He won the governor’s office in 1972 with help from organized labor and Black voters realizing their civil rights-era strength. Photograph: Greg Gibson/APĪ lawyer, Edwards began his political career on the council in the town of Crowley in 1954 before moving on to the state legislature, then Congress. In a picture from August 1992, President George HW Bush confers with Edwards amid damage caused by Hurricane Andrew. Five years later, at 66, he married 29-year-old Candy Picou in a ceremony at the governor’s mansion. He had four children during a 40-year marriage to his high-school sweetheart, the former Elaine Schwartzenburg, before they divorced in 1989. Despite his unabashed fondness for high-stakes gambling, dirty jokes and his reputation as a womanizer, he earned a following among Catholics and fundamentalists. Raised a Catholic, Edwards preached as a teen and never drank or smoked. Edwards always considered himself a Cajun. According to his authorized biography, his father’s ancestors were Welsh and his mother’s continental French. ![]() ![]() But Edwards, a consummate dealmaker, had a cooler demeanor.Įdwards was born on 7 August 1927 to a sharecropper and a midwife in Avoyelles Parish, part of the region settled by 18th-century French exiles from Nova Scotia who came to be known as Cajuns. They shared a populist appeal to the state’s downtrodden, and political fortunes that flowed in part from taxes on oil. Silver-haired, handsome and gifted with a dry sense of humor and easy charm, Edwards dominated Louisiana politics in the late 20th century much as Huey P Long dominated its earlier years. Edwards maintained the case was built on misinterpreted, secretly taped conversations and the lies of former cronies who made deals to avoid jail. The federal case that led to his May 2000 conviction involved state riverboat casino licenses awarded during and after his fourth term in the 1990s. The lifelong Democrat attempted a political comeback, losing a runoff to a Republican in a south Louisiana congressional race in 2014. They had a son, Eli, in 2013 and starred in a short-lived reality TV show, The Governor’s Wife. “I would have walked into prison a happy man had I known how it was going to end,” he said at his lavish 90th birthday bash in August 2017. They met when she began visiting him in prison after they struck up a pen-pal relationship. ![]() He married Trina Grimes, then 32, his third wife. The former governor also said: “I’ve made no bones that I have considered myself on borrowed time for 20 years and we each know that all this fun has to end at some point.”Ī native of the Acadiana region who swore his 1972 oath of office in French and English, Edwards enjoyed renewed popularity after emerging from prison in 2011 at age 83. I love Louisiana and I always will,” Edwards said in some of his last words, according to Honeycutt. I tried to help as many people as I could and I hope I did that, and I hope, if I did, that they will help others, too. “I have lived a good life, had better breaks than most, had some bad breaks, too, but that’s all part of it. He had suffered ill health and entered hospice care this month at his home in Gonzales, near the Louisiana capital. ® SEAHAWKS, SEAHAWKS LOGO, SPIRIT OF 12, WE ARE 12, BRING ON THE 12, LEGION OF BOOM, 12 and 12S are trademarks of the Seattle Seahawks.Edwards died of respiratory problems with family and friends by his bedside, spokesman Leo Honeycutt said.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |