Old page wikitext, before the edit (old_wikitext) | '{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Hunter S. Thompson
| birth_name = Hunter Stockton Thompson
| image = Hunter S. Thompson, 1988 crop.jpg
| caption = Thompson at the [[Miami Book Fair International]] of 1988
| alt =
| imagesize = 270px
| birth_date = {{birth date|1937|7|18|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Louisville, Kentucky]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2005|2|20|1937|7|18}}
| death_cause = [[suicide|self-inflicted]] [[gunshot wound]] to the head
| death_place = [[Woody Creek, Colorado]]
| occupation = [[Journalist]], author
| genre = [[Gonzo journalism]]
| movement = [[New Journalism]]
| notableworks = ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|Hell's Angels]]''<br />''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]''<br />''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]''<br />''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''<br /> ''[[The Curse of Lono]]''
| influences = [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Menad|first=Louis|title=Believer|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/07/050307ta_talk_menand|work=The New Yorker|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=7 March 2005}}</ref> [[William S. Burroughs]], [[Joseph Conrad]], [[Federico García Lorca]],<ref>{{cite web|title=A conversation with journalist Hunter S. Thompson|url=http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/4620|publisher=Charlie Rose|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=30 October 1998}}</ref> [[J. P. Donleavy]], [[William Faulkner]], [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[H. L. Mencken]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Ken Kesey]], [[George Plimpton]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/030929.html |title=George Plimpton, uber alles |accessdate=2010-06-01}}</ref>
| influenced = [[Mark Ames]], [[Lester Bangs]], [[Cameron Crowe]], [[Jeffrey Morgan]], [[P. J. O'Rourke]], [[Matt Taibbi]], [[Cintra Wilson]], [[Caleb Schaber]], ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', [[David Foster Wallace]], [[Warren Ellis]]
}}
'''Hunter Stockton Thompson''' (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. Born in [[Louisville, Kentucky]] to a [[middle class]] family, Thompson went off the rails at the age of 15 after the death of his father left the family in poverty. Sentenced to 60 days in prison at the age of 18 for abetting a robbery, he never formally graduated school due to his incarceration. He subsequently joined the [[United States Air Force]] before moving into journalism. He travelled frequently, including stints in Puerto Rico and Brazil, before settling in [[Aspen]], [[Colorado]] in the early 1960s.
Thompson became known internationally with the publication of ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' (1967), for which he had spent a year living and riding with the Angels, experiencing their lives and hearing their stories first hand. Previously a relatively conventional journalist, with the publication in 1970 of [[The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved]], he became a [[counter cultural]] figure, with his own brand of [[New Journalism]] he termed "[[Gonzo journalism|Gonzo]]", an experimental style of [[journalism]] where [[reporter]]s involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. The work he remains best known for is ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream]]'' (1972), a rumination on the failure of the [[1960s counterculture]] movement. It was first serialised in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', a magazine with which Thompson would be long associated, and was released as a [[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|film]] starring [[Johnny Depp]] and directed by [[Terry Gilliam]] in 1998.
Politically minded, Thompson ran unsuccessfully for [[sheriff]] of [[Pitkin County]], Colorado, in 1970, on the Freak Power ticket. He was well known for his inveterate hatred of [[Richard Nixon]], who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character"<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary: Hunter S Thompson|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4283349.stm|work=BBC News|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=21 February 2005}}</ref> and who he characterised in what many consider to be his greatest contribution to [[American Literature|American letters]], ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''. His output notably declined from the mid 1970s, with Thompson struggling with the consequences of fame, and complaining that he could no longer merely report on events as he was too easily recognised. Thompson was known also for his lifelong use of [[alcoholic beverage|alcohol]] and illegal drugs; his love of [[firearm]]s and his [[iconoclasm|iconoclastic]] contempt for [[authoritarianism]], and remarked that, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me".
