NASHVILLE — On a recent night at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theater, a waiter moved from table to table, replenishing glasses of sweet tea and stopping to sing happy birthday to members of the audience.
"Fred never waited any tables," quipped Kenny Dale Thompson as he moved. "How can you be an actor and never have waited tables?"
Both Ken Thompson and his brother, Fred, are actors, but there are differences. Ken is a true artist, the one who starred in high school and college productions, who toured the country in repertory theater, who scrounged tiny movie and TV roles, and who still practices his craft from his home base, a dinner theater on the western outskirts of the Tennessee capital.
Fred Thompson is the lawyer who made it big in Hollywood almost by accident. And he is the one who took center stage in the political world last week by formally entering the Republican race for president.
In an odd turn, Fred's campaign may give his brother a long-sought bit of fame. During interviews before and after his shift at the dinner theater, where he waits tables when he isn't in the night's show, Ken Thompson is at once disbelieving and droll about the prospect.
"I told Fred, 'You know, I'm trying to prepare myself to confront the question that faces every first brother,' " says Ken Thompson. "And that is: How can I make a buck off of this?' "
With that, he laughs. "My mentor is Billy Carter. I'm thinking maybe 'Kenny Beer.' "
Don't bet on it. The reference to President Carter's wayward brother and his widely mocked beer business is a joke. Ken Thompson's relatives and colleagues describe him as a self- effacing professional who inhabits his stage roles and is unlikely to be anything but an asset to his famous sibling.
The brothers live in different states -- Ken outside Nashville, and Fred in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. -- and don't see each other as much as they would like. But they are close. Ken was best man at his brother's 2002 wedding to his second wife, Jeri Kehn Thompson.
Those who know the brothers' work say it provides evidence that life and show business are not always fair. Ken Thompson has devoted his life to his craft, and he has developed dramatic range and a talent for comedy that have eluded his brother. Fred Thompson, whose main profession has been as a lawyer and lobbyist, has risen to prominence by playing many versions of the same authority figure in 21 movies and a variety of TV shows.
