James Best

James Best

Birthday: 1926-07-26

Place of Birth: Powderly, Kentucky, USA

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 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).

Movies

Hot Tamale
Hot Tamale

A road trip to Los Angeles inadvertently leads a young man from Wyoming into a wild maze of psychoti...

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Firecreek
Firecreek

A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vi...

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Shenandoah
Shenandoah

Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of th...

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Run, Simon, Run
Run, Simon, Run

A Papago Indian returns to his reservation after a prison term and searches for his brother's killer...

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Rolling Thunder
Rolling Thunder

A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. He...

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Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barr...

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Death Mask
Death Mask

Wilbur works in an old carnival and shows some gruesome things to the public. He covers his face bec...

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Ride Lonesome
Ride Lonesome

On the way to pick up the bounty on a wanted murderer, a bounty hunter stops at a staging post where...

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Moondance Alexander
Moondance Alexander

Curiously named teen Moondance Alexander lives with her eccentric mother, and is faced with another ...

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Winchester '73
Winchester '73

Lin McAdam rides into town on the trail of Dutch Henry Brown, only to find himself in a shooting com...

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The Left Handed Gun
The Left Handed Gun

When a crooked sheriff murders his employer, William "Billy the Kid" Bonney decides to avenge the de...

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The Cimarron Kid
The Cimarron Kid

Audie Murphy comes into his own as a Western star in this story. Wrongly accused by crooked railroad...

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The Killer Shrews
The Killer Shrews

Trapped on a remote island by a hurricane, a group discover a doctor has been experimenting on creat...

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The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead

Fighting men in World War II learn the value of courage and quickness at the risk of losing their li...

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Hooper
Hooper

Legendary stunt man Sonny Hooper remains one of the top men in his field, but due to too many stress...

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Seminole
Seminole

Lance Caldwell, a cavalry lieutenant, recounts his efforts to make peace with the Seminole Indian tr...

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Calling Homicide
Calling Homicide

Cop Andy Doyle investigates a car-bombing murder and the killing of a sleazy modeling agency owner. ...

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The Rack
The Rack

Army Captain Edward Hall returns to the U.S. after two years in a prison camp in the Korean War. In ...

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Apache Drums
Apache Drums

A gambler is thrown out of a western town, but returns when the town is suddenly threatened by a ban...

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The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller

Samuel Fuller discusses his career as a filmmaker, illustrated by plenty of clips....

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Verboten!
Verboten!

A young American serviceman stationed in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich, jeopardises his ...

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The Brain Machine
The Brain Machine

Several people volunteer for a scientific experiment about mind-reading and memory, but the experime...

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Comanche Territory
Comanche Territory

White settlers plan to defy the agreement between the government and the Comanche to mine for silver...

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Hot Summer Night
Hot Summer Night

An out-of-work reporter (Leslie Nielsen) seeks out a bank robber, and his bride (Colleen Miller) has...

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Kansas Raiders
Kansas Raiders

Outraged by Redleg atrocities, the James and Younger Brothers along with Kit Dalton join Quantrill's...

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The Mountain Road
The Mountain Road

In 1944, in eastern part of China, U.S.Army Major Baldwin and his volunteer team of demolition engin...

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The Quick Gun
The Quick Gun

Gunslinger Murphy helps an ungrateful town fight off a raid by his former gang....

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Gaby
Gaby

A French ballerina falls in love with an American paratrooper on a two day pass in London near the e...

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The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!
The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!

Mama Josephine Max wants to build a theme park in Hazzard, right on the Duke family farm! To stop he...

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The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood
The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood

The Duke Boys and company travel to Hollywood to sell some musical recordings in order to raise mone...

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Man on the Prowl
Man on the Prowl

A neglected wife (Mala Powers) unknowingly places her family in danger when she becomes friends with...

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Cole Younger, Gunfighter
Cole Younger, Gunfighter

An outlaw must decide whether to stick his neck out for an innocent man....

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I Was a Shoplifter
I Was a Shoplifter

A police detective uses any means possible to trap a gang of shoplifters....

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Return of the Killer Shrews
Return of the Killer Shrews

A reality TV crew charter a boat to an island for filming, one which the boat's captain had been to ...

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One Way Street
One Way Street

After stealing a gangster's money and his girlfriend, a doctor heads for a small village in Mexico t...