Whilst suffering a bout of health problems, he took his own life at the age of 67. As per his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend, Johnny Depp, and attended by a host of friends including Senator [[John Kerry]] and the actor [[Jack Nicholson]]. [[Hari Kunzru]] wrote that, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him.".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n20/hari-kunzru/the-first-person-steroid-enhanced |title=Hari Kunzru reviews ‘The Rum Diary’ by Hunter S. Thompson and ‘The Proud Highway’ by Hunter S. Thompson, edited by Douglas Brinkley · LRB 15 October 1998 |publisher=Lrb.co.uk |date= |accessdate=October 11, 2012}}</ref>
==Early life==
Thompson was born into a [[middle class]] family in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], the first of three sons, to Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, [[Horse Cave, Kentucky]] – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a [[Public Insurance Adjusting|public insurance adjuster]] and [[World War I]] veteran, and Virginia Ray Davison (1908, [[Springfield, Kentucky]] – March 20, 1998, Louisville), a librarian.<ref>{{cite web|last=Reitwiesner|first=William Addams|title=Ancestry of Hunter Thompson|url=http://www.wargs.com/other/thompson.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> His parents were introduced to each other by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the [[University of Kentucky]] in September 1934, and were married on November 2, 1935.<ref name="whitmer">{{cite book | last=Whitmer | first=Peter O.| authorlink= | year=1993 | title= When The Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson | edition=First|publisher=[[Hyperion (publisher)|Hyperion]] | isbn=1-56282-856-8 | pages = 23–27}}</ref> Thompson's first name came from a purported ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon [[John Hunter (surgeon)|John Hunter]].<ref>{{cite news |title=AN OUTLAW COMES HOME |author=Nicholas Lezard |url= |newspaper=The Guardian (London) |date=October 11, 1997 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
On December 2, 1943, when Thompson was six years old, the family settled at 2437 Ransdell Avenue, in the [[Cherokee Triangle, Louisville|Cherokee Triangle]] neighborhood of [[The Highlands (Louisville)|The Highlands]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Eblen|first=Tom|title=For sale: Hunter S. Thompson’s childhood home — bullet holes, Gates of Hell not included|url=http://tomeblen.bloginky.com/2008/05/07/for-sale-hunter-s-thompsons-childhood-home-bullet-holes-gates-of-hell-not-included-2/|work=The Bluegrass and Beyond|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14 years old, his father, aged 58, died of [[myasthenia gravis]]. Hunter and his brothers, Davison Wheeler (born June 18, 1940) and James Garnet (February 2, 1949 – March 25, 1993),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11188338 |title=James Garnet Thompson |publisher=Find A Grave |date=2005-06-17 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref> were raised by their mother. (Hunter also had a much older half-brother, James Thompson, Jr., from his father's first marriage. James, Jr. was not part of the Thompson household.)
Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and is described as having become a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.<ref name="whitmer"/><ref>{{cite web|author=Hunter S Thompson Biography and Notes |url=http://www.biblio.com/hunter-s-thompson~142810~author |title=Books by Hunter S. Thompson - biography and notes |publisher=Biblio.com |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
===Education===
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson joined Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club, a [[club]] for adolescents that prepared them for [[Amateur sports|high-school sports]], and excelled in [[Amateur baseball in the United States|baseball]], though he never joined any sports teams in high school, where he was often in trouble.<ref name="whitmer"/>
Thompson attended I. N. Bloom Elementary School, [[Highland Middle School (Louisville, Kentucky)|Highland Middle School]], and [[Atherton High School]], before transferring to [[Louisville Male High School]] in September 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum [[Literary society|Literary Association]], a school-sponsored literary and social club that had been founded at Male High in 1862. Its members at the time, generally drawn from Louisville's wealthy [[American upper class|upper-class]] families, included [[Porter Bibb]], who became the first publisher of ''[[Rolling Stone]]''. During this time Thompson read and adored [[JP Donleavy]]'s ''[[The Ginger Man]]''.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite news |title=Obituary: Hunter S Thompson: Colourful chronicler of American life whose 'gonzo' journalism contrived to put him always at the centre of the action |author=Eric Homberger |url= |newspaper=The Guardian |date=February 22, 2005 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles and helped edit the club's [[yearbook]] ''The Spectator''; but the group ejected Thompson in 1955, citing his legal problems.<ref name="whitmer"/> Charged as an [[Accessory (legal term)|accessory]] to [[robbery]] after being in a car with the robber, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson County]] Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the [[United States Air Force]].<ref name="whitmer"/> Whilst he was in jail the school [[superintendent (education)|superintendent]] refused him permission to take his high school final examinations, and as a result he did not graduate.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
===Military service===
