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John Jay Hooker Jr.

John Jay Hooker Jr.

Actor
Date of birth : 08/24/1930
Date of death : 01/24/2016
City of birth : Nashville, Tennessee, USA

John Jay Hooker, Jr., was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 24, 1930, and his father, John Jay Hooker, Sr., was one of the cities most prominent attorneys. The younger Hooker graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt University Law School. He was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1957, and joined his father's law firm. He and his brother formed their own law firm in 1960. He became a close friend of Robert F. Kennedy, and was named his special assistant in 1961 when he became Attorney General of the United States. He was defeated by Buford Ellington in the Democratic primary for governor in 1966. He won a hard fought primary in 1970, but was defeated in the general election by Winfield Dunn. His loss was in part caused by allegations of financial impropriety regarding his involvement with the fast-food company Minnie Pearl's Chicken. A lengthy investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission resulted in no criminal charges. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate in 1976. He was again the Democratic nominee for governor in 1998, but lost to incumbent Don Sundquist. Hooker was largely considered a political gadfly later in his career, and matched his candidacies to causes he felt were important. He lost a race of Congress in 2002, and was defeated in the primary for governor and senator in 2006. He was an independent candidate for governor in 2014. He made the issue of the legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Tennessee his final issue in 2015 after acknowledging that he suffered from metastatic melanoma. Hooker was featured as John Phillips in the 1986 tele-film "The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James" starring Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. He was married to Eugenia 'Tish' Ford from 1959, and they had three children. They were divorced in 1975, and he married television journalist Paula Lovell the following year. That had one child before they also divorced. Hooker died of cancer in Nashville, Tennessee at age 85.

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