Grin and Bear It

It wasn't the last time Baker would turn to Thompson. In 1973, with Watergate on the front pages across the country, the Tennessee senator called on Thompson to serve as minority counsel on the committee investigating the presidential scandal. It was a huge job—Republicans on the committee were intent on preventing the hearings from damaging President Richard Nixon, and Thompson would be their legal line of defense. Baker wanted his old friend Alexander to take the job, but he turned him down. "I was just inundated—retired judges, lots of distinguished names," Baker says. "Candidly, and you could argue this doesn't reflect well on me, I just didn't know many of them very well, and I thought we needed someone I already knew and could work with, and so I picked Fred."

Richard Nixon thought Baker was out of his mind. Oval Office tapes uncovered earlier this summer at the National Archives captured the president's reaction when Baker told him his choice. "Oh, s––t, that kid?" the president blurted out. He goes on to call Thompson "dumb as hell." On the tapes, Baker tries to defend him. "He's tough. He's 6 feet 5 inches, a big, mean fella."

Thompson's part in the Watergate hearings would make him a household figure. His somber face, staring down from the dais, was seen daily on live television broadcasts. The other part of his job was to keep the Nixon White House apprised of Democratic maneuvers to undermine him. In his Watergate memoir, "At That Point in Time," Thompson says he felt torn between his loyalty to Nixon and his rising suspicion that the president was wrong. "I was looking for a reason to believe that … Nixon … was not a crook." Yet Thompson managed to come away from the hearings as a hero. It was Thompson who, in a brilliant bit of political theater, asked a question that helped lead to Nixon's downfall: "Are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president?" he asked Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield. In reality, Thompson and everyone on the committee already knew the answer; Butterfield had spilled the secret of the tapes to an investigator three days earlier. But to rapt viewers at home, Fred Thompson was the new Perry Mason.

He made the most of his newfound celebrity, traveling the country hawking his book and raking in speaking fees. His TV image as a champion of the people got him work as a lawyer. One client in particular would pave his accidental path to Hollywood. In 1977, he took the case of Marie Ragghianti, a member of the Tennessee parole board who was fired after she accused Gov. Roy Blanton of selling pardons to prison inmates. In a highly publicized case, Ragghianti sued the state and Thompson won an unexpected verdict in her favor. Blanton later went to prison. A few years later, Thompson got a call from Hollywood. Director Roger Donaldson was making a movie about the case, and wondered if Thompson would play himself. Thompson didn't see why not.

"Marie" was a box-office flop, and the critics hated it. But they loved Thompson. "A natural star, he gives so much oompf to the courtroom scene it almost makes you want to commit a crime just to hire the guy," the Los Angeles Times raved. Thompson was rich and growing more famous every year. But home in Tennessee, his marriage was falling apart. "I think they loved each other very much," says one Thompson friend who declined to be named talking about personal matters. "I just think Sarah was tired of being home alone with three kids, and Fred was just taking off." The couple has never publicly discussed the reasons for their divorce, but the two remained close-enough friends that Sarah would later campaign for her ex-husband.

After his success in "Marie," Thompson became a sought-after character actor, appearing in movies with Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman. He landed a part in a Martin Scorsese picture, "Cape Fear." In most of his films, he played a version of himself—a gruff guy with a Southern drawl. He found it easy enough to do. "It's like finding money on the street," he once said of his movie jobs. At the same time, he took on side work as a Washington lobbyist, representing high-profile clients including Westinghouse and Toyota. Records show he also lobbied for less-savory characters, including deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who wanted Washington to support his return to power. Thompson has said his only work for Aristide was a single 1991 phone call on his behalf to John Sununu, George H.W. Bush's chief of staff.