Clifton James, best known for his indelible portrayal of a southern sheriff in two James Bond films but who was most proud of his work on the stage, has died. He was 96.

His daughter, Lynn James, said he died Saturday at another daughter’s home in Gladstone, Ore., due to complications from diabetes.

James often played a convincing southerner but loved working on the stage in New York during the prime of his career.

One of his first significant roles playing a southerner was as a cigar-chomping, prison floor-walker in the 1967 classic “Cool Hand Luke.” His long list of roles also includes swaggering, tobacco-spitting Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the Bond films.

His portrayal of the redneck sheriff in “Live and Let Die” in 1973 more than held its own with sophisticated English actor Roger Moore’s portrayal of Bond.

James was such a hit that writers carved a role for him in the next Bond film, “The Man with the Golden Gun,” in 1974.