Thompson completed [[Recruit training|basic training]] at [[Lackland Air Force Base]] in [[San Antonio, Texas]], and transferred to [[Scott Air Force Base]] in [[Belleville, Illinois]] to study [[electronics]]. He applied to become an aviator, but was rejected by the Air Force's [[Military aviation|aviation]]-[[cadet]] program. In 1956, he transferred to [[Eglin Air Force Base]] near [[Fort Walton Beach, Florida]]. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at [[Florida State University]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Thompson, Hunter S.|url=http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-03546.html|work=American National Biography Online|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as [[Sports Journalism|sports editor]] of the ''The Command Courier'' by lying about his job experience. In this capacity, he covered the Eglin Eagles, a [[American football|football]] team that included future professional players [[Bart Starr]], [[Max McGee]] and [[Zeke Bratkowski]]. Thompson traveled with the team around the US, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for ''[[Northwest Florida Daily News|The Playground News]]'', a local newspaper in [[Fort Walton Beach, Florida]]. He could not use his name on the column because the Air Force did not allow airmen to hold other jobs.<ref name="whitmer"/>
Thompson was discharged from the Air Force in June 1958 as an [[Airman First Class]], having been recommended for an early [[honorable discharge]] by his commanding officer. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy", Col. William S. Evans, chief of information services wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."<ref>{{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=WHmc5IJaeC0C&pg=PA28 |page=28 |last=Perry |first=Paul |title=Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson |publisher=Da Capo Press |year=2004 |isbn=1560256052 |edition=2}}</ref>
===Early journalism career===
After the Air Force, he worked as sports editor for a newspaper in [[Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania]]<ref name="songsdoomed">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | year=2002 | title= Songs of the Doomed | edition=Reprint|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]] | isbn=0-7432-4099-5 | pages = 29–32}}</ref> before relocating to New York City. There he attended the [[Columbia University School of General Studies]] part-time on the [[G.I. Bill]], taking classes in [[creative writing]].<ref name="proudway">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | editor = Douglas Brinkley | year=1998 | title= The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman | edition=1st|publisher=[[Ballantine Books]] | isbn=0-345-37796-6 | page = 139}}</ref>
During this time he worked briefly for ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]],'' as a [[gofer|copy boy]] for $51 a week. While working, he used a typewriter to copy [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' and [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s ''[[A Farewell to Arms]]'' in order to learn about the writing styles of the authors. In 1959, ''Time'' fired him for [[insubordination]].<ref name="proudway"/> Later that year, he worked as a reporter for ''[[Times Herald-Record|The Middletown Daily Record]]'' in [[Middletown, Orange County, New York|Middletown]], [[New York]]. He was fired from this job after damaging an office [[Vending machine|candy machine]] and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.<ref name="proudway"/>
In 1960, Thompson moved to [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]], to take a job with the sporting magazine ''El Sportivo,'' which folded soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rico English-language daily ''[[The San Juan Star]]'', but its managing editor, future novelist [[William J. Kennedy]], turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends and after the demise of ''El Sportivo'', Thompson worked as a [[stringer (journalism)|stringer]] for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' and a few stateside papers on Caribbean issues with Kennedy working as his editor.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hunter S. Thompson: 'Proud Highway' (audio)|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1038689|publisher=NPR|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=7 August 1997}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=William Kennedy Biography|url=http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/wjkennedybio.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> After returning to the States, Hunter [[hitchhiking|hitchhiked]] across the United States along [[U.S. Route 40|U.S. Hwy 40]], eventually ending up in [[Big Sur, California]] working as a [[security guard]] and [[property caretaker|caretaker]] at the Big Sur [[hot spring]]s for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the [[Esalen Institute]]. While there, he was able to publish his first magazine feature in the nationally distributed ''[[Rogue (magazine)|Rogue]]'' magazine on the [[artisan]] and [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] culture of Big Sur. Thompson had had a rocky tenure as caretaker of the hot springs, and the unwanted publicity generated from the article finally got him fired.
During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, ''[[Prince Jellyfish]]'' and ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'', and submitted many [[short story|short stories]] to publishers with little success. ''The Rum Diary'', which fictionalized Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was eventually published in 1998, long after Thompson had become famous.
