Boss Hogg was the funniest character on that show and Roscoe was #2 IMO. Just the sight of little Boss Hogg in that white suit, hat and cigar was sooo funny— the southern accent, facial expressions.. Some darn good actors those two were.
Yep, they really were.
RIP Mr. Best.
Some background on the actors:
5. Sorrel Brooke, who played Boss Hogg, was a great intellect. A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he was a graduate of Columbia and Yale and fluent in five languages. Brooke was especially accomplished at replicating dialects, and based his character’s accent on that of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. His belly was also fake — Brooke wore a padded suit to give him the extra girth that he needed to play the rotund Hogg.
6. James Best grew up in poverty and from a broken family to become a phenomenally successful actor by the time that he was cast as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane. He worked as an accomplished acting teacher for decades and provided instruction to, among other actors, Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Farrah Fawcett, and Quentin Tarantino, as well as less famous students while serving as a professor at Mississippi State University. In his spare time, he acquired a black belt in karate and now paints (warning: auto-sound).
7. Ben Jones (Cooter Davenport) was a member of Congress from 1989 to 1993. His writings have appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Weekly Standard.