Ann Richards, Ex-Governor of Texas, dead at 73

By Stone Martindale Sep 15, 2006, 2:05 GMT

Ann Richards, the then Texas governor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, gestures during a televised debate against her Republican rival George W. Bush (not in picture) at the Lowes Anatole Hotel in Dallas in this October 21, 1994 REUTERS/Gerald Schumann/File

Ann W. Richards, the silver fox and Texas Democrat who galvanized the 1988 Democratic National Convention with her trademark sassy keynote speech and was the state’s 45th governor until upset in 1994 by George W. Bush, has died Wednesday at her home in Austin. She was 73.

Richards's keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention put her in the national spotlight when she uttered the famous line, about the wealthy, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, "Poor George, he can't help it...He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

The cause was complications of esophageal cancer, a family spokeswoman, Cathy Bonner, said. She said the illness was diagnosed in March.

Richards championed civil rights for minorities, gays and women.  She was the first governor calling for a “New Texas” that would offer more opportunity for those groups. “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did,” Richards told an audience. “She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

She was the most recent and effective of the Lone Star State progressives.  But her defeat after one term by the future president was a strong signal that generations of Democratic dominance in Texas had ended.

Dorothy Ann Willis was born Sept. 1, 1933, in Lakeview, Tex. She graduated in 1950 from Waco High school, where she showed a special facility for debate and met her future husband, In her junior year, she attended the Girl’s State mock government program in Austin and was one of two delegates chosen to attend Girl’s Nation in Washington.

Richards went on to Baylor University in Waco on a debate scholarship. After graduating, she moved to Austin, where she earned a teaching certificate at the University of Texas in 1955 and taught social studies for several years in a middle School. She reared her four children in Austin, and they were with her at home when she died, their family spokeswoman said. Ms. Richards is also survived by eight grandchildren.