NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A family friend says larger-than-life Nashville political figure John Jay Hooker Jr., who spent his last days fighting to make physician-assisted suicide legal in Tennessee, has died at 85.

Political strategist Tom Ingram says he received a message from one of Hooker’s daughters that Hooker died Sunday morning in hospice. He had been suffering from metastatic melanoma.

Hooker was the Democratic party’s nominee for governor in the 1970 and 1998 races. Many people in Nashville remember him for the spectacular success and sudden failure of his Minnie Pearl’s Fried Chicken franchise.

He worked as special counsel to former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, was one of the original investors in Hospital Corporation of America, a chairman of STP Corp. and briefly chairman of wire service United Press International.

Rep. Steve Cohen worked with Hooker on his 1970 campaign for Tennessee governor and supported him in opposition to the Constitutional referendum on judicial appointments in 2014.

“He thought big and he acted on those thoughts and beliefs,” Cohen said in a statement. “You knew John Jay was right on the issues as he was lifetime progressive. … He was brilliant, bodacious, and brash. He was John Jay!”

Sen. Lamar Alexander said in a statement:

“John Jay Hooker Jr.’s remarkable personality spread a bright light across Tennessee government and politics for a half century. He had friends everywhere. Honey and I will greatly miss his enthusiasm, his sense of purpose, and his friendship.”