Ben Jones died Sunday August 9 at his home after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 84. His wife of more than 30 years, Alma Viator, announced the news on Facebook alongside a photo of Jones holding his dog.
"I lost the love of my life today," she wrote. "Ben passed from a massive heart attack." His co-star Tom Wopat, who played Luke Duke, also shared the news on social media.
Jones played Cooter Davenport, the wisecracking, good-hearted mechanic and sometime deputy, in The Dukes of Hazzard for the show's entire run on CBS from 1979 to 1985 and in subsequent reunion movies.
The show ran 145 episodes and remains one of CBS's most watched series in its history. Jones embraced the connection long after it ended, he and Alma opened Cooter's Place, a Dukes of Hazzard museum and store in Sperryville, Virginia, where fans from around the world came to pay tribute to the show.
But Jones was not only Cooter. Born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina in 1941, he was a Vietnam-era veteran, a civil rights activist, a longtime Democratic activist and a two-term congressman from Georgia's 4th District from 1989 to 1993.
He twice ran against Newt Gingrich. He lost both times. He never stopped. He is survived by his wife Alma, four children and several grandchildren.