other leading Democrats in the primary, former US Representative Carl Elliott, former Governor John Malcolm Patterson, and Attorney General Richmond Flowers Sr. However, the primary winner was none of those candidates but the surrogate for the outgoing Governor George Wallace: his first wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace. In the general election, Lurleen handily defeated the Republican nominee, James D. Martin, a one-term US representative from Gadsden. Folsom was never again elected to public office. Later life Folsom ran several times for public office but was not taken seriously by his political opponents. The former governor was plagued by ill health in the last years of his life. A 1976 article in People magazine reported that Folsom was legally blind, with only 5% vision, and nearly deaf. Folsom died in 1987 in Cullman. His niece, Cornelia Wallace, the daughter of his sister, Ruby Folsom Ellis, was from 1971 to 1978 the second wife of his former rival, George Wallace. A documentary film about Folsom Big Jim Folsom: The Two Faces of Populism, was produced in 1996 by the Alabama filmmaker Robert Clem and won the 1997 International Documentary Association/ABCNews VideoSource Award and the Southeastern Filmmaker Award at the 1997 Atlanta Film Festival. In the 1997 TNT film George Wallace, directed by John Frankenheimer, Jim Folsom is played by Joe Don Baker, who was nominated for a CableACE award for his performance. Gary Sinise played Wallace. Folsom's son James E. Folsom Jr. (dubbed "Little Jim," he is physically large but called this because of his father's nickname) is also a noted Alabama politician. He served as lieutenant governor of Alabama from 1987 to 1993. He assumed the governor's office when Republican Governor Guy Hunt was removed from office after he had been convicted of state ethics law violations. Folsom Jr. ran for a full term as governor in 1994 but was defeated by Republican former Governor Fob James. He decided to re-enter state politics in 2006, qualified, and eventually won the lieutenant governor's position again; he served from 2007 to 2011. Folsom had nine children, two by his first wife, Sarah, and seven by his second wife, Jamelle Folsom. Folsom's first wife, Sarah Carnley, died in 1944 because of pregnancy complications. Folsom eloped and married his second wife, former First Lady of Alabama Jamelle Folsom, in 1948. They remained married until his death. See also List of members of the American Legion References