# Sorrell Booke

Sorrell Booke (January 4, 1930 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor who performed on stage, screen, and television. He acted in more than 100 plays and 150 television shows, and is best known for his role as corrupt politician Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg in the television show The Dukes of Hazzard.

## Early life and education

Booke was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Sol Booke, a physician. As a child, he entertained patients in his father's waiting room, and began acting on radio at nine. As a young radio actor he was known for his impersonations. He won a radio contest for mimicking the voice of Adolf Hitler, and appeared regularly as an actor on local radio stations WGR and WEBR. He attended Bennett High School and was valedictorian of the Class of 1946.
Booke enrolled in Columbia University at 16, and performed in Shakespearean plays in Columbia's drama club. He graduated from Columbia at 19 in 1949, and received a Master of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama. He once starred in a stage production of Beethoven with Paul Newman while at Yale. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War for two years as a counterintelligence officer.

## Career

After his Army service, Booke appeared off-Broadway in The White Devil and had his first television role in the series Omnibus. His Broadway debut was in 1956, in Michael Redgrave's production of The Sleeping Prince. One prominent early role was that of Senator Billboard T. Rawkins in the 1960 revival of Finian's Rainbow. He also appeared in the films Black Like Me, A Fine Madness, What's Up, Doc? and Fail Safe. In 1962, he starred in the Broadway musical Fiorello! as the title character.
Aside from his film roles, he appeared on numerous television shows such as Gunsmoke, Cannon, Ironside, Route 66, Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Full House, The Guiding Light and 12 O'Clock High.
He worked as a voice actor in the 1980s and early 1990s. Booke also was a guest conductor at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Booke received an Emmy nomination for his appearance in Dr. Kildare in the episode "What's God to Julius?". He appeared in an episode of Mission: Impossible from the first season in 1966. Booke appeared in two early episodes of M*A*S*H, as General Barker in "Requiem for a Lightweight" and "Chief Surgeon Who?"; the latter marked the debut of the character Corporal Klinger, with whom Booke's character had previously dealt. He also had a recurring role in All in the Family as Mr. Sanders, personnel manager at Archie Bunker's workplace, Prendergast Tool and Die Company. (He had previously appeared on All in the Family as Lyle Bennett, the manager of a local television station.) Booke was featured on an episode of Good Times, and had a recurring role as the Jewish mob boss "Lefkowitz" on Soap. He also appeared in two episodes of Columbo, "Swan Song" in Season 3 (featuring Johnny Cash) and "The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case" in Season 6. In 1976 he played a record producer in Rich Man, Poor Man Book II.
Booke's most notable role was in The Dukes of Hazzard as Boss Hogg, the humorously wicked antagonist to Bo and Luke Duke. The series ran on CBS for seven seasons, from 1979 to 1985. It spawned an animated series, The Dukes (1983), two reunion TV specials (by which time Booke had died, and the character of Boss Hogg was also said to be deceased), a feature film (2005) and The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (a 2007 TV movie).
By the late 1980s, Booke had stopped appearing physically in acting roles, but he continued to perform voice work on several television shows and movies, occasionally as narrator, and sometimes as a cartoon character's voice, in such movies as Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers (1987 television movie), Gravedale High (1990 television series), and Rock-a-Doodle (1991).

## Personal life

Booke was 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) tall, weighed 185 pounds (84 kg) at the time of his Boss Hogg role, and wore padding to seem fatter. He copied the Hogg character's American South drawl from U.S. senators Sam Ervin and Strom Thurmond.
Booke was fluent in English, French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, and Italian. He said that he also “fussed" with a half-dozen other languages such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Persian, Polish, and Swedish. One of his hobbies was moving into and restoring rundown houses. In 1981, he lived in a "modest home on a modest street in Los Angeles", where he did his own gardening and carpentry. He called his Boss Hogg character "despicable", but enjoyed meeting fans of the show.
Booke married Miranda Knickerbocker, then a senior at Barnard College, in 1958. She was the daughter of journalist Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker. They had two children before divorcing in 1973.

### Death

On February 11, 1994, Sorrell Booke died of colorectal cancer in Sherman Oaks, California. He is interred at the Jewish cemetery Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.

## Partial filmography

* Gone Are the Days! (1963) as Ol' Cap', Stonewall Jackson Cotchipee
* Black Like Me (1964) as Dr. Jackson
* Les Félins (1964) as Harry
* Fail Safe (1964) as Congressman Raskob
* A Fine Madness (1966) as Leonard Tupperman
* Up the Down Staircase (1967) as Dr. Bester
* Matchless (1967) as Colonel Coolpepper
* The Borgia Stick (1967) as Alton
* Bye Bye Braverman (1968) as Holly Levine
* What's Up, Doc? (1972) as Harry
* Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) as Lionel Merble
* The Iceman Cometh (1973) as Hugo Kalmar
* The Take (1974) as Oscar
* Devil Times Five (1974) as Harvey Beckman
* Bank Shot (1974) as Al G. Karp
* The Manchu Eagle Murder Caper Mystery (1975) as Dr. Melon
* Mastermind (1976) as Max Engstrom
* Special Delivery (1976) as Hubert Zane
* Freaky Friday (1976) as Mr. Dilk
* The Other Side of Midnight (1977) as Lanchon
* Record City (1978) as Coznowski
* The Cat from Outer Space (1978) as Presiding Judge (uncredited)
* Rock-a-Doodle (1991) as Pinky, the Manager (voice)

