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James Best
Powderly, Kentucky, USA
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…
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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
Movies and shows, newest first
- 2021
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2013
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Movie Self (archive footage)
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2013
The Sweeter Side of Life
Movie Paddy Kerrigan
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2012
Return of the Killer Shrews
Movie Thorne Sherman
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2007
Moondance Alexander
Movie McClancy
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2006
Hot Tamale
Movie Hank Larson
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2005
CMT: Inside Fame
TV show
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2002
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
Movie Sgt. David Brent (archive footage) (uncredited)
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2000
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
Movie Rosco P. Coltrane
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1997
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
Movie Boss / Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane
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1996
E! True Hollywood Story
TV show
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1995
Death Mask
Movie Wilbur Johnson
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1989
B.L. Stryker
TV show
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1988
In the Heat of the Night
TV show
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1983
The Dukes
TV show Rosco Coltrane (voice)
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1980
Enos
TV show
More credits
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1979
The Dukes of Hazzard
TV show Rosco P. Coltrane
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1978
Centennial
TV show
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1978
Hooper
Movie Cully
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1978
The End
Movie Pacemaker Patient
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1977
Rolling Thunder
Movie Texan
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1977
The Savage Bees
Movie Pellegrino
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1976
Nickelodeon
Movie Jim
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1976
Gator
Movie Production Assistant
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1976
Ode to Billy Joe
Movie Dewey Barksdale
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1975
The Runaway Barge
Movie Bingo Washington
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1974
The Manhunter
TV show
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1974
Savages
Movie Sheriff Bert Hamilton
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1973
Hawkins
TV show Sheriff John Early
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1972
Sounder
Movie Sheriff Charlie Young
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1972
The Brain Machine
Movie Rev. Emory Neill
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1970
Run, Simon, Run
Movie Henry Burroughs
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1968
The Mod Squad
TV show Clay Lynch
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1968
Lancer
TV show
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1968
Firecreek
Movie Drew
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1967
The Guns of Will Sonnett
TV show
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1967
First to Fight
Movie Sergeant Carnavan
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1966
Felony Squad
TV show
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1966
The Green Hornet
TV show Yale Barton
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1966
Hawk
TV show
