Ben Jones
Ben Jones was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, United States on August 30th, 1941 and is the TV Actor. At the age of 82, Ben Jones biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, TV shows, and networth are available.
At 82 years old, Ben Jones has this physical status:
Ben Lewis Jones, Jr. (born August 30, 1941), is an American actor, politician, playwright, and essayist best known for his appearance in The Dukes of Hazzard as Cooter Davenport.
Jones served in the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 1989 to January 3, 1993.
Early life and career
Jones was born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, near McNair's Railroad Crossing on August 30, 1941. Hubert C. "Buck" Jones, a railroad section foreman and his mother, was Ila Virginia Stephens, the daughter of a railroad section foreman. His family was moved to Portsmouth, Virginia, within two weeks of his birth. The Joneses lived in a "section house," a railroad company shack with no indoor plumbing or electricity. The house was located next to the Pinners Point Railyard, which served as the shipping piers there. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1959 and spent time in a variety of odd jobs to save money for college. He attended East Carolina College (now East Carolina University) in 1960 and 1961, and Chapel Hill's University of North Carolina welcomed him as a writer based on his promise as a writer.
Jones spent summers with the railroad in Chapel Hill, South Carolina, on a work train that was contracted to many railroads. When he was at UNC in 1962, he started playing with the Carolina Playmakers and was soon earning money on "summer stock" and the outdoor drama "Unto These Hills" in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Jones was instrumental in the Civil rights movement during the 1960s. He was arrested during sit-ins and the KKK assaulted him on two occasions.
Career
Jones has appeared in more than 100 theatrical productions, including stints at the Kennedy Center, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and several regional theatres. In 1969, he moved to Atlanta and appeared with the Alliance Theatre, the Theatre of the Stars, and The Winter Playhouse. He appeared in national productions of Summer and Smoke and Desire Under the Elms for two years. He appeared in numerous television and radio commercials in Atlanta, as well as in films including Smokey and Jerry Reed (with Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed), and Tim Conway's They Went That & That-Way.
He appeared in and directed The Moonrunners, a self-produced film directed by Atlantan Gy Waldron and starring country star Waylon Jennings, in the mid-1970s. That film was the basis for "The Dukes of Hazzard," a film that debuted about two miles from Jones' then residence in Covington, Georgia. Jones was played in the role of "Cooter" Davenport, cousin Bo and Luke Duke's sidekick mechanic. The show climbed to the top of the Nielsen charts right away. "The Dukes" on CBS-TV in the days before television, satellite dishes, and the internet, attracted 40 million viewers per week.
Jones lived in Georgia and then commuted to Los Angeles for "The Dukes"'s continuing filming. He served as president of the Georgia Branch of the Screen Actors Guild and was elected chairman of the Georgia Film Commission.
He ran for Congress in Georgia's Fourth Congressional District against incumbent Pat Swindall in 1986. Jones, who was considered a long shot at best, gained over 47% of the vote in 1988, and he defeated Swindall in a landslide. In 1990, he was re-elected. He served as a member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs and a member of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation in the 101st and 102nd Congresses. He ran against Newt Gingrich in 1994 after re-stricting took his place. He was disqualified, but he had brought ethics charges against Gingrich, alleging that the Gingrich had used tax-exempt groups for political ends. The House of Representatives ultimately reprimanded Gingrich and ordered to reimburse the House an amount of $300,000 for the investigation. Jones, one of the last Yellow dog Democrats, is now a political independent.
Jones returned to show business after being in Congress, and was featured in director Mike Nichols' "Primary Colors" with John Travolta and Emma Thompson. In addition to repriseing his role as "Cooter" in two "Dukes of Hazzard" reunion specials, he appeared in Meet Joe Black and Joe Gould's Secret.
Jones and his partner, Alma Viator, bought a colonial log cabin and farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia, bordering Shenandoah National Park in 1998. They opened "Cooter's" museum and theme store in Sperryville, Virginia, in 1999. It was an immediate success. There are now three franchises in Pigeon Forge and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as in Luray, Virginia. Jones and Viator have also produced "Dukes" reunion festivals over the years, including one in Nashville, Tennessee, which attracted over 100,000 fans from around the country, which The Tennessean described as the country's biggest gathering for a "fan" function. They've continued to grow "Hazzard Country" by way of their shops, personal appearances, and concerts. Jones has appeared on television shows as well as Cooter's Garage Band, playing Southern Country/Rock, and has released 11 CD albums, including 2020's "Play Me an Old Song."
In 2007, Random House published Redneck Boy in the Promised Land, a humorous but uncompromising chronicle of Jones' life and his fight with alcoholism. "I went sober the day before I died," the author wrote.
Jones has written fiction and poetry in addition to political commentary in publications such as The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, and many others. Over the past 40 years, he has shared his "maverick" political views on various television and cable outlets.
Jones declared his support for the Confederate flag in 2015, which can be seen on the exterior of The Dukes of Hazzard signature car, the General Lee, on the outside. His defence of the flag served as his response to Warner Bros' decision not to produce any merchandise that depicts the flag, such as the General Lee, and the demise of reruns of the show due to Dylann Roof's legendary fame with the flag.
Although Jones often refers to his Civil Rights campaign in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King says he has been supporting Confederate flags and slavery for a lifetime. Instead, he focuses on his Confederate flag as a monument to his ancestors who died fighting for the Confederate States of America in what he describes as "The War of Northern Aggression." For example, Jones' column "The Second War of Northern Aggression" was the North's only mention of slavery in scary quotes: "Since the North has defeated the North, the normal wisdom is clear: the North defeated the Civil War to 'free the slaves' and save the South's Union from the secessionist traitors of the South." Any link between the Confederate flag and slavery, according to him, is a "wave of political correctness" and calls it a "cultural cleansing."