Thompson Used Opportunities to Break into Top Ranks of Washington and Hollywood

WASHINGTON — When he was growing up in the small Tennessee town of Lawrenceburg, Fred Dalton Thompson showed few signs that he might be headed for national prominence.

"Freddie," as he was called in those days, was best known as the tall and skinny, happy-go-lucky elder son of Fred Sr., a car salesman. His leadership skills at the time had not surfaced — unless you count the time at a high school football practice when he coaxed a fellow student into going down the street to fetch him a Coke.

RICK MCKAY/Cox Newspapers (enlarge photo) Jeri Thompson, left, wife of former Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson, listens to his speech during his appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007.

"He only did it once," quipped his old coach, Garner Ezell, retired from Lawrence County High School. "I forget how many laps he had to run, but it was enough."

Like many in Thompson's hometown, Ezell then watched a transformation that began after Thompson's junior year, when he hastily married his sweetheart, local beauty queen Sarah Lindsey, and became a father at age 17.

A situation that might have been disastrous for other teenagers had an instant maturing effect on Thompson. No longer on sports teams, which were off-limits to married students in those days, he took multiple jobs, including making pews in his father-in-law's church furniture manufacturing plant, to support his new family.

"He also worked at the bicycle plant," recalled Tom Crews, a retired educator in Lawrenceburg and a longtime friend and political ally of Thompson. "There was a time he worked at the post office on Saturdays. At night, he sold tickets to the drive-in movie."

With encouragement from the prominent family he had married into, Thompson attended college at Memphis State University and in 1967 graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School.

His career took off fast and in unexpected ways, aided by an extraordinary number of breaks.

"He worked hard," coach Ezell said, adding, "Then, he was at the right place at the right time. He just took advantage of every opportunity that he had."

It didn't hurt that the towering Thompson — topping out at 6 feet 5 inches — exudes a folksy persona that made him a hit in political circles and later the toast of movie directors in search of colorful character actors. His deep baritone voice is easy on the ears.

His self-deprecating humor makes people want to listen, as when he tells of a woman who excitedly shook his hand and said, "I've always wanted to meet you" — only to call him "Dr. Phil," the similarly tall and balding popular TV psychologist.

Thompson began to move into the world of politics when he joined the law office of his wife's uncle, the well-connected A. D. Lindsey.

Already intrigued by Barry Goldwater and his book "Conscience of a Conservative" and the writings of 18th century English conservative Edmund Burke, Thompson became an active Republican and organized a Young Republicans group in his decidedly Democratic home county. In 1968, he helped deliver the local vote for Republican Bill Brock when he unseated Democratic Sen. Albert Gore Sr., father of former Vice President Al Gore.

His success in getting out votes for the GOP endeared Thompson to Tennessee's Republican establishment, and President Richard Nixon appointed him U.S. attorney in Nashville.

Later, he worked for the reelection of Howard Baker, the Tennessee Republican, then minority leader in the U.S. Senate. When Baker needed a counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee that investigated Nixon, he chose the 30-year-old Thompson.

In events that would put Thompson into the center of a historic moment, congressional investigators learned from a senior Nixon aide about a secret taping system in the White House. Thompson was assigned to reveal that bombshell by questioning the aide, Alexander Butterfield, at a televised public hearing.

For millions of Americans, the first introduction to Thompson was hearing his deep southern drawl. "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?" he said.

Returning to Tennessee with new notoriety and valuable contacts in Washington, Thompson published a memoir on his Watergate experience and became a lawyer-lobbyist. His clients included the savings and loan industry in its push for deregulation, which ultimately led to a business collapse and a costly taxpayer-paid bailout.

Thompson also lobbied for the ill-fated Clinch River, Tenn., breeder reactor electric generator project, which was authorized by Congress but eventually abandoned as unworkable after an estimated $8 billion expenditure.

More problematic for Thompson now that he is running as the conservative, "pro-life" candidate for president in 2008, his law firm assigned him to lobby on behalf of Planned Parenthood, which favors abortion rights.

But that problem was for later. In the 1980s, a new and very important opportunity came knocking.

Marie Ragghianti, chairwoman of the Tennessee parole board, discovered that then-Gov. Ray Blanton had been selling paroles and pardons. When Blanton fired her, she hired Thompson to file a lawsuit that was so successful that Ragghianti won her old job back, and Blanton wound up in jail.

When Hollywood turned the anti-corruption battle into the movie "Marie," the director decided to give the role of Thompson to Thompson himself.

He took the part "never having had an acting lesson" or even appearing in a school play, Thompson said during a visit last month to the Iowa State Fair.

He joked that his friends tell him, "You don't need to mention that acting lesson part. It's obvious watching you."

