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Thompson's role of a lifetime
(c) 2007, Chicago Tribune.

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By Emily Nunn Chicago Tribune



INDIANAPOLIS — Back when the part-time actor, lawyer, lobbyist, former senator and presidential hopeful Fred Thompson was still merely "testing the waters," he held one of his first official news conferences, in a windowless room of the Indianapolis Convention Center.

"We can talk about whatever you wanna talk about," said the 6-foot-5-inch Thompson, whose half-glowering/half-grinning face and deep-voiced Tennessee drawl seem designed for saying "howdy" with authority.

Naturally, since Thompson had been treating print reporters like pesky paparazzi, one of them had to go and ask the World's Worst Question: Which presidents do you admire?

But Thompson's answer — regarding history's only actor-president and "the greatest communicator of all time," as Thompson put it — was revelatory.

"I admire (Ronald Reagan) not for anything technical, but because he believed so strongly in the conservative message," said Thompson, who, it turns out, tends to ramble without a script.

"He was resolute. And that came across in the way he came across. He was believable because he believed. And the camera doesn't really lie about things like that. And he was successful because of that."

Thompson (known to many as the Southern folkloric district attorney Arthur Branch on "Law & Order") is running for president in an era in which image (photographic or otherwise) can completely replace the traditional idea of communication, and beliefs often blur the line between fantasy and reality.

It's an era that serves him quite well.

"When Fred, as Arthur Branch, walks into a room, people feel like they should stand up and salute," says Dick Wolf, the producer of "Law and Order" who hired Thompson at the end of his second Senate term, in 2003. "He is the living definition of command presence."

And Wolf put Thompson the Make Believe DA in American living rooms so often — at least before equal time regulations put an end to network reruns (it still runs weeknights on TNT) — that Thompson the Politician got an early jump in ratings, long before he'd entered the race.

Which might seem like an unfair advantage, if it weren't for the fact that Thompson, according to Thompson, is just playing himself when he acts.

His first job as a character actor was playing the character of Fred Thompson, the down-home straight-talking Tennessee lawyer who saves the day, in the 1985 movie "Marie," starring Sissy Spacek as a whistle-blower he represented in 1977 in a famous cash-for-clemency scandal involving the Tennessee Parole Board.

Since then, his image as an actor has become so focused on figures of All-American kick-ass authority — the director of the CIA ("No Way Out"), a rear admiral ("Hunt for the Red October"), White House chief of staff ("In the Line of Fire) and, more than once, president of the United States (including Ulysses S. Grant in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee") — that it almost seems rude to point out that Thompson's experience as an elected official includes only eight years as a senator (1994-2003). Or that he's never served in the military.

Or that his off-camera presence is less commanding than it is slightly uncomfortable.

Or that his steadiest occupation since the mid-'70s has been the pariah perfecta of lawyer (mostly in private practice) and Washington lobbyist (for Westinghouse, the British firm Equitas Ltd., the deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, and the Tennessee Savings and Loan, to name a few), with a break during his Senate years.

But if voters continue to confuse Thompson with the heroic characters he plays, nobody on Team Fred seems worried about correcting them.

An early phone call requesting a one-on-one interview (that never materialized) and inquiring about "the man behind the myth," drew this response from a former communications director: "That's him — the myth is him."

And if you ask Fred Thompson — while, say, riding with a scrum of reporters on his campaign bus — if there are misperceptions about Fred Thompson he'd like to correct, he quickly says: "No. I'm not saying that everything that's been said is correct. I'm just not going to spend my time talking about that. I'm going to talk about things that I think are important."

Old friends describe Thompson as genuine, comfortable in his own skin and a straight talker. "What you see is what you get, honey," says Jerry Hughes, who grew up playing high school basketball and football with Thompson, in their hometown, Lawrenceburg, Tenn.

The problem may be what you see is practically all you get with Thompson, who has stayed mostly mum about who he is.

