Fred Thompson - Biography

Last Editor: bridie2929				Fred Thompson Biography -   Name : Fred Thompson Birth name : Freddie Dalton Thompson Date of birth : August 19, 1942 Place of birth : Sheffield, Alabama, U.S. Profession : Senator, actor, attorney, lobbyist, public speaker, radio personality Nationality : American Height : 6' 6" (1.98 m) Spouse : Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey (12 September 1959 - 1985) (divorced) 3 children, Jeri Kehn Thompson (29 June 2002 - present) 2 children

Fred Thompson Trivia -

He won a special election to the United States Senate in 1994 and was reelected for a full term in 1996. He did not run for reelection in 2002. A Republican, he represented his home state of Tennessee from 2 December 1994 - 3 January 2003. He was a lawyer/attorney before becoming an actor. Senator Thompson went to Memphis State University in 1964 and Vanderbilt University in 1967. He worked as a shoe salesman, truck driver, and even a factory worker prior to becoming a lawyer. His second wife Jeri, 41, is a political media consultant at Verner Liipfert law firm in Washington, who once worked for Senate Republican Conference and Republican National Committee. When he joined the cast of "Law & Order" (1990) in the fall of 2002, Thompson (District Attorney Arthur Branch) became the first serving U.S. Senator to take a regular TV acting job. His term did not end until January 2003. He is the only actor to be a regular on two different "Law & Order" series at the same time. From March to May 2005, he played District Attorney Arthur Branch on both "Law & Order" (1990) and "Law & Order: Trial by Jury" (2005). He also plays the same character as a recurring guest star in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (1999). Richard Anderson, Marla Gibbs and David Hasselhoff are among the few other actors to have played the same regular character on two different series simultaneously. He is one of four cast members from "Law & Order" (1990) whose character became a regular on a "Law & Order" spin-off. He played District Attorney Arthur Branch in both "Law & Order" (1990) and "Law & Order: Trial by Jury" (2005). For 17 years (from 1975 to 1992) Thompson worked as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. representing such clients as Westinghouse, General Electric (which owns NBC Universal-NBC television network), and the Tennessee Savings and Loan League. After failing to win a single primary, Thompson ended his presidential campaign in January 2008 and later endorsed Senator John McCain.

Fred Thompson Detailed Biography -

Born: August 19, 1942 Sheffield, Alabama Died: Spouse: (1) Sarah Lindsey (2) Jeri Kehn Fred Dalton Thompson (born August 19, 1942) is an American lawyer, actor and former Republican senator from Tennessee. In addition to acting, he is currently a visiting fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, researching national security and intelligence (China, North Korea, and Russia.) Born in Sheffield, Alabama, Thompson grew up attending the public schools in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. He attended Memphis State University where he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy and political science in 1964. He received a J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1967. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967 and commenced the practice of law, serving as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969-1972. He was the campaign manager for Senator Howard Baker's successful re-election campaign in 1972, which led to a close personal friendship with Baker, and from 1973-1974, he served as co-chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate scandal. 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?" Fred Dalton Thompson as District Attorney Arthur Branch in Law & Order In 1977, Thompson took on a Tennessee Parole Board case that ultimately toppled Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton from power on charges of selling pardons. The scandal 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. This film launched his acting career. Thompson would go on to appear in numerous motion pictures, including The Hunt for Red October (1990), Cape Fear (1991) and In the Line of Fire (1993). Even more than most actors, Thompson's roles are generally portrayals of characters who are very similar to his real life persona. On November 8, 1994, Thompson was elected to the United States Senate to fill the unexpired portion of the term ending January 3, 1997, left vacant by the resignation of Al Gore, defeating six-term Democratic U.S. Representative Jim Cooper in a landslide which represented the most votes anyone had ever received for a statewide office in Tennessee history up to that point. Thompson took the oath of office on December 2, 1994. Almost immediately upon his arrival in Washington, D.C. ("while I was still unpacking my boxes," as he put it) Thompson was selected by the Republicans to give a reply to a nationally-televised address by President Bill Clinton. This was no doubt due to his acting background, but many pundits saw this as an attempt to groom him for an even larger political role. 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. While in the Senate, he was chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1997 to January 3, 2001 which conducted investigations into allegations 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 Fred Dalton Thompson 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 from unrelated events, he decided not to pursue this course. In the final months of his term, he joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, playing the character of District Attorney Arthur Branch. In doing so, he became the first serving U.S. Senator also to take a full-time television acting job; however, his first scenes as Branch were filmed during the Senate's August 2002 recess, so he missed no legislative time in order to act on television. He is reportedly paid $100,000 per episode of the show in which he appears; if this is in fact true, he earns more from appearing in two shows than he did in an entire year as a Senator, and will earn nearly twice in one television season what his earnings were for his entire Senate career. 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. He is one of very few actors who played the same regular character on two different series simultaneously. Thompson did voiceover work at the 2004 Republican National Convention. After the retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2005, he was given an informal position by President George W. Bush to help guide the nominated John Roberts to the confirmation through the United States Senate. There has been speculation that Thompson will run for Governor of Tennessee in 2006, but as of yet he has not announced his intentions either way. Current Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen is said to fear a Thompson run more than that of any other potential Republican, because Thompson is considered "beloved" in his home state. Thompson stands 6'6" tall and married Jeri Kehn, a 35 year-old political media consultant at the Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, and McPherson law firm in Washington, D.C., who once worked for the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican National Committee on June 29, 2002. In October 2003, they had a daughter, Hayden Victoria Thompson. He also has two sons and five grandchildren from prior marriages/relationships.