Twin Falls' most famous native son just celebrated his 95th birthday ...

W. Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat - the key figure in the Watergate scandal that helped bring down President Richard Nixon - marked his birthday by returning home from the hospital where he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, according to the Santa Rosa, Calif., The Press Democrat ...

Felt, then associate director of the FBI, told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the White House's role in covering up the 1972 burglary of the Watergate apartments in Washington, D.C. ... Nixon resigned in 1974 after tape recordings were discovered on which the president talked about the Watergate conspiracy ...

In 2005, Felt revealed his secret identity in Vanity Fair magazine ... That came as a shock, considering that Woodward had vowed not to reveal Deep Throat's real name until after he died ...

Tom Hanks bought the film rights to the story, and a movie about Felt is in development ... Hanks may play Felt ...

"Mark never complains," his friend and 24-hour attendant, Yara Tikoilakeba, told the Santa Rosa paper ... The high point of their day comes when they get in the car and Tikoilakeba drives them to the nearby Pacific Coast or through the hills of Sonoma County ...

For the most part, Felt no longer can summon the memories of his long career with the FBI and of Watergate ... He suffered a stroke in 2001 ...

Born in Twin Falls in 1913, Felt was the son of carpenter and building contractor Mark Earl Felt and his wife, the former Rose Dygert ... After graduating from Twin Falls High in 1931, he went on to the University of Idaho and George Washington University Law School, working days for Idaho Sens. James Pope and D.Worth Clark and going to class in the evening ... Felt married Audrey Robinson of Gooding in 1938 ...

He landed a job with the Federal Trade Commission, but moved on to the FBI in 1942 ... Felt spent the next 31 years as a G-man ... After J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, he was appointed to the No. 2 position in the agency, but disenchanted with the Nixon administration and the FBI he made a fateful call to Woodward on June 19, 1972, that started the unraveling the Watergate scandal ...

"All the President's Men," Woodward and Carl Bernstein's account of Watergate, was published in 1974 and Felt's trueidentity was hidden for 31 years ...

Steve Crump is the Times-News Opinion editor.

Tell all If it's odd, quirky, funny, sad or poignant and it happens in south-central Idaho, I want to hear about it. Call me at 735-3223, or write me at scrump@magicvalley.com