Hollywood just lost one of its wildest crossover stories ever.
Ben Jones, the beloved actor who portrayed grease monkey Cooter Davenport on the iconic CBS hit "The Dukes of Hazzard," has passed away at 84 years old after suffering a massive heart attack at his Virginia residence on Sunday, as The American Tribune reported. His wife, Alma Viator, confirmed the devastating news.
Here is the part that really gets you. Jones was sitting in his favorite chair, waiting to catch the Atlanta Braves take on the New York Yankees when his heart gave out. If that is not the most perfectly Southern farewell imaginable, nothing is.
Viator took to Facebook on Sunday evening to share her heartbreak with the world. "I lost the love of my life today," she wrote, adding that her husband had lived an "amazing rich full life." She described him as someone who loved deeply and received that same love right back from countless people across the country.
Now let us talk about what made this guy such a legend. Jones became a household name playing the wisecracking mechanic who kept the General Lee roaring and helped Bo and Luke Duke dodge trouble week after week. He joined the smash series in the late 1970s and stayed through its entire run until 1985. Cooter ran the local garage, fixed up that famous car, and constantly found himself tangled up in schemes involving Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Seven glorious seasons of pure television gold.
But Jones was not content to just ride off into the Hollywood sunset. The man pulled off something almost nobody in showbiz has ever done. He pivoted from fictional Hazzard County straight into real Washington politics.
Running as a Democrat in Georgia's 4th Congressional District, Jones first challenged Republican incumbent Pat Swindall back in 1986. He came close but could not pull it off. Then fate intervened. Swindall got hit with perjury charges, and Jones swooped back in for another shot in 1988. This time he grabbed that congressional seat and held onto it through a successful reelection campaign in 1990, serving two full terms in the U.S. House.
His Capitol Hill career eventually hit a wall when redistricting threw him into a brutal matchup against Republican heavyweight Newt Gingrich. That contest ended his political run, but the fact that a television mechanic from a fictional Southern county made it to Congress at all remains one of the wildest political stories around.
Tom Wopat, who played Luke Duke alongside Jones for years, shared a moving tribute calling his former castmate an essential part of their TV family and a fierce advocate for the entertainment industry. "He will be sorely missed," Wopat wrote.
Viator's final words about her husband stripped away all the fame and the politics. "I loved him so so much," she wrote. Sometimes the biggest stars shine brightest at home.
Read more American news stories at: The American Tribune
