Fred Dalton Thompson (born August 19, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist, character actor and former Republican Senator from Tennessee (now a resident of McLean, Virginia), who has announced that he is considering a bid in the 2008 Presidential Election.

In addition to acting, Thompson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. China Economic & Security Review Commission and a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, researching national security and intelligence. Thompson is also signed as a public speaker with the Washington Speakers Bureau.

Also a special program host and senior analyst for ABC News Radio, Thompson sometimes fills in for Paul Harvey.

Thompson was born in Sheffield, Alabama, USA, to Ruth Bradley and Fletcher Thompson, a used-car dealer. He grew up attending the public schools in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. In 1959, Thompson married his first wife Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey when he was 17 and the couple lived for the next year in public housing.

Thompson first attended Florence State College and then Memphis State University where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science in 1964. At this time, Fred and Sarah Thompson “…both worked to put Thompson through Vanderbilt and support three kids” and Thompson later received his J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967.

Legal Career

Thompson was admitted to the Tennessee Bar Association in 1967 and commenced the practice of law, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969 1972. He was the campaign manager for moderate Republican and U.S. Senator Howard Baker’s successful re-election campaign in 1972, which led to a close personal friendship with Baker, and he served as co-chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate scandal, (1973 1974). He was responsible for Baker’s asking one of the questions that is said to have led directly to the downfall of President Richard Nixon “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” Also, Thompson’s voice has become immortalized in recordings of the Watergate proceedings, asking the key question, “Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?”

In 1977, Thompson took on a Tennessee Parole Board case that ultimately toppled Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton from power on charges of selling pardons.

Lobbyist

In 1975, Thompson began his eighteen year engagement as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., eventually representing clients including Westinghouse, General Electric (the current corporate owner of the NBC Universal-NBC television network), and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League.

By 1982, Thompson worked the U.S. Congress membership as a lobbyist for passage of the Savings and Loan deregulation legislation desired by the Tennessee Savings and Loan League — in this case, federal deregulation legislation allowing for additional government support of ailing S&Ls; giving U.S. thrifts the freedom to invest in potentially more profitable, but riskier, ventures; and eliminating interest-rate ceilings on new accounts to increase S&Ls’ competitiveness. Enacted into law in September 1982, the Senate bill pushed by Thompson was incorporated into the Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. The Garn - St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 is widely credited with having laid the groundwork for the U.S. Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s.

In 1991, Thompson began working with the Washington, D.C., firm Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn as a registered foreign agent representing overseas business entities.

Acting Career

The 1977 Ray Blanton-Tennessee Parole Board scandal later became the subject of a book and a movie titled Marie (1985) in which Thompson played himself, supposedly because the producers were unable to find a professional actor who could play him plausibly. While his film role in Marie launched his acting career, Thompson was divorced from his first wife of twenty-five years, Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey, during this same year.

Thompson would go on to appear as racist demagogue “Dr. Knox Pooley” in a story arc of the TV series Wiseguy (1988), and has also been in subsequent feature films, including No Way Out (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and In the Line of Fire (1993). A 1994 New York Times profile described his authoritarian character roles as such:

The glowering, hulking Mr. Thompson has played a White House chief of staff, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a highly placed F.B.I. agent, a rear admiral, even a senator. When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to him.

In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, playing the character Arthur Branch.

In the spring of 2005 Thompson concurrently played the role on both the original series and short-lived sister series Law & Order: Trial by Jury. Thompson has also made occasional appearances on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and appeared in the pilot episode of Conviction. He is one of very few actors who plays the same regular character on two different series simultaneously.

For Thompson’s complete filmography, see here.

United States Senator

In 1994, Thompson was elected by the people of Tennessee to finish the remaining two years of Al Gore’s unexpired Senate term. Thompson was easily re-elected in 1996 (for the term ending January 3, 2003) over Democratic attorney Houston Gordon of Covington, Tennessee, by an even larger margin than that by which he had defeated Cooper two years earlier. During the 2000 U.S. Presidential election primary campaign Thompson served as the national campaign chairman for his friend, U.S. Senator John McCain.

During 1997, Thompson was “…largely stymied” during his 1997 U.S. Senate investigations of both Clinton-Gore and GOP campaign fund-raising activities, more particularly with witnesses for the Thompson investigations either declining to testify or simply leaving the United States jurisdiction.

In the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, Thompson initially backed former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander. When Alexander dropped out of the race, Thompson endorsed Senator John McCain’s bid and became his national co-chairman.

While in the Senate, he was chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1997 to January 3, 2001, which conducted investigations into allegations Communist China attempted to influence American politics prior to the 1996 elections (See: campaign finance scandal) and January 20, 2001, to June 6, 2001, when the reorganization of the Senate prompted by the resignation of James Jeffords of Vermont from the Republican Party changed the control of the Senate. Thompson then became the ranking minority member.

After the Senate

Thompson was not a candidate for re-election in 2002. He had never planned to make a lifetime career of the Senate, and had often publicly stated as much. Although he announced in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks his intention to seek re-election, upon further reflection, which seems to have been prompted in large part by the sudden death of his daughter (Elizabeth “Betsy” Thompson Panici) on January 30, 2002 from complications related to a heart attack, he decided not to pursue this course.

Thompson married Jeri Kehn in Naperville, Illinois, at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on June 29, 2002. Kehn (born January, 1967) is an attorney and a political media consultant at the Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, and McPherson law firm in Washington, D.C., and she once worked for the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee. According to a July 1, 2002, Washington Post article “Senator Thompson marries”, Thompson first met the then 29 year old Jeri Kehn on July 4, 1996.

In October 2003, Fred and Jeri Thompson had their first child, Hayden Victoria Thompson, and another child was born during November 2006 . Fred Thompson also has three grown children from a previous marriage, one of whom is deceased, and five grandchildren

Thompson did voice-over work at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

After the retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2005, he was appointed to an informal position by President George W. Bush to help guide the nomination of John Roberts through United States Senate confirmation. He also is the chair of the International Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan advisory panel that reports to the Secretary of State and focuses on emerging strategic threats.

In 2006, Thompson signed on with ABC News Radio to serve as senior analyst and vacation replacement for Paul Harvey.

Self-described friend of I. Lewis (”Scooter”) Libby, Jr, Thomson lent moral and financial support to Libby while on trial for his role in the Plame affair,[13] serving on the advisory board of Libby’s defense fund that had taken in 3.5 million USD as of February 9, 2007.

Biography Source: Wikipedia

Official Site: I’m With Fred