Fred Thompson, a towering Tennessee lawyer who parlayed his role as a Hollywood actor to a career in politics that spanned from Watergate to the U.S. Senate and the presidential campaign trail, died Sunday after a battle with cancer. He was 73.
The Thompson family issued a statement Sunday afternoon saying the 2008 Republican presidential primary hopeful had died from a recurrence of lymphoma surrounded by his family in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Fred once said that the experiences he had growing up in small-town Tennessee formed the prism through which he viewed the world and shaped the way he dealt with life. Fred stood on principle and common sense, and had a deep love for and connection with the people across Tennessee whom he had the privilege to serve in the United States Senate. He enjoyed a hearty laugh, a strong handshake, a good cigar, and a healthy dose of humility. Fred was the same man on the floor of the Senate, the movie studio, or the town square of Lawrenceburg, his home,” the statement said.
He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and served eight years — two of them the last two years of the term of Vice President Al Gore.
Mr. Thompson gained experience in congressional oversight as a counsel during the 1970s Watergate scandal, famously asking the question that exposed Richard Nixon’s secret taping system inside the White House.
After he became a Republican senator, he led the 1997 Senate hearings into Democratic fundraising abuses that chronicled illegal foreign contributions, straw donors and President Clinton’s use of the White House access and Lincoln Bedroom to reward donors.
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“Fred Thompson served the people of Tennessee and America with great honor and distinction,” U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican, said in a statement. “From the courtroom to Capitol Hill to Hollywood, his larger than life personality was infectious and had a way of making all of those around him strive to be better.”
His acting career — which began when he played himself in “Marie,” about a real-life Tennessee pardon-selling scandal — included roles in such blockbuster hits as “Days of Thunder,” “Die Hard 2,” “No Way Out” and “The Hunt for Red October.” But he was perhaps best known for his post-Senate role in the TV show “Law and Order” as District Attorney Arthur Branch.
He ended his 2002-2007 “Law and Order” run to seek the White House but left the 2008 presidential race after having failed to make an impact in the early-voting states.
In his typically folksy way, he described his failure in a 2010 book that he titled “Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir of Growing Up and Second Chances.”
“It occurred to me that, to paraphrase one of Churchill’s comments, perhaps I had more to be humble about that I had realized. It also occurred to me that this was a pretty doggone expensive way to achieve a little humility,” he wrote, describing his candidacy as his first endeavor in life that “couldn’t accomplish something I had set out to do.”
After his political career ended with that run, Mr. Thompson went into talk radio for a couple of years and then became known as the pitchman for TV advertisements by a reverse-mortgage-finance company.
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As a counsel on the Senate Watergate Committee, under the influence of Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee, he is credited with the question that eventually sealed the Nixon presidency’s fate — asking White House aide Alexander Butterfield during a July 1973 hearing whether he was “aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president.”
“Legalisms aside, it was inconceivable to me that the White House could withhold the tapes once their existence was made known,” Mr. Thompson later said of the recordings that unequivocally showed that Nixon had directed a cover-up of the Watergate burglary and used U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to that end.
Mr. Thompson, who was born in Sheffield, Alabama, and earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University, is survived by his wife, Jeri; their two young children, Hayden and Samuel; his adult sons, Fred Jr. and Daniel from a previous marriage; and five grandchildren.
Reaction from the political realm and beyond was immediate in social media. Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush quickly tweeted: “Fred Thompson lived an amazing life, he will be sorely missed. Columba and my prayers are with Jeri and his kids & grandkids.”
Rep. Steve King of Iowa said, “Fred should have been president/2008. I cherish every moment & every mile with Fred & there were many.”
Tweet reactions also came in from the creative realm as well. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips called Mr. Thompson “a statesman and a true gentleman,” and country music star Tim McGraw said, “Our family was saddened to hear of the passing of Senator Fred Thompson. He was a good man and our prayers are with his family.”
Conservative journalists praised him in uniform terms about his goodness as a human being.
“Sad news about a lovely man,” said conservative commentator S.E. Cupp. Fox News analyst Brit Hume said, “This is very sad news. Fred Thompson was a genuinely good guy.”
From syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg of National Review: “Fred was a charming, honorable man who loved his country.”
⦁ Jennifer Harper contributed to this report.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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