Ben Jones, Cooter on 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and Former U.S. Congressman, Dies at 84
Ben Jones, the actor turned politician best known for playing Cooter Davenport on The Dukes of Hazzard, died on Sunday from a heart attack at the age of 84. His wife, Alma Viator, announced the death in a Facebook post on Sunday afternoon, writing that he suffered a massive heart attack while resting at home (Variety).
On The Dukes of Hazzard, Jones played the Hazzard County mechanic and honorary member of the Duke clan — the go-to fixer who kept the General Lee on the road. He appeared in 142 episodes of the series, which ran from 1979 to 1985, alongside Tom Wopat, John Schneider, Catherine Bach, Denver Pyle, Sorrell Brooke, and Waylon Jennings as the balladeer narrator (Variety).
Wopat paid tribute to his former co-star in an Instagram post, saying the show had lost another integral part of its cast (Variety).
After the series ended, Jones pivoted to politics. In 1988, he ran for Congress in Georgia's Fourth Congressional District and won by 20 points. He was reelected in 1990. Four years later, redistricting reshaped the district and cost him his seat; he lost his next race to Newt Gingrich (Variety).
Jones and Viator, who married on 10 October 1992 and had two children, kept their connection to the show alive well after it left the air. In 1998 they bought a colonial house, and the following year they opened a Dukes of Hazzard museum on the property (Wikipedia). According to his IMDb biography, the couple remained married until his death (IMDb).
For fans of the series, Jones was the working-class heart of Hazzard County — the mechanic who never asked for top billing but was always in the frame. That he went from a network television set to the floor of Congress, and back again to running a museum dedicated to the show that made him recognisable, made him one of American pop culture's more improbable double acts.
