- Born
- Died
- Birth nameGeorge Corley Wallace
- Nickname
- The Barbour Bantam
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- George Corley Wallace (August 25, 1919 - September 13, 1998), elected Governor of Alabama as a Democrat four times (1962, 1970, 1974 & 1982) and four-time candidate for President (1964, 1968, 1972 & 1976). Though he is best known for his belligerent defense of segregation, going so far as to block the door of the University of Alabama to prevent its desegregation under federal fiat, he mellowed with age and reached out to African Americans during the 1970s.
Wallace's public racism was rooted in his defeat in his first gubernatorial race in 1958, when he was portrayed as the liberal candidate and soft on segregation. Wallace vowed he would "never be out-niggered again" and won in 1962. He proceeded to keep that promise, publicly defying the Kennedy Administration until being knuckled under by fellow southerner Lyndon B. Johnson.
After a stab at the Democratic presidential nomination in 1964 as a protest candidate, in 1968 Wallace ran the most successful Third-Party challenge between Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" campaign of 1912 and Ross Perot's "Reform Party" movement of 1992 when he ran for President as a "law and order" candidate (code word for being tough on African Americans) on the American Independent ticket. He won five states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, & Mississippi) and 46 electoral votes, and it was feared at one point during Election Night that his success might throw the election into the House of Representatives.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jon C. Hopwood
- SpousesLisa Taylor(September 9, 1981 - 1987) (divorced)Cornelia Wallace(January 4, 1971 - January 4, 1978) (divorced)Lurleen Burns(May 21, 1943 - May 6, 1968) (her death, 4 children)
- Died the very night Gary Sinise won an Emmy for portraying him in the TNT mini-series George Wallace (1997).
- Was staunchly opposed to integrating Alabama's schools at any level. In 1963 he stood at the door of the admissions office at the University of Alabama and refused to allow two African-American females to enroll at the school. Wallace backed down under pressure from the NAACP and the girls were allowed admission.
- While campaigning in Laurel, MD, in May 1972, he was shot four times by a would-be assassin named Arthur Herman Bremer. Three other people were wounded in the shooting; all survived. Bremer's diary, published after his arrest as "An Assassin's Diary", showed that his assassination attempt was not motivated by politics but by a desire to become famous, and that President Richard Nixon had also been a possible target. The assassination attempt left Wallace paralyzed, as one of the bullets that hit him had lodged in his spinal column.
- Governor of Alabama (1963-67, 1971-79, 1983-87).
- Former governor of Alabama and independent candidate for US presidency.
- [From inaugural address, January 14, 1963] Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!
- If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of.
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