So the press and the blogosphere — with only an idea of a candidate to grab onto — patched together a fantasy candidate from spare parts, writing pieces focusing on his first name (is it presidential?), his height (he's sure got a lot of it), his accent and locution (very Southerny), his second wife, who is from Naperville, Ill. (she's young! she's hot! she's trying to run his campaign!), his infamous truck (it's red; it's just a prop), his clothes (cowboy boots one minute; Gucci loafers the next), his sex appeal (the ladies love him), his charisma (a word attached to him as often as the word "Fred"), his gravitas (a word attached to him half as much as the word "Fred"), his Reaganesque qualities (see: boots, height, charisma, gravitas, conservative), and the veracity of his persona (is he the good ol' boy or a Beltway insider? Answer: both).

All of which has worked beautifully for Thompson, who got one particular fence painted without breaking a sweat: He grabbed second place in the polls without actually running for president (and has pretty much stayed there, behind Rudy Giuliani, since finally joining the race around Labor Day).

He may as well have been sitting on his porch with his feet up, drinking a julep.

Which is maddening to his detractors, who claim Thompson is lazy and does only what he wants, when he wants. He had the nerve to skip the Iowa straw poll and the New Hampshire debate, approached fundraising as if money didn't matter to him and for a long time only addressed his public, like the Wizard of Oz, from the ethereal confines of his Internet headquarters (Fred08.com). That is the best place to find his stance on issues: He's a fierce friend of the Second Amendment, the war in Iraq and the institution of (heterosexual) marriage. He's a foe of the present tax code (he'd like to dissolve the IRS), abortion and illegal immigration.

But the "lazy" label is not exactly accurate, according to Norman Ornstein, a well-known congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute, who worked with Thompson on reform issues during his Senate years. "Whenever I had to deal with him, he was prepared and knowledgeable, and when it was an issue that involved his wheelhouse, or one that he was interested in — and there were lots of them — he worked plenty," says Ornstein.

Many Republicans believe Thompson is the savior they've been searching for — despite misgivings from the hard right (including evangelical leader and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson) who are chagrined that Thompson supported campaign finance reform, voted against impeaching Clinton and has lobbied for a pro-choice group.

"There is no logical heir apparent" in the Republican party this primary cycle, says Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary. "That created a void. And along came Fred Thompson," with his "Reagan-like bearing" and his conservative voting record. "He has gravitas," said Fleischer, "which has brought people to him even without knowing him."

Once they heard him on the stump, however, some Republicans became nostalgic for the Thompson they didn't know.

So far, he's been giving pointedly vague, lackluster speeches — which "puzzles the hell out of me," says Ornstein.

And Thompson's reluctance — or inability — to give straight answers to simple questions, even from his religious-right supporters, has been raising eyebrows and concerns.

For example: In Bible Belt Greenville, S.C., a woman in the crowd at his stump speech asked Thompson if he'll talk about his religious beliefs while campaigning. In response, he rambled about how uncomfortable he finds personal revelations. "I'm doing the best I can with it, because I don't hold myself out to be a perfect person. ... But I know that I'm right with God, and I'm right with the people I love, and the people I love are right with me."

Asked about congressional action in the Terri Schiavo case, a particularly important event for the religious right, Thompson responded: "That's going back in history. I don't remember the details of it." However, as armchair pundits are screaming that Thompson is a disappointment, says Ornstein, "he has not exactly plummeted in the polls."

Thompson is a comeback kid, who ended up winning his initially disastrous Senate campaign — in 1994, to fill Al Gore's vacated seat — by 20 percentage points. "When Thompson decided he really wanted to win, he moved into a different gear," says Ornstein. "I'm sure he can do that again."

In fact, the politician-turned-actor-turned-politician has always transformed himself at crucial points throughout his life.

