Fred Dalton Thompson
Fred Dalton Thompson (born August 19, 1942) is an American lawyer, actor, and former Republican Senator from Tennessee.
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 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. From 1973-1974, he served as co-chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.
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. 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).
On November 8, 1994, Thompson was elected to the United States Senate in a special election to fill the unexpired portion of the term ending January 3, 1997, left vacant by the resignation of Al Gore. Thompson took the oath of office on December 2, 1994 and was re-elected in 1996 for the term ending January 3, 2003. While in the Senate, he was chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1997 to January 3, 2001 and January 20, 2001 to June 6, 2001).
Thompson was not a candidate for re-election in 2002. In the final months of his term, he joined the cast of Law & Order, playing the character of District Attorney Arthur Branch, (a role he still portrays as of 2004). In doing so, he became the first serving U.S. Senator also to take a full-time television acting job.
Filmography
