James Best

Acting

James Best

Born 1926-07-26 · 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 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).

Acting credits

Hot Tamale poster
4.9

A road trip to Los Angeles inadvertently leads a young man from Wyoming into a wild maze of psychotic hit-men, racy women, jewel thieves and a salsa band.

Hot Tamale

2006

Forbidden Planet poster
7.3

Starship C57D travels to planet Altair 4 in search of the crew of spaceship "Bellerophon," a scientific expedition that has been missing for twenty years. They find themselves unwelcome by the expedition's lone survivor and warned of destruction by an invisible force if they don't turn back immediately.

Forbidden Planet

1956

The Caine Mutiny poster
7.2

When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardize his ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.

The Caine Mutiny

1954

The Left Handed Gun poster
6.0

When a crooked sheriff murders his employer, William "Billy the Kid" Bonney decides to avenge the death by killing the man responsible, throwing the lives of everyone around him into turmoil, and endangering the General Amnesty set up by Governor Wallace to bring peace to the New Mexico Territory.

The Left Handed Gun

1958

Winchester '73 poster
7.3

Lin McAdam rides into town on the trail of Dutch Henry Brown, only to find himself in a shooting competition against him. McAdam wins the prize, a one-in-a-thousand Winchester rifle, but Dutch steals it and leaves town. McAdam follows, intent on settling his old quarrel, while the rifle keeps changing hands and touching a number of lives.

Winchester '73

1950

Hooper poster
6.3

Legendary stunt man Sonny Hooper remains one of the top men in his field, but due to too many stressful impacts to the spine and the need to pop painkillers several times a day, he knows he should get out of the industry before he ends up permanently disabled.

Hooper

1978

Ride Lonesome poster
6.7

On the way to pick up the bounty on a wanted murderer, a bounty hunter stops at a staging post where he is forced to continue his journey with two outlaws who want the murderer for their own reasons and a recently-widowed woman, with the murderer's brother and his men in hot pursuit.

Ride Lonesome

1959

Firecreek poster
6.2

A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vicious outlaws takes over his town.

Firecreek

1968

Rolling Thunder poster
6.8

A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. He has a hard time adjusting, and things go badly. A movie about the walking dead, before that meant just flesh-eating zombies.

Rolling Thunder

1977

Sounder poster
7.5

The oldest son of a loving and strong family of black sharecroppers comes of age in the Depression-era South after his father is imprisoned for stealing food.

Sounder

1972

Shenandoah poster
6.9

Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of the Civil War he wants nothing to do with. When his youngest boy is taken prisoner by the North, the Civil War is forced upon him.

Shenandoah

1965

The Sweeter Side of Life poster
5.8

Pampered Manhattan housewife Desiree Harper has it all. That is until her husband unexpectedly dumps her for his acupuncturist. Faced with an airtight prenup, Desiree reluctantly lands a job making cupcakes at her father's bakery in Flemington, NJ. She soon discovers there's more to life than 5th Avenue and true love can be even sweeter in small town America.

The Sweeter Side of Life

2013

Verboten! poster
6.6

A young American serviceman stationed in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich, jeopardises his future after falling in love with a German woman.

Verboten!

1959

The Savage Bees poster
5.5

In this horror-drama the festive fun of the annual Mardi Gras celebration is brought to a halt when a swarm of African killer bees escape from a foreign freighter.

The Savage Bees

1977

The Naked and the Dead poster
5.7

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

The Naked and the Dead

1958

Ode to Billy Joe poster
6.2

Set in sultry 1950s Mississippi, two teenagers grapple with surging hormones and the enticing promise of love, unknowing of the tragedy that looms ahead.

Ode to Billy Joe

1976

Nickelodeon poster
6.1

In the silent film era, attorney Leo Harrigan and gunslinger Buck Greenway are hired to stop an illegal film production. However, they soon team up with the filmmakers and become important players in the show business industry. Leo learns he has a talent for directing, and Buck's cowboy persona quickly earns him leading-man status — but both men fall for beautiful starlet Kathleen Cooke, leading to a heated personal rivalry.

Nickelodeon

1976

The End poster
5.6

Wendell Lawson has only six months to live. Not wanting to endure his last few months of life waiting for the end, he decides to take matters into his own hands and enlists the help of a delusional mental patient to help him commit suicide.

The End

1978

Death Mask poster
5.6

Wilbur works in an old carnival and shows some gruesome things to the public. He covers his face because he had a sadistic father who burned his face as a child. Everybody makes jokes about his scars and when the new boss fires him, he goes to an old swamp-witch who gives him a peace of wood from a hanging tree. Wilbur makes a mask from this piece of wood and puts all his anger in this mask. When he puts the mask on, everybody who looks at him commits suicide.

Death Mask

1995

Shock Corridor poster
7.0

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

Shock Corridor

1963

The Yellow Tomahawk poster
6.6

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

The Yellow Tomahawk

1954

The Raid poster
6.5

A group of confederate prisoners escape to Canada and plan to rob the banks and set fire to the small town of Saint Albans in Vermont. To get the lie of the land, their leader spends a few days in the town and finds he is getting drawn into its life and especially into that of an attractive widow and her son.

The Raid

1954

Kansas Raiders poster
6.0

Outraged by Redleg atrocities, the James and Younger Brothers along with Kit Dalton join Quantrill's Raiders and find themselves participating in even worse war crimes.

Kansas Raiders

1950

The Battle at Apache Pass poster
6.6

Major Jim Colton is a sympathetic leader who has a working relationship with Apache leader Cochise. Colton is undermined by corrupt and politically ambitious Indian agent Neil Baylor who sets up a false attack, and the abduction of a local farmer's son. While Colton is away investigating the matter, Baylor convinces Lieutenant Bascom that Cochise's band is to blame, and incites him to lead an expedition against the Apache band to return the boy.

The Battle at Apache Pass

1952

Behind the camera