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Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon

In the silent film era, attorney Leo Harrigan and gunslinger Buck Greenway are hired to stop an ille...

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Savages
Savages

Ben Campbell, a 22 year old gas station attendant in a small desert town, is looking to make some ex...

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Cast a Long Shadow
Cast a Long Shadow

A young man without surname inherits a big indebted ranch and has to prove his worthiness managing a...

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Top of the World
Top of the World

A team of Air Force servicemen become stranded after setting up a weather station on an island of ic...

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The Sweeter Side of Life
The Sweeter Side of Life

Pampered Manhattan housewife Desiree Harper has it all. That is until her husband unexpectedly dumps...

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The End
The End

Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waitin...

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Black Gold
Black Gold

Two friends join together to strike oil, court women, and battle an unscrupulous oilman politician d...

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Target Unknown
Target Unknown

World War II drama about members of an American bomber squadron who are captured and held prisoners ...

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City of Bad Men
City of Bad Men

Outlaws plan a robbery to take place during a championship prizefight in Carson City, Nevada....

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Ode to Billy Joe
Ode to Billy Joe

Set in sultry 1950s Mississippi, two teenagers grapple with surging hormones and the enticing promis...

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Come Next Spring
Come Next Spring

Matt Ballot has returned home after 12 years of hard-drinking in all 48 states. His wife has managed...

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Last of the Badmen
Last of the Badmen

Chicago detectives in the 1880s head west to find the killers of their colleague....

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Three on a Couch
Three on a Couch

An artist has an opportunity to go to Paris and wants to bring his fiancee along. However, she's a p...

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Air Cadet
Air Cadet

A group of cadets have assorted problems at the U.S. Air Force Pilot Training Academy....

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Sounder
Sounder

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-e...

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The Battle at Apache Pass
The Battle at Apache Pass

Major Jim Colton is a sympathetic leader who has a working relationship with Apache leader Cochise. ...

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Aftermath
Aftermath

Aftermath was the pilot for an unsold TV series called "The Code of Jonathan West"; it aired as part...

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Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet

Starship C57D travels to planet Altair 4 in search of the crew of spaceship "Bellerophon," a scienti...

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The Raid
The Raid

A group of confederate prisoners escape to Canada and plan to rob the banks and set fire to the smal...

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First to Fight
First to Fight

Jack is the sole survivor of a Japanese attack on his squad at Guadalcanal. Because of his heroism a...

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The Runaway Barge
The Runaway Barge

Two bargemen on the Mississippi River find themselves mixed up in a kidnapping and hijacking plot....

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Black Spurs
Black Spurs

A dissatisfied ranch hand becomes a bounty hunter. He conspires with a crooked town boss to dirty up...

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The Yellow Tomahawk
The Yellow Tomahawk

When the army insists on building a fort on Indian land, in defiance of a treaty, the warnings of a ...

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Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!
Hollywood in the Atomic Age: Monsters! Martians! Mad Scientists!

A comprehensive story of Hollywood's horror and science fiction films of the 1950s, told by the peop...

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The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny

When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardize his ship, the first office...

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Return from the Sea
Return from the Sea

A hardened career navel officer must come to terms with adapting to civilian life with the help of a...

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Francis Goes to West Point
Francis Goes to West Point

Francis the talking mule gets his owner in and out of trouble while he is taking basic training at W...

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Peggy
Peggy

Professor Brookfield along with daughters Peggy and Susan move to small town Pasadena, California. T...

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Seven Angry Men
Seven Angry Men

Rise, fall and execution of John Brown, fanatic abolitionist....

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Column South
Column South

In the weeks prior to the start of the Civil War, Confederate sympathizers hope to help their cause ...

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Steel Town
Steel Town

Steve Kostain, nephew of the owner, begins working at a steel mill to learn the business from the bo...

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Riders to the Stars
Riders to the Stars

Three men gamble their lives in space to change the history of the world...

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Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair

Ma and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to colleg...

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The Savage Bees
The Savage Bees

In this horror-drama the festive fun of the annual Mardi Gras celebration is brought to a halt when ...

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Skip Taylor
Skip Taylor

This USAF flight training recruitment film follows a trio of aviation cadets as they struggle throug...

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They Rode West
They Rode West

A young cavalry doctor treats very sick Indians against orders, whom are forced to stay on unhealthy...

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Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia

Anchored by intimate, one-on-one interviews with the man himself, Nicholas Wrathall’s new documentar...

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