RALEIGH, N.C. — Prolific character actor James Best, best known for playing giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on television’s “The Dukes of Hazzard,” has died. He was 88.
His wife of 29 years, Dorothy Best, said he died Monday night in hospice care from complications of pneumonia.
On the television series that ran from 1979 to 1985, Best was the lawman futilely chasing the Duke boys, often in the company of his droopy-faced basset hound Flash. Best employed a battery of catch phrases in the role, as well as memorable laugh that was comically villainous.
“I acted the part as good as I could,” Best told The Charlotte Observer in 2009. “Rosco, let’s face it, was a charmer. It was a fun thing.”
During a wide-ranging career of several decades, he also acted in movies including “The Caine Mutiny” and “Rolling Thunder,” and he appeared on television shows including “The Twilight Zone,” “Gunsmoke” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Best was also an acting teacher who helped several future Hollywood stars learn how to appear more natural on camera.
