When I say "calling," I really mean he tried very hard to make friends on both sides.
Or I might be talking out of my ass, I'm not sure. I don't know where I get this impression from, but I'm 99% positive that there was at least one president who had to deal with an extremely divided congress and was able to force the issues he wanted addressed by entertaining congressmen and their families on a bipartisan basis. He made close, personal friends with many of them, then would try to convince them to make concessions on their hardline positions.
The rest -- the more stubborn ones -- he called during all the random, late hours of the night to bully and annoy.
I also recall, with absolutely no factual basis, that he managed to squeeze through some pretty decent results that weren't dead-end "compromises."
You're probably thinking of Lyndon Johnson. He had previously been Senate Majority Leader. Contentious legislation included the Civil Rights Act.
edit: I'm sorry this is a lame top level comment but I figure we should identify who the person is before going too deep with it
As /u/Holbac said, one of the most prominent is Lyndon Baines Johnson (otherwise known as LBJ). He was what's known as a very efficient retail politician. He was fantastic in one-on-one situations, but he wasn't considered a great mass politician: radio and television weren't quite his forté.
Due to the disaster of Vietnam, the failure of the War on Poverty, and what seemed to be the decline of the Democratic Party after his presidency, he was long regarded as a sub-par President. His popularity didn't really resurge until the 1990s, when politicians like Al Gore said they admired him and his resolve. So, what made him so special?
Some of the stories you recall are true. LBJ was notorious for doing things unconventionally, and conventionally, until he got his way. Stories of his doings have become as much myth as fact in some cases, so I'll try to outline some of the more famous stories you'll probably like:
Johnson would shower religiously when he was a legislative secretary, sometimes many times a day. He would talk to the other aides and secretaries, trying to gain information and influence.
He would give people what was known as the "Johnson Treatment". It typically involved making the other party uncomfortable, throwing them off balance, and cajoling them into agreeing with whatever he had to say. A famous example of this comes from this picture. An imposing figure, Johnson was tall and leaned into the faces of others, and he was a master of persuasion in this regard.
He often skinny-dipped while talking to people, insisting they join him, which was a trademark of his way of cajoling people into doing...well...anything.
He would call people in the early hours of the morning, sometimes from the toilet, simply to ask them what they would do on a bill coming up. He would relentlessly badger them until they agreed to support his proposals.
Those are some of the main stories, but the idea that he squeezed through some pretty decent results is subjective and open to interpretation. He also didn't face a divided Congress. From 1963-1965, the 88th Congress had 65 Democrats in the Senate (filibuster-proof, in theory), and 255 Democrats in the House (by the end...also a large majority of 435 House members). The 89th Congress from 1965-1967 had 68 Democrats in the Senate, and 289 House members. The 90th Congress from 1967-1969 (when he left office) had 62 Democrats in the Senate, and 247 House members (all numbers are based on the end-of-session counts, as they slightly vary from the start, but not significantly enough to signify party-control-shift). At no point did he face a Senate that could be filibustered along party lines (as we have today), and he always had a majority of his party in both houses of Congress.
However, if it's not Johnson you're referring to, I'm not sure who else it would be. I mean, the random calls and personal connections he made sounds exactly like him!
Sources:
Matthews, Christopher. Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told by One Who Knows the Game. New York: Summit, 1988. Print.
The Revised LBJ Lewis L. Gould The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring, 2000), pp. 80-83
