James Best, who played the oafish sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on the hit television comedy “The Dukes of Hazzard,” died on Monday near his home in Hickory, N.C. He was 88.

The cause was pneumonia, his friend Steve Latshaw said.

Mr. Best was in demand as a character actor from the 1950s through the ’80s; by his count he appeared in more than 600 television show episodes and 85 films.

His Southern twang and rugged good looks made him a natural on westerns like “Wagon Train” and “Gunsmoke” and rural series like “The Andy Griffith Show.” Among the films in which he appeared were “The Caine Mutiny” (1954), with Humphrey Bogart; “The Left-Handed Gun” (1958), with Paul Newman; “Shenandoah” (1965), with James Stewart; and “Three on a Couch” (1966), with Jerry Lewis.

His best-known role by far was Rosco on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” a countrified car-chase comedy seen on CBS from 1979 to 1985. The producers originally envisioned him as a hard-nosed sheriff, but Mr. Best saw him differently. “I said, ‘I’m going to play Rosco like a 12-year-old who likes hot pursuit,’ ” he told NPR in an interview in 2013.

“The Dukes of Hazzard,” which starred Tom Wopat and John Schneider as Rosco’s nemeses, the freewheeling Luke and Bo Duke, was one of the highest-rated programs on television for three seasons. Mr. Wopat and Mr. Schneider left the show in 1982 in a contract dispute. They eventually returned, but the show had foundered in their absence and went off the air in 1985.

Mr. Best was born Jewel Franklin Guy on July 26, 1926, in Powderly, Ky., to Lena Mae Everly Guy and Larkin Jasper Guy. (Mrs. Guy’s brother was Ike Everly, father of Phil and Don Everly, better known as the singing Everly Brothers.) After his mother died in 1929, Mr. Best was adopted by Essa and Armen Best, who took him to live in Corydon, Ind., and allowed him to choose a new name.

He graduated from high school in 1944 and joined the Army Air Forces in Germany. He became a military policeman and joined a military theatrical company.

Among Mr. Best’s other television appearances were three episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” including a western-themed one that also starred Lee Marvin.

Mr. Best’s first two marriages ended in divorce. He married the actress Dorothy Collier in 1986. She survives him, as do two daughters from his second marriage, JoJami Best Tyler and Janeen Damian; a son from his first marriage, Gary Allen Best; and three grandchildren.

Mr. Best later taught acting, but fellow actors said he had always imparted lessons.

“I learned more about acting in front of a camera from Jimmie Best in an afternoon than from anyone else in a year,” Mr. Schneider, who played Bo Duke, said in a statement. “When asked to cry on camera, he would say, ‘Sure thing... which eye?’ ”

CREDIT: DANIEL E. SLOTNIK for the NEW YORK TIMES