Fred Dalton Thompson was born on the 19th August 1942 in Sheffield, Alabama USA, and died on the 1st November, 2015 in Nashville, USA. He was a lawyer, actor, lobbyist and politician, who from 1994 to 2003 he served as the Republican senator for the state of Tennessee. Thompson was known for his unusual, yet very rich and diverse career. Firstly he gained fame as a lawyer, then an actor. Thompson was also known as district attorney Arthur Branch in the TV series “Law & Order” aired on NBC. He abandoned acting during a term in the Senate, to return afterwards.
How rich was this actor, lawyer and politician? At the time of his death, the net worth of Fred Thompson was estimated as equal to $8 million, accumulated from his various careers.
Fred Thompson Net Worth $8 Million
To begin with, Fred was the son of car dealer Fletcher Session and housewife Ruth Bradley. He attended Lawrence County High School, and worked in the local post office in the daytime and in a mounting bicycle facility at night. Then Thompson went to Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), before moving to the University of Memphis, from where he graduated with a double degree in philosophy and political science in 1964, as well as a scholarship from the law schools of Tulane University and Vanderbilt University law Schools, and at the latter obtained his doctorate in law in 1967.
From 1969 to 1972 he was an assistant to the Federal Public Ministry. Devoting himself to politics, he then became Special Advisor of the USA Senate Committee for Foreign Affairs and the US Senate Committee for the Secret Service. He also led his own practice as a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977 defending Marie Ragghianti, who had been expelled for refusing to release some criminals, winning the case from which she benefitted with adequate compensation. The story was published in 1983 by the journalist Peter Maas, from which was made into the film “Marie”, directed by Roger Donaldson, who asked Thompson participate personally in the film, representing himself.
Since then, Thompson starred in several films and participated as an actor in episodes of television series such as “Law & Order – Special Victims Unit”, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Conviction” and others. In 1994, he was elected senator for Tennessee, being re-elected to the Senate in 1996. In 2006, no longer a senator, he signed a contract with the radio network ABC News Radio as a commentator and political analyst. Then he also signed a contract with Salem Communications’s Townhall. In March 2007 he began a brief campaign for his candidacy for the USA presidency in 2008, but in January 2008, after the limited success of the primary campaign, announced his retirement.
He died of cancer in Nashville on 1st November, 2015 at the age of 73. He is buried in the cemetery of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. In the personal life of Fred Thompson, at the age of 17 he married Sara Elizabeth Lindsey, from whom he divorced in 1985; they had three children. In 2002, after six years of engagement, he married Jeri Kehn, a journalist and political commentator, with whom he had two children. His daughter Elizabeth died in 2002 (at age 38) from an overdose of prescribed drugs.