He was a happy-go-lucky country boy from Lawrenceburg (population 10,800), the son of a used-car salesman and the first college graduate in his family, who married his high-school sweetheart at 17, worked his way through college (Memphis State) and law school (Vanderbilt), practiced law for two years with his wife's uncle, in Lawrenceburg, then become a federal prosecutor in Nashville at 28, chief minority counsel on the Watergate committee at 30, a state senator and, of course, a hero on film and television.

But at 16, Thompson had gotten his beautiful, brainy, well-to-do girlfriend, Sarah Lindsey, pregnant. (Her father owned a company that manufactured church pews; her uncle was a prominent lawyer and former judge.)

"He stepped up to the plate — just transformed himself overnight," says second cousin Anne Morrow, director of the Crockett Arts Center in Lawrenceburg.

His football coach at Lawrence County High School, Garner Ezell, 75, says: "You have to realize, then he was just a kid having a big time. He woke up one day, and he was married. ... That can change a person."

And so can connections: the great used-car salesman friends thought Thompson would grow up to be? He instead became a lawyer.

Thompson soon met and was anointed by U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, the king of Republican politics in Tennessee then.

"Howard Baker — that's one of the best things about Fred," says Jim Squires, the former editor of the Chicago Tribune, who covered Watergate for that paper. "Howard Baker raised him as a political person. (Baker) was the person that everyone trusted."

Thompson helped manage Bacer's senatorial re-election campaign in 1972. A year later Baker drafted Thompson for the Watergate job.

Which catapulted him, at age 30, from a local to a world political stage. And transformed him yet again.

"He came to Washington and had his illusions smashed when he found out that Nixon was guilty," says Squires. "Fred changed from a country bumpkin lawyer ... to something dramatically different through that experience."

Thompson did the right thing (at least once it became clear that the Nixon administration was crumbling), but he went into the situation to protect a Republican White House, and is known to have leaked and plotted like a pro.

And he may have learned the tactical value of not communicating, especially with the press, and the power of one's image.

According to Ron McMahan, who was Baker's press secretary during the Watergate years, Thompson kept a lid on "the only major news story that developed from Watergate that was not a leak," meaning the existence of the tapes. "Every other story out of Watergate was a leak, but not that one."

Which allowed Thompson, with the whole nation watching on television, to ask Nixon's deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield the famous question he and other insiders already knew the answer to: "Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?"

And so Watergate turned Fred Thompson's image — the studied, scowling mug and mutton-chop sideburns — into a familiar presence in American living rooms.

That image inspired Marie Ragghianti — the title character in "Marie," Thompson's first movie, about the Tennessee State Parole Board scandal — to pick Thompson as her lawyer after she was fired as board chair in 1977 for refusing to release prisoners who'd secretly paid for their pardons.

She knew Thompson as a "strong, hardworking Republican" (Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton, who eventually went to (jail, was a Democrat). But also, "I saw him on television as charismatic and articulate," during Watergate. (So did the producers of the movie, who drafted him to play himself a decade later — and put him on the path to a 20-year Hollywood career.)

"He is a very imposing figure and he has a magnificent voice," says Ragghianti, a "yellow dog Democrat" who remains a friend and supporter. "He more or less rode in on a white horse and rescued me," Ragghianti says with a laugh.

In fact,(in Thompson's first scene in the movie, he shows up wearing a white cowboy hat.

That was more than 20 years ago, but people still want to put Thompson on a white horse, on film and in real life.

And as Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, LBJ, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, or, for that matter, Roosevelt's Rough Riders would certainly tell you, Americans love a cowboy — even a faux-cowboy.

Luckily for Thompson, it's one of the costumes he happens to look great in, as he proved in 1994 (when he turned around his Senate race for a big win.

After he put on jeans and cowboy boots and began driving a new prop — his now infamous red truck — around Tennessee, he was apparently transformed, in the public eye, from a savvy Washington insider into a sort of cowboy rebel.

Romney, Giuliani, Clinton or Obama on a horse or in a truck, though? Too Dukakis-in-the-tank.

