Sorrell Booke

Sorrell Booke (January 4, 1930 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Sol Booke, a Jewish physician. Over the course of his career he accumulated credits in more than 130 film, television, and stage productions, and became most widely recognized for playing the corrupt county commissioner Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg on the CBS series The Dukes of Hazzard, which ran from 1979 to 1985.

Booke showed an early aptitude for performance, entertaining patients in his father's waiting room as a child and beginning work as a radio actor at age nine. He became known locally for his impersonations, winning a radio contest for mimicking Adolf Hitler's voice and appearing regularly on Buffalo stations WGR and WEBR. He was valedictorian of the Bennett High School Class of 1946 and enrolled at Columbia University at sixteen, participating in the drama club's Shakespearean productions and graduating at nineteen in 1949. He subsequently earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama, where he appeared in a stage production of Beethoven alongside Paul Newman. Following his studies, he served two years in the United States Army as a counterintelligence officer during the Korean War.

After completing his military service, Booke appeared off-Broadway in The White Devil and made his television debut on the series Omnibus. His Broadway career extended from 1955 to 1968 and encompassed several productions, including The Sleeping Prince, which marked his Broadway debut in 1956 in Michael Redgrave's production, as well as Come Live With Me, Caligula, and the 1960 revival of Finian's Rainbow, in which he played Senator Billboard T. Rawkins. In 1962 he starred on Broadway in Fiorello!, taking the title role.

Booke's film work included Black Like Me, Fail Safe, A Fine Madness, and What's Up, Doc?, while his television appearances spanned an exceptionally wide range of programs. He received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the Dr. Kildare episode "What's God to Julius?" and appeared in two early episodes of M*A*S*H as General Barker, the second of which, "Chief Surgeon Who?," marked the debut of Corporal Klinger. He appeared in a first-season episode of Mission: Impossible in 1966, two episodes of Columbo, and held recurring roles on All in the Family as Mr. Sanders and on Soap as the Jewish mob boss Lefkowitz. Additional television credits included Gunsmoke, Ironside, Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Route 66, Cannon, 12 O'Clock High, Good Times, Full House, The Guiding Light, and Rich Man, Poor Man Book II, in which he played a record producer in 1976.

His most prominent role came with The Dukes of Hazzard, where he portrayed Boss Hogg across seven seasons on CBS. Standing five feet six inches tall and weighing 185 pounds at the time, Booke wore padding to make the character appear heavier. He modeled Hogg's Southern drawl on U.S. senators Sam Ervin and Strom Thurmond, and described the character as "despicable," though he expressed enjoyment in meeting the show's fans. The series generated an animated spinoff, The Dukes, in 1983, two reunion television specials, a 2005 theatrical feature film, and a 2007 television movie.

By the late 1980s Booke had transitioned away from on-screen roles and concentrated on voice work, contributing to the 1987 television movie Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, the 1990 television series Gravedale High, and the 1991 animated film Rock-a-Doodle. He also served as a guest conductor with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

In his personal life, Booke was a polyglot fluent in English, French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, and Italian, and described himself as having some familiarity with several additional languages including Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Persian, Polish, and Swedish. He married Miranda Knickerbocker, daughter of journalist Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, in 1958; the couple had two children and divorced in 1973. Among his hobbies were restoring rundown houses, gardening, and carpentry. Booke died of colorectal cancer on February 11, 1994, in Sherman Oaks, California, and is interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.