WASHINGTON — Fred D. Thompson never took an acting class, performed in summer stock or dreamed of Hollywood fame. But one day a big-name director, preparing a film about political corruption that Thompson had exposed, asked him to play himself in the movie.
A star was born. Thompson, then a lawyer, went on to make 23 movies, countless television programs and millions of dollars.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday May 04, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 42 words Type of Material: Correction
Fred Thompson: An article in Thursday's Section A profiling actor and former U.S. Sen. Fred D. Thompson, who is being discussed as a potential presidential candidate, should have said filming of this season's "Law & Order" had just ended, not next season's.
Now, the accidental actor is being urged to take another role he has not been gunning for, as a growing crowd of conservatives clamors for him to run for the Republican nomination for president.
Other candidates have been refining their game plans for years, but the former senator from Tennessee has glided almost without effort to a strong position in the early polls, even though most voters know him only as a district attorney on television's "Law & Order."
If Thompson answers the conservatives' call to enter the race -- and he may offer a clue during an Orange County speech Friday -- a prominent question will come with him: Will voters see a real-life American leader, or someone who only plays one on the screen?
As a candidate, Thompson would bring a compelling personal saga worthy of People magazine: From humble beginnings, he married at 17, did a star turn in the Senate's Watergate hearings, dated splashy younger women after his divorce, won a Senate seat and then left it amid the pain of a daughter's death. Now, at 64, he finds himself the remarried father of an infant and a toddler.
But some associates doubt that Thompson has the driving ambition needed to run for president. Many of the key decisions and opportunities of Thompson's life have been thrust upon him, not passionately made or sought. He became chairman of a Senate committee by a fluke, not by a laborious climb up the seniority ladder. His acting career began spontaneously, and since then he has not chosen roles that expand his range or challenge his skills.
"Fred is generally playing a version of himself," said producer Mace Neufeld, who has worked with Thompson on five films. "I wouldn't cast him as a Frenchman or a villain."
'Doors have opened'
Thompson has acknowledged the large role of happenstance in his successes.
"I have never beaten down a lot of doors in my life, but occasionally doors have opened to me, and I had sense enough to see that they were opening and I would walk through them," Thompson acknowledged recently in a Fox News interview. "And they've always turned out well for me."