From May 1962 to May 1963, Thompson traveled to South America as a correspondent for a [[Dow Jones & Company|Dow Jones]]-owned weekly newspaper, the ''[[National Observer (USA)|National Observer]]''. In [[Brazil]], he spent several months working also as a reporter on the ''[[Brazil Herald]]'', the country's only English-language [[Newspaper#Types|daily]], published in [[Rio de Janeiro]]. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (aka Sandy Conklin Thompson, now Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio.
Thompson and Conklin were married on May 19, 1963, shortly after they returned to the United States. They briefly relocated to [[Aspen, Colorado]], and had one son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, born March 23, 1964. The couple conceived five more times together. Three of the pregnancies were [[miscarriage|miscarried]], and the other two pregnancies produced infants who died shortly after birth. Hunter and Sandy divorced in 1980 but remained close friends until Thompson's death.
Writing to a friend in November 1963, Thompson first used what would become his well-known phrase "fear and loathing" to describe how he felt at the assassination of President [[John F Kennedy]].<ref name=autogenerated1 />
In 1964, the Thompson family then moved to [[Glen Ellen, California]], where Thompson continued to write for the ''National Observer'' on an array of domestic subjects, including a story about his 1964 visit to [[Ketchum, Idaho]], in order to investigate the reasons for [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s [[Ernest Hemingway#Suicide|suicide]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Brinkley|first=Douglas|title=The Final Days at Owl Farm|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7092353/the_final_days_at_owl_farm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20071018060554/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7092353/the_final_days_at_owl_farm|archivedate=2007-10-18|work=Rolling Stone|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=10 March 2005}}</ref> While working on the story, Thompson symbolically stole a pair of [[elk]] antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Thompson and the editors at the ''Observer'' eventually had a falling out after the paper refused to print Thompson's review of [[Tom Wolfe]]'s 1965 essay collection ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'',<ref>Brinkley, Douglas or Sadler, Shelby. {{cite book |
last=Thompson |
first=Hunter |
editor =Douglas Brinkley |
year=2000 |
title= Fear and Loathing in America |
edition=1st |
publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |
isbn=0-684-87315-X |
page = 784}} Introduction to letter to Tom Wolfe, p.43.</ref> and he moved to [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]], immersing himself in the [[drug culture|drug]] and [[hippie|hippie culture]] that was [[History of San Francisco, California#Counterculture|taking root in the area]]. About this time. he began writing for the [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] [[Underground press|underground paper]] ''The Spyder''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Louison|first=Cole|title=This is skag folks, pure skag: Hunter Thompson|url=http://www.ithaca.edu/buzzsaw/archive_skag.htm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20060903032602/http://www.ithaca.edu/buzzsaw/archive_skag.htm|archivedate=2006-09-03|work=Buzzsaw Haircut|publisher=Ithaca.edu|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref>
===''Hell's Angels''===
{{See also|Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs}}
In 1965, [[Carey McWilliams (journalist)|Carey McWilliams]], editor of ''[[The Nation]]'', offered Thompson the opportunity to write a story based on his experience with the California-based [[Hells Angels]] [[Outlaw motorcycle club|motorcycle club]]. After ''The Nation'' published the article (May 17, 1965), Thompson received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the Hell's Angels. The relationship broke down when the bikers concluded that Thompson was exploiting them for his personal gain. The gang demanded a share of the profits from his writings and after an argument at a party Thompson ended up with a savage beating, or "stomping" as the Angels referred to it. [[Random House]] published the hard cover ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. [[CBC Television]] went as far as broadcasting an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman, all before a live studio audience.<ref>{{cite web|title=RetroBites: Hunter S. Thompson & Hell's Angels (1967)|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo|work=Youtube|publisher=CBC|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref>
A reviewer for ''[[The New York Times]]'' praised it as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits — emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary [[social order]] offers." The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant and original writer; his [[prose]] crackles like motorcycle exhaust."<ref name="nytimes">Fremont-Smith, Eliot (February 23, 1967) "Books of The Times; Motorcycle Misfits—Fiction and Fact." ''The New York Times'', p.33.</ref>
[[File:318 Parnassus Ave San Francisco.jpg|thumb|upright|Thompson's residence during the ''Hell's Angels'' period, 318 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco.]]
