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