In fact, Thompson's commanding presence and gravelly voice led directors to put him in generally small but memorable parts in more than two-dozen movies. He has played a Navy rear admiral ("The Hunt for Red October"), a CIA director ("No Way Out"), and a fictional president in "Last Best Chance," a thriller about stopping a terrorist group from obtaining loose nuclear weapons.

In 2004, Republicans came calling again, this time to ask Thompson to run for the Senate seat left open when Al Gore was elected vice president.

The prosperous, nattily dressed Thompson struggled as a candidate until he ditched his dress suits, donned blue jeans and drove around the state in a red pickup truck.

His Democratic opponent, Rep. Jim Cooper, the son of a Tennessee governor, zinged him as a "Gucci-wearing, Lincoln-driving, Perrier-drinking, Grey-Poupon-spreading, millionaire Washington special-interest lobbyist."

Thompson won by a landslide in the 1994 election and again when he ran for a full six-year term two years later.

In the Senate, he played mostly supporting roles. He was a reliable conservative, voting for lower taxes, opposing abortion, and backing the military. His major deviation was in pushing campaign finance restrictions, which drew the ire of some activists in the Republican right.

Thompson led a probe of illegal foreign campaign donations to President Bill Clinton, but the investigation was stymied by partisan disputes. He then focused on the unglamorous and largely unnoticed work of exposing waste and fraud in the federal bureaucracy.

By 2002, Thompson was still grieving over the death, from a drug overdose, of his daughter from his marriage, which had ended in divorce 17 years earlier.

He decided to leave the Senate. "After eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood," he said, only half in jest.

On cue, a new opportunity appeared. He accepted a role in TV's "Law & Order" series as the tough prosecutor Arthur Branch, a character that made him a household name.

At about the same time, something else changed his life. As a footloose bachelor for nearly two decades, he had been linked to a list of prominent and glamorous women, among them New York socialite Georgette Mosbacher and country singer Lorrie Morgan. He also was seeing Republican Party public relations official-turned-political consultant Jeri Kehn from time to time.

The two met at a Nashville supermarket on July 4, 1996, and she told People magazine the then-U.S. senator from Tennessee was standing in line with a can of beanie weenies and half of a prepackaged tuna fish sandwich.

"I looked at him and just said, 'I'm so sorry,'" she said, adding that he carried her groceries to the car, and she invited him to a friend's party that night.

As Thompson now tells it, he and Kehn realized they were in love about the time he was leaving the Senate. Their marriage in her hometown of Naperville, Ill., in June of 2002 raised questions about whether the big age gap — Thompson is 65 and his wife 41 — would hurt his campaign.

In fact, the marriage may have been a major factor in launching his campaign. The couple now have a daughter, age 4, and a son who turns 1 next month. He says his young children — and his concern that big government spending is endangering their future — motivated him to run,

Numerous published reports — always citing anonymous officials — describe Thompson's wife as wielding behind-the-scenes influence over strategy and hiring as well as in deciding to go for the White House, despite the fact that the rival Republicans had been already on the hustings for months.

The prospects seemed especially inviting, since the Republican field had a void, said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for the Cook Political Report. "There wasn't your traditional conservative in the top tier of candidates."

Thompson in his speeches assails big spending and taxes and takes a hawkish view on the military and Iraq.

But he has yet to bond with the Republican religious right and took a hit when James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, a religious conservative group, slammed Thompson for various shortcomings, including his preference for allowing states to decide whether to ban same-sex marriages. Dobson seeks a constitutional amendment.

"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to,' " Dobson complained in a widely published e-mail. "And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers."

Others have also questioned Thompson's energy, passion and planning for the race. At times he has made flubs, such as suggesting during a visit to Florida that he might consider drilling in the fragile Everglades if oil were discovered there.

Asked what he thought about congressional efforts to keep Terri Schiavo on life support, Thompson ducked the discussion of the Clearwater, Fla., woman whose case became a national cause for right-to-life forces.

Declining to pass judgment, Thompson said that "good people were doing what they thought was best" and added, "I don't remember the details of it," despite the fact that he starred on an episode of "Law & Order" built around the Schiavo case facts.

Thompson needs to play catch-up with candidates who have been in the race much longer, Duffy said. "This is when you take positions and part of the catch-up game is he's got to be ready to take them."

His late entry has also hurt the Tennessee lawyer-turned-actor-turned-politician's fund-raising, which comes up short against rivals who have been gathering cash for months. His recent absence from the early decision states of Iowa and New Hampshire has puzzled the pundits.

Even so, his southern roots give Thompson advantages, especially in South Carolina, where most opinion polls show him ahead and where commentators agree he must win the early primary.