Sorrell Booke AKA "Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg"

Sorrell Booke Filmography

Sorrell Booke was born on January 4, 1930 and raised in Buffalo, New York.  His father was a doctor and while his father was busy with his patients, Sorrell was busy entertaining patients who were waiting to be seen by telling them stories and songs.  Before Booke was ten, he ordered scripts from a dozen radio dramas and would play all of the parts, shiowing a natural affinity for dialects.  He entered a local radio station for a role, and won the role for the next show.      Booke graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Columbia.  Booke was very smart as he could speak nine flewent languages.  He played "Senator Cottonmouth", his first Southern politician role, in a campus variety show.  After he graduated Columbia he earned his master's degree in Fine Arts from Yale and played the classics at Massachusett's prestigious Provincetown Playhouse.  During the Korean War, Booke spent two years in counterintelligence the CIA.  After the war, Booke appeared as Senator Billboard Hawknis in thr original Broadway production of Finian's Rainbow, and then played another Southern character, Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee, in Purlie Victorious.  Booke's television career began in 1957 with an appearance in the Producer's Showcase production of "Mayerling," starring Audrey Hepburn.  Booke played in a variety of roles among those are Naked City, Rounte 66, The Patty Duke Show, Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West, Room 222, All in the Family, Columbo, Little House on the Prairie, The Bob Newhart Show, M*A*S*H, Soap, and The Rockford Files.      Booke's agent told him that Warner Bros. was preparing a show that was right up his alley.  Warner Bros. knew who Booke was and his many different talents.  They offered the role of Boss Hogg to Booke whcih he accepted because he wanted the challenge of keeping a continuous performance fresh.                                                                             Information from the Dukes of Hazzard Unofficial Companion.

Boss Jefferson Davis Hogg was Hazzard Counties town Commissioner.  He and Rosco P. Coltraine liked to run busy as crooked as possible, and were always tring to scam the Dukes at anything possible.  Although Boss Hogg ment no harm, he still liked to scam the whole county of its fund's and gamble with them on hot stollen deals with crooks who came into today.  Boss was tight on a dollar and would charge his own mother for a kiss.