## Television work

* The Guiding Light (1952)
* Brenner (1959)
* The Iceman Cometh (1960)
* The Million Dollar Incident (1961)
* Car 54, Where Are You?, as Police Commissioner Harper in "How High Is Up?" (1962)
* Route 66, as Sam Frazier in "Voice at the End of the Line" (1962)
* Naked City Beyond This Place There Be Dragons (9 episodes, 1960–1963)
* The Patty Duke Show, as Gilbert Tugwell in "Block That Statue" (1964)
* 12 O'Clock High, as Sgt. Aronson in "Faith, Hope, and Sgt. Aronson" (1965)
* Slattery's People as Max Rice in "Question: What's a Swan Song for a Sparrow?" (1965)
* New York Television Theatre (1965)
* T.H.E. Cat – Episode 1 (1966)
* Mission: Impossible (1967)
* The Borgia Stick (1967)
* Ironside Shell Game (1968)
* The Wild Wild West, as Heisel in "The Night of the Egyptian Queen" (1968)
* Hawaii Five-O - "The Double Wall" (1970)
* Room 222 (one episode 1971) as Mr Bomberg
* All in the Family (1972-1977) as Joseph Sanders (4 episodes) / Mr. Bennett
* Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law (1971)
* M*A*S*H (2 episodes, 1972) as Gen. Wilson Spaulding Barker
* The Manhunter (1972)
* Gunshot (1972)
* Gunsmoke, in "Milligan" (1972) as Gerald Pandy
* Alias Smith and Jones (1972)
* Adventures of Nick Carter (1972)
* Dr. Max (1974) as Dr. Scott Herndon
* The Last Angry Man (1974) as Dr. Max Vogel
* The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1974) as Herbie Vincent / Otto
* Cannon (1974)
* Columbo: Swan Song (1974) as J.J. Stringer
* Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) as Mr. Eddy
* Kung Fu, in "A Dream Within a Dream" (1974) as Sheriff Hodges
* Adventures of the Queen (1975) as Robert Dwight
* The Streets of San Francisco (1975) as Quincy Lloyd
* Rich Man, Poor Man Book II (1976) 5 episodes, as Phil Greenberg
* Brenda Starr (1976) as A.J. Livwright
* The Bob Newhart Show (1976) as Mr. Perlmutter
* Hunter, episode "The Lovejoy Files" (1977) as Mervyn
* Black Sheep Squadron Episode "Poor Little Lambs" (1977) as Father Phillipe
* Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1977) as Rabbi Weintraub
* The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened (1977) as Samuelson
* The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977) as Fiorello LaGuardia
* Columbo: The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case (1977) as Bertie Hastings
* Greatest Heroes of the Bible (1978)
* Soap (1978) as Charles Lefkowitz
* Good Times (1978) as Mr. Galbraith
* Little House on the Prairie (1978) as Mr. Watson
* What's Happening!! (1978) as Mr. Finley
* The Rockford Files "The Jersey Bounce" (1978) as Wade G. Ward
* Bigfoot and Wildboy (1979)
* The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985) as Boss Hogg / Jefferson Davis Hogg
* The Love Boat (1980) as Lucius Kergo
* The Dukes (1983) as Jefferson Davis 'Boss' Hogg (voice)
* Alice (1983) as Jefferson Davis 'Boss' Hogg
* The Pound Puppies (1985) as Mayor Fist aka The Mayor (voice)
* Newhart (1985) as Sheik Fraser
* Crazy Like a Fox (1986) as Bernard 'Bernie' Sinclair
* You Again? (1986) as Roger Davidson
* Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers (1987) as Sheriff Rufus Buzby / T.J. Buzby (voice)
* Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears (1988) as Mountain Bear (voice)
* Full House Episode "Our Very First Christmas Show" (1988) as Lionel / Santa Claus
* The Smurfs (1988) (voice)
* Fantastic Max (1988) (voice)
* Don Coyote & Sancho Panda (1990) (voice)
* Tom and Jerry Kids Show (1990) as Announcer (voice)
* Gravedale High (1990) (voice)
* Civil Wars (1991) as Charles Previn
* Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation (1992) as Big Daddy Boo (voice)
* Capitol Critters (1992) (voice)
* Bonkers (1993) as Boss Hoss (voice)
* The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993) as Sheriff Hebbs (voice)
* Droopy, Master Detective (voice) (1993)

## Stage appearances

* The Sleeping Prince (1956)
* Nature's Way (1957)
* Heartbreak House (1959)
* Fiorello! (1959–61) (replacement)
* Finian's Rainbow (1960)
* Caligula (1960)
* Purlie Victorious (1961–62)
* The White House (1964)
* Jonah (1966)
* The Iceman Cometh (1966)
* Come Live with Me (1967)
* Morning, Noon and Night (1968)