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).
73 movies · 80 shows
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!
2021·4.7
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
2013·7.7
The Sweeter Side of Life
2013·5.8
Return of the Killer Shrews
2012·5.2
Moondance Alexander
2007·6.0
Hot Tamale
2006·4.9
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002·5.8
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
2000·6.0
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
1997·5.4
Death Mask
1995·5.6
Hooper
1978·6.3
The End
1978·5.6
Rolling Thunder
1977·6.8
Nickelodeon
1976·6.2
The Savage Bees
1976·5.3
Ode to Billy Joe
1976·6.1
The Runaway Barge
1975·0.0
Savages
1974·6.5
Sounder
1972·7.5
The Brain Machine
1972·3.2
Run, Simon, Run
1970·5.4
Firecreek
1968·6.3
First to Fight
1967·7.9
Three on a Couch
1966·5.4
Shenandoah
1965·6.9
Black Spurs
1965·6.3
The Quick Gun
1964·6.4
Shock Corridor
1963·7.0
Black Gold
1962·4.5
The Mountain Road
1960·6.6
Aftermath
1960·8.0
Cast a Long Shadow
1959·6.6
The Killer Shrews
1959·4.5
Verboten!
1959·6.7
Ride Lonesome
1959·6.7
The Naked and the Dead
1958·5.7
The Left Handed Gun
1958·6.0
Cole Younger, Gunfighter
1958·6.6
Man on the Prowl
1957·3.5
Last of the Badmen
1957·6.8
Hot Summer Night
1957·5.7
The Rack
1956·6.6
Calling Homicide
1956·6.1
Gaby
1956·7.3
Forbidden Planet
1956·7.2
Come Next Spring
1956·5.9
Top of the World
1955·6.5
Seven Angry Men
1955·6.0
They Rode West
1954·6.5
The Raid
1954·6.5
Return from the Sea
1954·6.0
The Caine Mutiny
1954·7.2
The Yellow Tomahawk
1954·6.6
Riders to the Stars
1954·5.9
Skip Taylor
1953·9.0
City of Bad Men
1953·6.2
Column South
1953·6.2
Seminole
1953·5.6
Flat Top
1952·4.6
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
1952·6.5
Francis Goes to West Point
1952·5.7
The Battle at Apache Pass
1952·6.6
Steel Town
1952·7.0
The Cimarron Kid
1952·6.1
Apache Drums
1951·6.3
Air Cadet
1951·5.7
Target Unknown
1951·7.0
Kansas Raiders
1950·6.0
Winchester '73
1950·7.3
Peggy
1950·6.0
I Was a Shoplifter
1950·5.8
Comanche Territory
1950·5.0
One Way Street
1950·5.3