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. 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).
152 acting credits · 1 directing credit
Acting · 152
Perry Mason
1957
Bonanza
1959
The Andy Griffith Show
1960
The Fugitive
1963
The Rifleman
1958
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
1962
Have Gun, Will Travel
1957
The Twilight Zone
1959
The Virginian
1962
Climax!
1954
Combat!
1962
Cheyenne
1955
Ben Casey
1961
Daniel Boone
1964
Burke's Law
1963
Rawhide
1959
Wanted: Dead or Alive
1958
Hawaiian Eye
1959
77 Sunset Strip
1958
Gunsmoke
1955
Bat Masterson
1958
The Dukes of Hazzard
1979
In the Heat of the Night
1988
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1955
Surfside 6
1960
The Texan
1958
The Rebel
1959
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957
The Mod Squad
1968
Lancer
1968
Felony Squad
1966
Laramie
1959
Black Saddle
1959
The Millionaire
1955
Trackdown
1957
Bronco
1958
Cavalcade of America
1952
Startime
1959
Honey West
1965
The Gene Autry Show
1950
Lock-Up
1959
The Barbara Stanwyck Show
1960
The Guns of Will Sonnett
1967
Tombstone Territory
1957
The Green Hornet
1966
The DuPont Show with June Allyson
1959
Lux Video Theatre
1950
Flipper
1964
Stagecoach West
1960
The Gallant Men
1962
The Adventures of Kit Carson
1951
Centennial
1978
Hopalong Cassidy
1952
Behind Closed Doors
1958
Frontier
1955
The Manhunter
1974
Hawkins
1973
Men Into Space
1959
West Point
1956
General Electric True
1962
Enos
1980
B.L. Stryker
1989
Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951
The Man and the Challenge
1959
Stories of the Century
1954
Buffalo Bill Jr.
1955
General Electric Theater
1953
Redigo
1963
The Caine Mutiny
1954
Forbidden Planet
1956
Hawk
1966
The Dukes
1983
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
1951
E! True Hollywood Story
1996
Hooper
1978
Shenandoah
1965
Michael Shayne
1960
Overland Trail
1960
Winchester '73
1950
Whispering Smith
1961
Rolling Thunder
1977
Firecreek
1968
Ride Lonesome
1959
The Rack
1956
The Lineup
1954
The David Niven Show
1959
CMT: Inside Fame
2005
Hot Tamale
2006
The End
1978
The Left Handed Gun
1958
Sounder
1972
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
2000
The Naked and the Dead
1958
Nickelodeon
1976
Moondance Alexander
2007
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!
2021
The Quick Gun
1964
Verboten!
1959
Shock Corridor
1963
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002
The Battle at Apache Pass
1952
The Killer Shrews
1959
The Savage Bees
1976
Cast a Long Shadow
1959
Last of the Badmen
1957
Pony Express
1960
Gaby
1956
The Sweeter Side of Life
2013
Apache Drums
1951
Peggy
1950
Francis Goes to West Point
1952
Seminole
1953
First to Fight
1967
The Cimarron Kid
1952
Comanche Territory
1950
Black Spurs
1965
The Raid
1954
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
1997
Savages
1974
Cole Younger, Gunfighter
1958
Kansas Raiders
1950
Steel Town
1952
Seven Angry Men
1955
Column South
1953
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
2013
Return of the Killer Shrews
2012
I Was a Shoplifter
1950
One Way Street
1950
Ode to Billy Joe
1976
Run, Simon, Run
1970
Black Gold
1962
They Rode West
1954
The Mountain Road
1960
Three on a Couch
1966
Top of the World
1955
Target Unknown
1951
Air Cadet
1951
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
1952
City of Bad Men
1953
Calling Homicide
1956
Death Mask
1998
The Runaway Barge
1975
Man on the Prowl
1957
Come Next Spring
1956
The Brain Machine
1972
Aftermath
1960
Riders to the Stars
1954
Flat Top
1952
The Yellow Tomahawk
1954
Hot Summer Night
1957
Return from the Sea
1954
Skip Taylor
1953