AP Features, September 25th, 2007
Retired Congressman Charlie Wilson, the subject of an upcoming movie starring Tom Hanks, received a new heart in transplant surgery at a Houston hospital Monday, his former chief of staff said.
"He's got the heart of a 30-year-old," Charlie Schnabel Jr. said by telephone late Monday.
Wilson, 74, represented Texas' 2nd district in the House from 1973-96. Schnabel, who worked as Wilson's chief of staff, said he was told by someone who was at the hospital for the surgery that it was a success.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said she had no information on Wilson.
"Charlie has had cardiomyopathy and had some very close calls with it. I talked to him a week or so ago and he told me he was going to get a heart," said Schnabel, who lives in Austin.
Schnabel said Wilson received the call about the donor heart about 1 a.m. Monday.
"We're all delighted," former Wilson aide Peyton Walters told The Lufkin Daily News after the surgery.
Hanks stars in the film "Charlie Wilson's War," based on a book by George Crile that chronicles Wilson's efforts to arm Afghani mujahedeen, then called "freedom fighters," during their war against the Soviet Union. A defense hawk and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, he helped secure money for weapons, including Stinger missiles.
Wilson was known as "Good Time Charlie" when he was in Washington for his penchant for parties, gorgeous women and lots of mischief during his nearly 24 years in the House.
"I would remind you that I was not married at the time. I'm in a different place than I was in at the time and I don't apologize about that," Wilson told The Associated Press in 2003.
The film, directed by Oscar-winner Mike Nichols, is scheduled for release at Christmas.
