Dukes of Hazzard Actor Ben Jones Who Became a Congressman Dies at 84

Ben Jones was still signing autographs as Cooter years after he had already served two terms in the U.S. House.

He swapped Hollywood for the halls of Congress, then came back for one more turn as Hazzard County's favorite mechanic.

Now Ben Jones is gone at 84, and the tributes pouring in from Hazzard County to Capitol Hill show exactly what he meant to both worlds.

A Heart Attack in His Favorite Chair

Jones suffered a massive heart attack Sunday at his home in Washington, Virginia.

His wife of more than three decades, Alma Viator, said he was resting in his favorite chair, waiting for the Atlanta Braves game to start.

Rappahannock County Sheriff Connie Compton confirmed the death.

Viator shared the news on Facebook alongside a photo of her husband smiling with his dog.

"I lost the love of my life today," she wrote, adding that Jones had lived a full life and would be deeply missed by everyone who knew him.

From a North Carolina Stage to Hazzard County

Jones was born August 30, 1941, in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, and got his start as a stage actor before breaking into film.

He landed a role in the 1972 drama "Together for Days," then a bigger part three years later in "Moonrunners," a bootlegging picture that Gy Waldron wrote and directed, with narration from Waylon Jennings.

Waldron built "The Dukes of Hazzard" around that same world a few years later and brought Jones along for the role of Cooter Davenport, the garage owner and honorary member of the Duke family.

Across seven seasons and more than 140 episodes, Cooter became one of the show's most memorable characters, remembered for a CB radio catchphrase: "Breaker one, breaker one, I might be crazy, but I ain't dumb."

Nielsen Media Research had the show's first three seasons ranked among the ten most-watched programs on American television.

By the 1979-80 season, only "Dallas" drew a bigger audience.

Jones starred alongside Tom Wopat, John Schneider, Catherine Bach, Sorrell Booke and Denver Pyle, and later returned for two reunion specials in 1997 and 2000.

His other screen credits included "Primary Colors," "Sliders" and "Joe Gould's Secret."

From Cooter's Garage to the U.S. House

Riding the show's popularity, Jones ran for Congress in Georgia in 1986 as a Democrat and lost a close race to incumbent Pat Swindall.

Two years later, after Swindall faced accusations that he had lied under oath to a federal grand jury, Jones challenged him again and won by roughly 20 points.

Jones represented Georgia's 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House from 1989 to 1993, serving two terms before returning to acting.

In his 2007 memoir, "Redneck Boy in the Promised Land," Jones wrote candidly about an earlier struggle with alcoholism that he said he overcame before his years on "Dukes" and in Congress.

In 1999, Jones and Viator settled in Virginia, where they opened Cooter's Place, a museum, restaurant and shop devoted to the show that made him famous.

Jones later became one of the show's most outspoken defenders after Warner Bros. stopped licensing merchandise featuring the General Lee's Confederate flag in the wake of the 2015 Charleston church shooting.

He refused to pull the flag from his own Cooter's Place stores.

"We despise racism," Jones told the Associated Press at the time, arguing the flag on the show represented Southern heritage rather than hate.

Tom Wopat and Whey Jennings Lead the Tributes

Tom Wopat, who played Luke Duke, called Jones a devoted friend to his castmates and one of the last living links to the show's early years.

"I feel like we lost a Duke cousin today," Wopat wrote, recalling how the late Denver Pyle used to needle Jones that he wasn't really playing his Uncle Jesse.

Whey Jennings, grandson of Waylon Jennings, mourned Jones as a mentor who helped finance his first live album and shared the stage with him for years.

Jones himself once summed up why the show endured.

In a 2001 interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, he said "Dukes" worked because it was funny, action-packed and family-friendly at its core — and because, in the end, "the good guys always win."

Ben Jones is survived by his wife, Alma Viator.

Sources:

• Sarah Sotoodeh and Stephanie Nolasco, "Ben Jones, 'Dukes of Hazzard' actor and former congressman, dead at 84," Fox News, August 10, 2026.
• Staff, "Ben Jones, 'Dukes of Hazzard' star and former Congressman, dies at 84," CNN, August 10, 2026.
• Staff, "Ben Jones, Cooter Davenport on 'The Dukes of Hazzard,' Dies at 84," The Hollywood Reporter, August 2026.
• Staff, "Ben Jones, Cooter on 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and former congressman, dies at 84," NBC News, August 2026.
• Staff, "Ben Jones Dead: Cooter From 'The Dukes of Hazzard' Was 84," Variety, August 2026.
• Staff, "Warner Bros. to strip Dukes of Hazzard products of the controversial Confederate flag," CBC News, June 25, 2015.