Fred Dalton Thompson (August 19, 1942- November 1, 2015) was an American attorney, lobbyist, actor and politician. He served as an attorney on the Senate Watergate Committee before going into private practice in Tennessee, later becoming a lobbyist on behalf of the Tennessee Savings and Loan League.
While in private practice, he represented Marie Ragghianti, a former chair of the Tennessee Parole Board who had been fired after refusing to release felons who had bribed the state's governor Ray Blanton to obtain clemency. She filed a wrongful termination suit, and during the trial Thompson exposed the cash-for-clemency scheme that soon led to Blanton's removal from office. Her case became a book titled Marie, which was adapted into a film of the same title. When the film's producer went to Nashville to interview people involved with the case, he asked Thompson to play himself, which he did. This led to other acting roles, often as authority figures. He appeared in such films as The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, Cape Fear, Curly Sue, In the Line of Fire and Baby's Day Out.
In 1994, he made a successful run for the US Senate in Tennessee in a special election to fill out the remaining time of Al Gore's term after Gore became Bill Clinton's Vice President. Thompson was elected to a full term in 1996 and chose not to run for another term in 2002. During his final months in the Senate, he returned to acting with a regular role as D.A. Arthur Branch on Law & Order. His final foray into politics came in 2007 when he ran for President in the 2008 Republican primaries. The campaign was unsuccessful and Thompson continued to act right up until his death in 2015.
Tropes that apply to his roles:
- Adam Westing: On The Good Wife, he had a recurring role as a lawyer who is famous in-universe for playing a prosecutor on TV, similar to his role on Law & Order.