Following the success of ''Hells Angels'', Thompson was able to publish articles in a number of well-known magazines during the late 1960s, including ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', ''[[Pageant (magazine)|Pageant]]'', and ''[[Harper's]]''. In the ''Times Magazine'' article, published in 1967, shortly before the "[[Summer of Love]]", and entitled "The Hashbury is the Capital of the Hippies", Thompson wrote in-depth about the [[History of the hippie movement|Hippies]] of San Francisco, deriding a culture that began to lack the political convictions of the [[New Left]] and the artistic core of the [[beat generation|Beats]], instead becoming overrun with newcomers lacking any purpose other than obtaining [[Psychedelic drug|drugs]].<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. "The Hashbury Is the Capital of the Hippie", ''The New York Times Magazine'' May 17, 1967</ref> It was an observation on [[Counterculture of the 1960s|the 1960s' counterculture]] that Thompson would further examine in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' and other articles.
In early 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>“Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” January 30, 1968 ''New York Post''</ref> According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time he planned to write a book called ''The Joint Chiefs'' about "the death of the [[American Dream]]." He used a $6,000 advance from [[Random House]] to travel on the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the [[1968 Democratic Convention]] in [[Chicago]] for research purposes. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The planned book was never finished, but the theme of the death of the American dream would be carried over into his later work, and the contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.<ref name="Thompson 2001 784">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | year=2001 | title= Fear and Loathing in America | edition=2nd | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | isbn=978-0-684-87316-9 | page = 784}}</ref>
Thompson also signed a deal with [[Ballantine Books]] in 1968 to write a satirical book called ''The Johnson File'' about [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not stand for re-election, and the deal was canceled.<ref name="Thompson 2001 784"/>
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in [[Woody Creek, Colorado|Woody Creek]], a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson finally received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of ''Hells Angels'' and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life.<ref>{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | year=2006 | title= Fear and Loathing in America | edition=Paperback | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | isbn=978-0-684-87316-9 | page = 784}}</ref> He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound."
==Middle years==
{{See also|The Battle of Aspen}}
In 1970, Thompson ran for [[Sheriffs in the United States|sheriff]] of [[Pitkin County, Colorado]], as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the [[The Battle of Aspen|"Freak Power"]] ticket. The platform included promoting the [[Drug liberalization|decriminalization of drugs]] (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of [[Profiteering (business)|profiteering]]), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy [[pedestrian mall]]s, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] candidate as "my long-haired opponent", as he wore a [[crew cut]].
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at ''Rolling Stone'' magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand and declared to editor [[Jann Wenner]] that he was about to be elected the next sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the Freak Power movement.<ref name=interviews1976>{{cite journal|journal=New Times|date=10 December 1970|year=1970|month=December|url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> Thus, Thompson's first article in ''Rolling Stone'' was published as ''[[The Battle of Aspen]]'' with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)." Despite the publicity, Thompson ended up narrowly losing the election. While actually carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what became a two-way race as the Republican candidate for sheriff agreed to withdraw from the contest a few days before the election in order to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the ''Rolling Stone'' article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. (2003) ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'' Simon & Schuster. p.95.</ref>
===Birth of Gonzo===
{{Main|Gonzo journalism}}
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled ''[[The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved]]'' for the short-lived [[new journalism]] magazine ''[[Scanlan's Monthly]]''. Although it was not widely read at the time, the article is the first of Thompson's to use techniques of [[Gonzo journalism]], a style he would later employ in almost every literary endeavor. The manic [[First-person narrative|first-person]] subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook. [[Ralph Steadman]], who would later collaborate with Thompson on several projects, contributed [[expressionism|expressionist]] pen-and-ink illustrations.
The first use of the word ''Gonzo'' to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist [[Bill Cardoso]]. Cardoso had first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the [[New Hampshire primary#1968|1968 New Hampshire primary]]. In 1970, Cardoso (who, by this time had become the editor of ''[[The Boston Globe]] Sunday Magazine'') wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece in ''Scanlan's Monthly'' as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." Thompson took to the word right away, and according to illustrator Ralph Steadman said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo."<ref name=cardoso-obit>{{cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|title=Bill Cardoso, 68, Editor Who Coined 'Gonzo', Is Dead|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/national/16cardoso.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=c7b5fe5f62a5d95e&ex=1300165200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=16 March 2006}}</ref> Thompson's first published use of the word Gonzo appears in a passage in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'': "Free Enterprise. The [[American Dream]]. [[Horatio Alger]] gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it ''now'': pure Gonzo journalism."
