Former
senator, actor Fred Thompson dies
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[November 02, 2015]
By Tim Ghianni
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - Fred
Thompson, a former Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee who briefly
ran for president and straddled the world of politics and entertainment
with a prolific television and film acting career, died of cancer on
Sunday at age 73.
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Thompson, a onetime real-life federal prosecutor best known to
prime-time TV audiences for his role as a district attorney on NBC's
hit show "Law & Order," died from a recurrence of lymphoma, said
Brent Leatherwood, executive director of the Tennessee Republican
Party.
The actor-politician, who first made a name for himself in
Washington as a Watergate investigator, was in hospice care at the
time of his death, Leatherwood said.
"It is with a heavy heart and a deep sense of grief that we share
the passing of our brother, husband, father, and grandfather, who
died peacefully in Nashville surrounded by his family," relatives
said in a statement published by the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.
The tall, imposing Thompson was elected to the Senate in 1994 and
served for two terms before retiring in 2003.
He announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on
NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in September 2007 but dropped
out of the race in January after garnering little support.
Born in Sheffield, Alabama, Thompson earned a law degree from
Vanderbilt University, became a federal prosecutor and went to work
for longtime Tennessee Republican Senator Howard Baker.
It was Baker who secured him a job as minority legal counsel for the
special Senate Watergate Committee investigating the 1972 burglary
at the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington.
Thompson has been credited with helping Baker craft the famous
question that framed the panel's inquiry - "What did the president
know, and when did he know it?"
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During a nationally televised hearing in July 1973, Thompson asked
the question that led to the public disclosure by White House aide
Alexander Butterfield of a secret Oval Office tape-recording system.
The existence of the tapes played a pivotal role in the
investigation of the Watergate cover-up and the 1974 resignation of
President Richard Nixon.
Moving between politics and entertainment, Thompson played
supporting roles in numerous films, including "No Way Out," "The
Hunt for Red October," "Days of Thunder," "Die Hard 2" and "In the
Line of Fire."
His most notable TV role was as the no-nonsense New York D.A. Arthur
Branch in the long-running "Law & Order" series, in which he
appeared from 2002 to 2007.
(Additional reporting by Peter Cooney in Washington; Writing by
Steve Gorman; Editing by Andrew Hay and Eric Walsh)
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