Jewel Franklin Guy

 Jewel Franklin Guy, known professionally as James Best (July 26, 1926 – April 6, 2015)

During a career that spanned more than 60 years, he performed not only in feature films but also in scores of television series, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. Television audiences, however, perhaps most closely associate Best with his role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series The Dukes of Hazzard, which originally aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985. He reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000). He served honorably in the United States Army in World War II, training in 1944 in Biloxi, Mississippi, as a gunner on a B-17 bomber; but by the time he completed his training the war had almost ended, so he was assigned to the army's law-enforcement section. Best served in war-torn Germany immediately after the Nazi government's surrender in May 1945.

Best later moved to Florida and taught at the University of Central Florida (Orlando). After semi-retiring, he administered a production company and accepted occasional acting roles. He also developed a reputation as an artist for his paintings of landscapes, scenes from The Dukes of Hazzard, and other subjects. Later, after residing for awhile in Lake Murray, South Carolina, he moved once again, this time to Hickory, North Carolina. Best was married three times, and had three children. He was also a cousin of Don and Phil Everly. Best died on April 6, 2015, in Hickory, North Carolina, from complications of pneumonia at the age of 88. He is buried at
Cedar Hill Cemetery in Corydon, Indiana.