{"id":852523,"date":"2026-08-10T03:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852523\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T03:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:28:10","slug":"ben-jones-who-played-cooter-on-dukes-of-hazzard-dead-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852523\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Jones, Who Played Cooter on ‘Dukes of Hazzard,’ Dead at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Ben<\/p>\n

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Ben Jones — the actor-turned-politician best known for his role in the show “The Dukes of Hazzard” — has died … according to his wife.<\/p>\n

Alma Viator — to whom Jones was married from 1992 until his passing — shared the tragic news Sunday … sharing a photo of Ben grinning and holding a dog to her Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.<\/p>\n

She said Ben passed from a “massive heart attack” while eagerly awaiting the start of the Atlanta Braves’ game against the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n

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Alma writes, “Ben had the most amazing rich full life. He loved and was loved by so many. He will be missed. I loved him so so much.”<\/p>\n

Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.<\/p>\n

Ben’s former costar, Tom Wopat<\/a> — who played Luke Duke on the show — also paid tribute to the star via social media.<\/p>\n

Ben was mainly a stage actor until he broke into the film and TV industry in the early 1970s … grabbing small parts in “Smokey and the Bandit” and “Moonrunners.” The latter film became the basis for “The Dukes of Hazzard.”<\/p>\n

From 1979 to 1985, Ben appeared in 141 episodes of ‘Dukes’ as Cooter … the Duke bros’ lovable mechanic friend.<\/p>\n

His other credits include “The Magical World of Disney,” “Jack,” “Primary Colors,” “Sliders,” and many more.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, Ben traded in L.A. for the nation’s capital … winning a seat in the House of Representatives. He served two terms in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Ben stoked controversy in recent years for his defense of the Confederate Battle Flag — a symbol often used on “The Dukes of Hazzard — including claiming it has no connection to slavery.<\/p>\n

He was 84 years old.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Jones — the actor-turned-politician best known for his role in the show “The Dukes of Hazzard” —…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-852523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}