Shayne
The Barbara Stanwyck Show
The Mountain Road
Aftermath
Pony Express
Overland Trail
Hawaiian Eye
Startime
The Rebel
The Twilight Zone
Men Into Space
Lock-Up
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
Laramie
The Man and the Challenge
Bonanza
Cast a Long Shadow
The Killer Shrews
The David Niven Show
Verboten!
Ride Lonesome
Black Saddle
Rawhide
77 Sunset Strip
Bat Masterson
Behind Closed Doors
The Rifleman
The Texan
Bronco
Wanted: Dead or Alive
The Naked and the Dead
The Left Handed Gun
Cole Younger, Gunfighter
Man on the Prowl
Tombstone Territory
Trackdown
Perry Mason
Have Gun, Will Travel
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
Last of the Badmen
Hot Summer Night
The Rack
West Point
Calling Homicide
Gaby
Forbidden Planet
Come Next Spring
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Frontier
Cheyenne
Gunsmoke
Top of the World
Seven Angry Men
Buffalo Bill Jr.
The Millionaire
They Rode West
Climax!
The Lineup
The Raid
Return from the Sea
The Caine Mutiny
The Yellow Tomahawk
Stories of the Century
Riders to the Stars
Skip Taylor
City of Bad Men
Column South
Seminole
General Electric Theater
Flat Top
Cavalcade of America
Hopalong Cassidy
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Francis Goes to West Point
The Battle at Apache Pass
Steel Town
The Cimarron Kid
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
The Adventures of Kit Carson
Apache Drums
Air Cadet
Target Unknown
Kansas Raiders
Lux Video Theatre
The Gene Autry Show
Winchester '73
Peggy
I Was a Shoplifter
Comanche Territory
One Way Street