It’s a story well known in Washington state, and now the subject of a short documentary that’s up for an Academy Award Sunday evening.  It’s called “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner,” a reference to the popular former governor’s debilitating battle with Parkinson’s and his crusade to legalize physician-assisted suicide.

This “last campaign” is also recounted in a Legacy Project biography now nearing completion. It’s called “Booth Who?” and is written by chief historian John Hughes. It will be available free online and in a book format not financed at public expense.

Soon after leaving office in 1993, Gardner learned that the reason for his weariness and body tics was that he has Parkinson’s, a disease that has ravaged his body during the years since. At a TVW banquet four years ago, he startled Olympia’s movers and shakers by saying he would lead a crusade for voter approval of Initiative 1000, which the campaign dubbed “Death With Dignity.” It was a hard-fought campaign on both sides.  In 2008, voters approved it by a landslide 58-42. It carried in 30 of the 39 counties.  Gardner’s role was also a cover story in The New York Times Magazine.

Gardner, governor from 1985-1993, was also U.S. trade ambassador, state senator, business school administrator, Pierce County executive, business leader and an heir to the Weyerhaeuser fortune.  He has been active in civic affairs, including youth athletics. He now lives in Tacoma, telling an interviewer that he looks at each day and each hour as potentially his last.

The 38-minute nominated film, by award-winning filmmaker Daniel Junge, is described as part biography and “partly an even-handed treatment of the (I-1000) campaign. … It’s real strength is as a moving character study of a capable, intelligent man trying to make his voice heard as his body falls apart.”

The state Department of Health, meanwhile, put out fresh numbers Thursday on the early I-1000 impact.

UPDATE: Gardner’s hometown newspaper, The News Tribune, has a great profile/Oscar update today.  Gardner sounds more upbeat, and says he and his daughter Gail are heading to LA for the Academy Awards.