Coy and Vance: Good Ol Boy Bromance

In 1978 John Schneider and his life-long friend, fellow Georgia boy Byron Cherry, both auditioned for the role of Bo Duke in the good-old-boy dramedy Dukes of Hazard.  John got the part, and Byron had to keep his day job as a flight attendant.  

In 1982, John Schneider and Tom  Wopat walked out of Dukes, and Byron and Christopher "Chip" Meyer, a New Yorker feigning a good-ol-boy accent, came in to replace them as cousins Coy and Vance Duke.

The duo had the muscles of the original Dukes, and Chip had the patented John Schneider bulge.  Teen magazines were ecstatic.  

They were close friends, "like brothers," and the press fully played up the bromance angle.  But were they gay?  Chip Mayer was actually married three times.  Byron never married, and was often seen in the company of Hollywood hunks like Michael Damian, Jimmy McNichol, and Kristy McNichol (ok, she's a girl, but they were at a lesbian bar). I saw him at an AIDS Walk in 1989. So he's at least gay-friendly.

In spite of the press, Coy and Vance didn't sit well with viewers, and by the end of the 1982-83 season Bo and Luke were back, and Coy and Vance gone (although they did star in the cartoon series).

Byron Cherry has had a few more roles here and there, but he has mostly retired to run a bartending business.  But he still attends fan events regularly.

Chip Mayer played a soap hunk in Glitter and Santa Barbara, and starred in some actioners.  Her died in 2011.

See also: Dukes of Hazzard.