Ben Jones, who portrayed the scruffy mechanic Cooter Davenport on all seven seasons of the CBS action series The Dukes of Hazzard before serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, died Sunday. He was 84.
Jones died from a “massive heart attack” at home while preparing to watch a baseball game on TV, his wife, Alma Viator, announced on Facebook.
Jones had played a federal agent in Moonrunners (1975), a rollicking film from United Artists about bootleggers that was written and directed by Gy Waldron, starred James Mitchum and featured narration from country singer Waylon Jennings.
When Waldron reconceived the movie for The Dukes of Hazzard, Jones (and Jennings) came along to join Tom Wopat, John Schneider, Catherine Bach, Sorrell Booke, Sonny Shroyer and a 1969 Dodge Charger nicknamed the General Lee on the Warner Bros. Television series.
The family-friendly comedy “plopped down in the very county where I was living, about 40 or 50 miles outside of Atlanta,” Jones recalled in a 2021 interview.
