Fred Dalton Thompson

Fred Dalton Thompson
Character	District Attorney Arthur Branch
Date of birth	19 August 1942
Place of birth	Sheffield, Alabama
Imdb
nm0000669

Fred Dalton Thompson is an actor who played District Attorney Arthur Branch in all four series from the Law & Order franchise. He was a regular cast member on Law & Order for five seasons. He first appeared in the thirteenth season episode "American Jihad", and made his last appearance in the seventeenth season episode "The Family Hour". Thompson was also a regular cast member on Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

He appeared in eleven different episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He first appeared in the fourth season episode "Fallacy", and made his last appearance in the seventh season episode "Gone". He also appeared in the episode "In the Wee Small Hours (2)" from Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Thompson appeared as DA Arthur Branch in the pilot episode of Conviction.

Trivia

• Is the only actor to be a regular on two different Law & Order series at the same time. From March to May 2005, he played DA Arthur Branch on both Law & Order (1990) and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

• Thompson's character Branch is one of only five characters who have appeared in all of the first four series in the Law & Order franchise. The other four are Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Elizabeth Rodgers (Leslie Hendrix), Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), and Elizabeth Olivet (Carolyn McCormick).

• Along with Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Alana de la Garza and Jerry Orbach, he is one of five Law & Order cast members who later joined the regular cast of one of the spin-off series, although as noted above, he was on to two shows at the same time.

• Fred Thompson represented Tennessee as a US Senator from 1994 to 2003. He was also a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2008.