Fred Thompson obit

Folksy Ex-Senator and 'Law & Order' Actor Fred Thompson Dies at 73

He was not on the list.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson, the Watergate investigator-turned-actor-turned national political figure, died Sunday at 73 from lymphoma, with which he had struggled for more than a decade, his family said.

Thompson, a towering, burly man with a deep, Southern-inflected voice, parlayed his fame as a key investigator of the Watergate scandal into a TV and movie career before he was elected to finish the Senate term of Al Gore of Tennessee, who vacated the seat when he became vice president.

Thompson, a Republican, was elected to the seat in his own right in 1996. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

But it was as an actor — especially as Arthur Branch, the gruff, no-nonsense district attorney of Manhattan, on NBC's "Law & Order" from 2002 to 2007, and as Rear Adm. Joshua Painter in the 1990 movie "The Hunt for Red October" — that Thompson achieved notoriety.

When reporters asked him how he was on law and order as a political candidate, he famously liked to answer: "I'm amazing."

Thompson — who often acted under the screen name Fred Dalton Thompson — made the most of his slow-talking, aw-shucks Southern demeanor, but in real life, as in politics, the good-old-boy image concealed a sharp legal mind.

Thompson was assistant U.S. attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1972 when he became campaign manager for Republican Sen. Howard Baker's re-election.

When the Senate appointed a special committee to investigate alleged crimes by the Nixon administration in the 1973 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at Washington's Watergate Hotel, Baker was ranking minority member, and Thompson was hired as Republican counsel.

Thompson was among the first people outside the administration to learn of President Richard M. Nixon's secret Oval Office taping system. It was Thompson who asked Nixon's former deputy assistant, Alexander Butterfield, the question that led to Butterfield's public revelation of the tapes on July 16, 1973.

Thompson was a lobbyist and lawyer for the next decade, until 1983. That's when a book was published about one of his legal clients — Marie Ragghianti, a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Parole Board who was a whistleblower in the scandal that led to the removal of Tennessee's governor from office.

Within five years, he was a busy actor, usually playing authority figures, "When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to him," The New York Times wrote in a 1994 profile.

Thompson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2004. In 2007, as he was preparing his presidential campaign, the cancer returned, but he said it wasn't expected to pose any difficulties. He died Sunday in Nashville surrounded by friends and relatives, his family said.

"He enjoyed a hearty laugh, a strong handshake, a good cigar, and a healthy dose of humility," the statement said. "Fred was the same man on the floor of the Senate, the movie studio, or the town square of Lawrenceburg, his home. ...

"Our nation has lost a servant, Tennessee has lost a son, and our family has lost its rock," it said. "In the days ahead, we ask for prayers of comfort, assurance, and peace."

Filmography

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1985      Marie    Himself                 Fred Thompson's first film

1987      No Way Out        CIA Director Marshall    

1988      Unholy Matrimony          Frank Sweeny    TV movie

Feds       Bill Bilecki           

1989      Fat Man and Little Boy   Major General Melrose Hayden Barry     Movie about the Manhattan Project. Thompson's character may loosely be based on General Brehon B. Somervell, who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon.

1990      The Hunt for Red October            Rear Admiral Joshua Painter       

Days of Thunder               Big John              

Die Hard 2           Ed Trudeau        

1991      Flight of the Intruder      JAGC Captain at Court-Martial    Uncredited

Class Action        Dr. Getchell       

Necessary Roughness    Carver Purcell   

Cape Fear            Tom Broadbent                

Curly Sue             Bernie Oxbar     

1992      Aces: Iron Eagle III            Stockman           

Bed of Lies          Richard 'Racehorse' Haynes         TV movie

Thunderheart    William Dawes Loosely based on the Wounded Knee Incident

White Sands       Arms dealer        Uncredited

Stay the Night    Det. Malone       TV movie

Day-O    Frank DeGeorgio              TV movie

Keep the Change              Otis        TV movie

1993      Barbarians at the Gate   James D. Robinson III      TV movie about the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco.

Born Yesterday Sen. Hedges       Remake of the 1950 film based on Born Yesterday, a play by Garson Kanin.

In the Line of Fire             White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent              

1994      Baby's Day Out FBI Agent Dale Grissom

2001      Rachel and Andrew Jackson: A Love Story              President Andrew Jackson           Voice, TV movie

2002      Download This   Himself                

2004      Evel Knievel        Jay Sarno             TV movie

2005      Racing Stripes    Sir Trenton          Voice

2005      Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World              Himself                 Although Thompson plays himself, it is a slightly fictionalized version.

2007      Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee             President Ulysses S. Grant            TV movie Based on the book of the same name, which is about the Native American experience in the American West during the late 19th century.

2010      The Genesis Code            Judge Hardin      Film is based on debates about the relationship between religion and science.

Secretariat          Arthur "Bull" Hancock    Film is about the United States' Hall of Fame racehorse Secretariat.

Ironmen               Governor Neeley            

Alleged William Jennings Bryan Film is about the 1925 Scopes Trial.

2012      The Last Ride      O'Keefe                Film is about legendary country music singer Hank Williams's self-destruction due to his dangerous addictions to drugs and alcohol.

2012      Sinister Sheriff   directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson

2013      Unlimited            Harold Finch      

2014      Persecuted         Fr. Charles Luther            

23 Blast                Coach Powers   

2015      A Larger Life       Robert Parker   

90 Minutes in Heaven    Jay B. Perkins    

2016      God's Not Dead 2             Senior Pastor     Posthumous release, (final film role)

Television

Year       Series    Role       Episode count

1988      Wiseguy               Knox Pooley       3 episodes

1989      China Beach       Lt. Col. Reinhardt              1 episode

Roseanne            Keith Faber         1 episode

Matlock                Gordon Lewis     2 episodes

1993      Matlock                Prosecutor McGonigal    1 episode

2000      Sex and the City                Politician on TV 1 episode

2002–2007          Law & Order       D.A. Arthur Branch          116 episodes

2003–2006          Law & Order: Special Victims Unit             D.A. Arthur Branch          11 episodes

2005–2006          Law & Order: Trial by Jury             D.A. Arthur Branch          13 episodes

2005      Law & Order: Criminal Intent      D.A. Arthur Branch          1 episode

2006      Conviction           D.A. Arthur Branch          1 episode

2009      Life on Mars       NYPD Chief Harry Woolf                1 episode

2011–2012          The Good Wife Frank Michael Thomas   2 episodes

2015      Allegiance           FBI Director        4 episodes