L&O D.A. Thompson Steps Down, Eyes West Wing
Dick Wolf's New York is in need of a new district attorney.
Fred D. Thompson's five-year run on Law & Order came to an end Wednesday, with the actor and former Tennessee senator asking the series' creator to be released from the show, which has been renewed for an 18th season.
Another type of run may be just around the corner for the 64-year-old Republican, who, after having his name bandied about by conservatives who were still unsatisfied by the already packed race to become the next president of the United States, is inching closer to becoming an official candidate for this country's top job in 2008.
"Although he told me he has not made a firm decision about his political future, he felt that given the creative and scheduling constraints of the upcoming season," it was time to go, Wolf said in a statement.
Thompson, who also can currently be seen as Ulysses S. Grant in the HBO film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, has played New York District Attorney Arthur Branch on Law & Order since 2002, becoming only the third actor to hold the post besides Steven Hill and Dianne Wiest.
During his fictional tenure he also appeared in the same capacity on Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as well as on the short-lived spin-offs Law & Order: Trial by Jury and Conviction.
The Alabama-born Thompson cut his teeth in politics back in the 1970s serving as chief Republican counsel to the Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal.
His acting career took off in 1985 after he played himself in a true-life story called Marie, costarring Sissy Spacek, about a political corruption case he helped expose.
Many of Thompson's most memorable onscreen roles came playing political or military figures, such as director of the CIA in No Way Out, White House chief of staff in In the Line of Fire, a senator in the 1993 update of Born Yesterday and a Navy rear admiral in The Hunt for Red October.
He served in the U.S. Senate from 1994 to 2002, returning to acting after landing the Law & Order gig.
Earlier this week, Thompson said that he will be filing papers with the Federal Election Commission to establish an exploratory committee to "test the waters" for a White House run, adding that his supporters should begin collecting donations June 4.
While not engaging in any official GOP campaign activities, Thompson has been maintaining a high profile—especially online, where you can check out a video he made in which he suggests that documentarian Michael Moore (whose latest film, Sicko, is an indictment of the American healthcare system) would be better off focusing on his own mental health.
In an article for the National Review, Thompson had implied that Moore had taken advantage of a trip he took to Cuba to film part of his movie and smuggled back some illegal Montecristo Cigars. Moore responded by challenging Thompson to a debate over healthcare.
"A mental institution, Michael. It might be something you ought to think about," a cigar-smoking Thompson says in a videotaped response to Moore's figurative glove-slap.
Meanwhile, back in TV land, NBC Universal had considered moving Law & Order, which hit the ratings skids languishing on Friday nights in 2006-07, to TNT. Eventually, the Peacock Network opted to keep the old war horse, moving it to Sundays starting in January 2008 (after football season), and instead shipped the franchise's lowest-rated installment, Law & Order: CI, to USA.
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