{"id":15202,"date":"2015-04-07T09:09:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T15:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=15202"},"modified":"2015-04-07T09:09:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T15:09:11","slug":"james-best-rest-in-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=15202","title":{"rendered":"James Best , Rest In Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

H<\/strong>ICKORY, N.C., April 6, 2015\u2014James Best, the actor best known for his portrayal of bumbling yet endearing Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on TV\u2019s \u201cThe Dukes of Hazzard,\u201d died at 9:28 p.m. ET Monday after a brief illness and complications of pneumonia. He was 88.<\/p>\n

The youngest of eight brothers and a sister, James was born Jewel Franklin Guy in hardscrabble Powderly, Ky., on July 26, 1926, to parents Lena Mae Everly Guy (sister of Ike Everly, who was father of musical legends Don and Phil) and Larkin Jasper Guy. After spending a short time in an orphanage following his mother\u2019s death in 1929, the young boy was adopted by Essa and Armen Best and moved with them to their home in Corydon, Ind.<\/p>\n

When his adoptive parents asked what name he wanted to be called, young Jewel said, \u201cJimmie,\u201d likely a toddler\u2019s recollection of the name of one of his older brothers. Jimmie\u2019s adoptive father taught him boxing skills, marksmanship with assorted firearms and a lifelong passion for fishing and the outdoors. During his youth, Jimmie also sacked groceries at the local Kroger with a future governor of Indiana (Frank O\u2019Bannon), was a Boy Scout and acted in his first play, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\u2019s Court<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Jimmie\u2019s experiences and observations as a boy growing up in the Great Depression would later be inspiration for his writing the play Hell-Bent for Good Times<\/span>, which he also produced, directed and starred in with leading lady Peggy Stewart to rave reviews from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Jimmie also adapted the play for the screen and had even filmed some sample scenes for his Best Friend Films production company.<\/p>\n

While ideas for future creative works percolated, Jimmie, fresh out of high school in 1944, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps with dreams of being a pilot. But the Air Corps at that point needed gunners and radio operators more than pilots, so Jimmie trained for those duties instead. Once most of the enemy\u2019s aircraft were out of commission and there was less need for him to be fighting in the sky, Jimmie was transferred to the military police to help handle dangerous problems on the ground in Germany. Many of Jimmie\u2019s experiences as an MP contending with the Werwolf <\/span>resistance in Germany during the war were incorporated into Samuel Fuller\u2019s acclaimed 1959 film Verboten! <\/span>in which Jimmie starred as Sergeant David Brent.<\/p>\n

It was during his real wartime on the ground in Germany that Sergeant Best became enlightened about how servicemen who entertained the troops as part of Special Services were given better food and living quarters and, most important, got to travel and socialize with the pretty actressesin those units. And he noticed that the folks in Special Services also generally didn\u2019t have people shooting at them.<\/p>\n

Jimmie used his stellar record with the military police as leverage to join the military theatrical company. His first role was playing a drunk in director Arthur Penn\u2019s production in Germany of My Sister Eileen<\/span>. Jimmie\u2019s show business career was now officially locked and loaded.<\/p>\n

After the war, Jimmie had stars in his eyes and headed to New York City with visions of Broadway. He ended up honing his acting skills in winter stock and summer stock productions. He also did some fashion modeling, which got him noticed by an influential Hollywood casting director. That led to Jimmie\u2019s leap to Hollywood as a contract player for Universal Studios, where Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Shelley Winters and war hero Audie Murphy were among the group of budding contract players with Jimmie at the time.<\/p>\n

Jimmie stayed busy in lots of films, including classic westerns with movie legends who would become friends, such as James Stewart (four films together, including Winchester \u201973<\/span>) and Paul Newman (two films, including The Left-Handed Gun, <\/span>which was also a nice reunion for Jimmie with director Arthur Penn). Mr. Stewart, as Jimmie always referred to him, was Jimmie\u2019s icon and mentor. They became great friends. Jimmie\u2019s prize possession was the framed sketch that Mr. Stewart drew for him of Harvey the rabbit. Jimmie called it his Oscar. Farther from Oscar, Jimmie also starred in purely popular fare during this period, including a Ma and Pa Kettle film, as well as one with Francis the Talking Mule.<\/p>\n

Jimmie himself could be mule-like\u2014that is, hard-kicking, ornery and stubborn. Jimmie\u2019s storied reputation as a renegade eventually led to his essentially being prematurely turned out to pasture at Universal, while also being considered too hot to handle by other studios, with one key exception. Gene Autry gave Jimmie good work when he needed it most. Jimmie was soon back working steadily, first on Autry\u2019s TV show and then for many others. He performed in hundreds of episodes for TV, including iconic roles in multiple installments of hits such as \u201cThe Twilight Zone,\u201d \u201cAlfred Hitchcock\u201d and \u201cThe Andy Griffith Show.\u201d