Which may explain why Democrats and other Thompson detractors tend to be as obsessed with the red truck as they are (with his second marriage (he was divorced in 1985) to the much younger Jeri Kehn — she is 41 to his 65 — and their two young children.

It just doesn't seem fair.

Mostly, they seem unable to admit that personality, presence and a pair of worn-in cowboy boots can trump mere politics, even in the make-believe realm.

The ultimate question might be: Is Thompson tele-presidential?

John Levey, the original casting director of the show "The West Wing" and an acknowledged liberal, thinks Thompson is not.

"Mr. Thompson is an embodiment of something more sly and less idealistic — more of the Southern cliche of `dumb like a fox.' ... But I don't think he has the gravitas as an actor or the range as an actor to embody the idealistic president that we were after when we set about putting (Martin) Sheen into office."

On the other hand, in the real world, even Christopher Williams, chairman of the Lawrence County Democratic Party in Thompson's hometown, wishes his team could find a guy like Thompson. "He's somebody you'd want to sit with and drink a beer with," says Williams. "I'm as Democrat as the day is long, but John Kerry isn't one of those. And I don't think Rudy Giuliani is either."

Thompson makes people feel good, says Williams. "Looking into the camera — in a homey way — and saying: `We're going to be all right. We're going to be safe.' He might not have anything to back that up with, but at the end of the day, when Fred looks at the camera — do you not feel it a little bit?"

Maybe. Maybe not.

Or maybe just not yet. "The real secret about Fred is there's not a lot of mystery about Fred," says Don Stansberry, an old friend and neighbor of Howard Baker's in Huntsville, Tenn., who has known Thompson since Watergate. "He's likely to be underestimated, and that will suit him just fine."

And rumor has it that Thompson's secret weapon (the red truck) is still parked in his mother's driveway down in Tennessee.

WHAT YOU MAY WANT TO KNOW ABOUT ... FRED DALTON THOMPSON

BORN: Aug. 19, 1942, Sheffield, Ala.; grew up in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.

EDUCATION: Memphis State University (now University of Memphis), BA, 1964; Vanderbilt University Law School, JD, 1967

POLITICAL CAREER: Assistant U.S. attorney, Middle District of Tennessee, 1969-72; chief minority counsel, Watergate Committee, 1973-74; Republican senator from Tennessee, 1994-2003

OTHER JOBS: Attorney and lobbyist, 1974-94; author ("At That Point in Time: The Inside Story of the Senate Watergate Committee," 1975); actor, 1985-present ("Law & Order," "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," "In the Line of Fire," "Die Hard 2," among many others); former radio commentator on ABC News Radio

FAMILY: Married to Jeri Kehn, 2002-present. Children: Hayden Victoria (born 2003) and Samuel (born 2006). With Sarah Lindsey (married 1959; divorced 1985): Fred Dalton Jr. (born 1960), Elizabeth (born 1963, died 2002), Daniel (born 1965). Brother: Ken. Mother: Ruth Bradley Thompson. Father: Fletcher Thompson (died 1990)

RELIGION: Protestant (Church of Christ)

HOME: McLean, Va.

PRESIDENTS HE ADMIRES: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan

ACTORS — AND ACTORLY NAMES — HE ADMIRES: John Wayne. In 1985, after starring as himself in "Marie," he jokingly told a reporter for People magazine he'd like to play "whatever role John Wayne would have played next." He also mentioned that "Tab" might be a better name for the marquee. "No one is named Fred," he said, "except uncles and dogs."

BOOKS REVERED: Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative," which he first read in college. "The ideas were as clear as a church bell on a cold winter night," Thompson has said.

NOTABLE MODES OF TRANSPORT: Red pickup truck, golf cart

NICKNAMES: Stick, Big Foot, Moose, Black Book (The latter because he lost his in a phone booth in D.C. soon after arriving for his Watergate appointment).

FORMER GIRLFRIENDS: Country singer Lorrie Morgan, socialite Georgette Mosbacher