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 …
Movies & TV Shows
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Forbidden Planet (1956) — Crewman (uncredited)
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The Twilight Zone (1959) — Jeff Myrtlebank
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Bonanza (1959) — Sheriff Vern Schaler
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Winchester '73 (1950) — Crater
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The Caine Mutiny (1954) — Lt. JG Jorgensen
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The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) — Rosco P. Coltrane
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Shock Corridor (1963) — Stuart
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Rolling Thunder (1977) — Texan
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) — Norman Frayne
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The Andy Griffith Show (1960) — Jim Lindsey
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Ride Lonesome (1959) — Billy John
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Shenandoah (1965) — Carter, Rebel Soldier
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Hooper (1978) — Cully
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Perry Mason (1957) — Allan Winford
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The Left Handed Gun (1958) — Tom Folliard
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Combat! (1962) — Trenton
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Gunsmoke (1955) — Beal
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The Killer Shrews (1959) — Thorne Sherman
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The Green Hornet (1966) — Yale Barton
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The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) — Tom Carmody
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Firecreek (1968) — Drew
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E! True Hollywood Story (1996)
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The End (1978) — Pacemaker Patient
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In the Heat of the Night (1988)
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The Fugitive (1963) — Dan Murray
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Moondance Alexander (2007) — McClancy
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Sounder (1972) — Sheriff Charlie Young
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Flipper (1964)
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Nickelodeon (1976) — Jim
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The Rifleman (1958)
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Return of the Killer Shrews (2012) — Thorne Sherman
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Rawhide (1959) — Willie Cain
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Have Gun, Will Travel (1957)
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The Sweeter Side of Life (2013) — Paddy Kerrigan
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Centennial (1978)
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The Naked and the Dead (1958) — Rhidges
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Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958) — Stoner
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Hot Tamale (2006) — Hank Larson
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The Virginian (1962) — Curt Westley
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Ode to Billy Joe (1976) — Dewey Barksdale