Byron Cherry

Bo Duke's shoes were not easy ones to fill for young actor Byron Cherry. When "Dukes of Hazzard" stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat walked off set in a 1982 contract dispute, the fifth season of the wildly popular southern-tinged television series was hastily re-cast by its producers. Cherry stepped in for Schneider opposite Christopher Mayer, who similarly replaced Wopat. Billed as cousins of the original Duke boys, lookalikes Cherry and Mayer found their characters' names (Coy and Vance Duke, respectively) scribbled over those of Bo and Luke. The two fledgling actors attempted to put a different spin on the material, but the characters were reviled by most "Hazzard" fans, who saw them as cheap imitations of the originals. Ratings sank and the network was forced to renegotiate with Schneider and Wopat. All told, Cherry and Mayer's stint on the program lasted all of 19 episodes. The pair went on to reprise their roles in 1983's "The Dukes," an animated incarnation of the series. After Cherry's brief tenure on the short-lived cartoon, he starred in a handful of TV shows and films. He guest-starred as a deputy in a 1984 episode of the mystery serial "Murder, She Wrote," and starred in the feature-length crime drama "The Fix" the same year. An entrepreneurial spirit, Cherry later purchased and ran a bar in Ventura, California.