Former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson died Sunday in Nashville following a recurrence of lymphoma, according to spokesman David Mansouri. The former actor, attorney and politician was 73 years old.

“He enjoyed a hearty laugh, a strong handshake, a good cigar, and a healthy dose of humility,” the Thompson family said in a written statement. “Fred was the same man on the floor of the Senate, the movie studio, or the town square of Lawrenceburg, his home.”

Thompson went from small-town Tennessee to become a high-profile attorney, eventually playing a role in the Watergate trial. He got into acting almost by accident, being asked to play himself in a
political drama about a case in Tennessee. Years later, he had a reoccurring part on “Law & Order.”

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who won the seat Thompson vacated in 2002, said the screen time helped make Thompson a more persuasive politician.

“He was almost impossible to beat because when he appeared on television people had such great confidence in him,” Alexander said. “Fred just had a personal charm, a magic about him, that made him more effective.”

Thompson served the final two years of Vice President Al Gore’s term and then was reelected in 1996. He also  ran in the Republican presidential primary in 2008 but pulled out in January of that year after failing to gain much traction. As recently as 2014, Thompson participated in a
campaign to change the judicial selection process in Tennessee.