Ben Jones, the actor who played Cooter Davenport on The Dukes of Hazzard, died Sunday at 84. Alma Viator said he died at home from a massive heart attack while preparing to watch a baseball game on TV.
Jones was a seven-season cast member on The Dukes of Hazzard, appearing in 141 episodes of the CBS series from 1979 to 1985. He later carried that visibility into Congress, where he served Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms.
CBS and Cooter Davenport
Jones reached television through a role that fit the show’s working-class engine. On The Dukes of Hazzard, he played Cooter Davenport, the owner of Cooter’s Garage in Hazzard County Square, and the character’s CB handle was Crazy Cooter. Jones also played a federal agent in Moonrunners in 1975, the Gy Waldron film that became the template for the series.
The Dukes of Hazzard ran from January 1979 to February 1985 and hit No. 2 in the 1979-80 Nielsen ratings. That level of reach is why Jones remained recognizable long after the show ended; he was not a one-scene name, but part of a cast that defined a prime-time hit built around Tom Wopat, John Schneider, Catherine Bach, Sorrell Booke, and Sonny Shroyer.
Georgia in Congress
Jones entered Congress in 1988 after a tight 1986 loss to Pat Swindall for Georgia’s 4th congressional district. He was re-elected in 1990 to another two-year term, then lost to Newt Gingrich in 1994 after redistricting took his seat.
In 1998, Jones filed an ethics complaint against Gingrich, and that complaint contributed to Gingrich’s resignation as House Speaker. Jones tried again for Congress in 2002 while living in Virginia and lost to Eric Cantor, extending a political career that moved from television fame into the hard math of House races.
September 1977
Jones had a drinking problem in his past, but he said he had not had a drink since September 1977. During the campaign, he admitted he had “more skeletons in my closet than the Smithsonian,” a line that fit a public life built on bluntness rather than polish.
He also said, “People ask me in Washington if I’m doing any acting any more. More than ever,” and added, “The skills I learned on stage and in film are invaluable in politics, because we’re talking about communication and being comfortable around a camera, being in front of an audience, finding that bond, that chemistry. And being energized by it.” Jones’s death leaves both sides of that career in the same frame: the actor who made Cooter matter, and the lawmaker who turned that visibility into votes.
