RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Prolific character actor James Best, best known for playing the giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” has died. He was 88.
His wife of 29 years, Dorothy Best, said that Best died Monday night in hospice care in Hickory from complications of pneumonia.
Best starred on the television series that ran from 1979 to 1985. He 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 a 2009 interview. “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 “Gunsmoke” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”