===''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''===
{{Main|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas}}
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for ''[[Strange Rumblings in Aztlan]]'', an exposé for ''Rolling Stone'' on the 1970 killing of the [[Mexican American|Mexican-American]] television journalist [[Rubén Salazar]]. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department]] during the [[Chicano Moratorium|National Chicano Moratorium March]] against the [[Vietnam War]]. One of Thompson's sources for the story was [[Oscar Zeta Acosta]], a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of [[Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles]], Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to [[Las Vegas]], and take advantage of an assignment by ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'' to write a 250-word photograph caption on the [[Mint 400]] motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to ''Sports Illustrated'' a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." ''Rolling Stone'' publisher [[Jann Wenner]] was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote.<ref>{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | year=1979 | title= The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time | edition=1st | publisher=[[Summit Books]] | isbn=0-671-40046-0 | pages = 105–109}}</ref>
The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1971 book ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of ''Rolling Stone'' as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named [[Raoul Duke]] on a trip to Las Vegas with [[Oscar Zeta Acosta|Dr. Gonzo]], his "300-pound [[Samoans|Samoan]] attorney", to cover a [[Prohibition (drugs)|narcotics officers]]' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the [[American Dream]], with "...two bags of [[cannabis (drug)|grass]], seventy-five pellets of [[mescaline]], five sheets of high-powered [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|blotter acid]], a salt shaker half full of [[cocaine]], and a whole galaxy of multi-colored [[Amphetamine|uppers]], [[Barbiturates|downers]], [[Methamphetamine|screamers]], [[Nitrous Oxide|laughers]] [...] and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw [[Diethyl ether|ether]], and two dozen [[amyl nitrite|amyls]]."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s [[counterculture|countercultural movement]] is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by ''[[The New York Times]]'' as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope".<ref>{{cite news|last=Woods|first=Crawford|title='Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/23/books/thompson-1972-vegar.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=23 July 1972}}</ref> "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
===''Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72''===
{{Main|Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72}}
Within the next year, Thompson wrote extensively for ''Rolling Stone'' while covering the [[U.S. presidential election, 1972|election campaigns]] of President [[Richard Nixon]] and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator [[George McGovern]]. The articles were soon combined and published as ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]'s primaries (Nixon, as an [[incumbent]], performed little campaign work) in which McGovern competed with rival candidates [[Edmund Muskie]] and [[Hubert Humphrey]]. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read ''Rolling Stone''.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson famously described him in ''Rolling Stone'' as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time" and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the [[Devil]] can understand it."<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. (June 15, 1994) [http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=1507 ''He Was A Crook''] Rolling Stone{{dead link|date=August 2012}}</ref> Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the approximately $400,000 pension Nixon manoeuvred his way into by resigning before being formally indicted. While the ''Washington Post'' was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.'<ref>{{cite book|author=Thompson, Hunter S|title=Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S Thompson|published=2011|page=337}}</ref> There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''.
Thompson was to provide ''Rolling Stone'' similar coverage for the [[United States presidential election, 1976|1976 Presidential Campaign]] that would appear in a book published by the magazine. Reportedly, as Thompson was waiting for a $75,000 advance cheque to arrive, he learned that ''Rolling Stone'' publisher Jann Wenner had pulled the plug on the endeavor without telling Thompson.<ref name="interviews1976"/>
Wenner then asked Thompson to travel to [[Vietnam]] to report on what appeared to be the closing of the [[Vietnam War]]. Thompson accepted, and left for [[Saigon]] immediately. He arrived with the country in chaos, just as the United States was [[Fall of Saigon|preparing to evacuate]] and other journalists were scrambling to find transportation out of the region. While there, Thompson learned that Wenner had pulled the plug on this excursion as well, and Thompson found himself in Vietnam without health insurance or additional financial support. Thompson's story about the fall of Saigon would not be published in ''Rolling Stone'' until ten years later.<ref name="interviews1976"/>
These two incidents severely strained the relationship between the author and the magazine, and Thompson contributed far less to the publication in later years.
==Later years==
The year 1980 marked both his divorce from Sandra Conklin and the release of ''[[Where the Buffalo Roam]]'', a loose film adaptation of situations from Thompson's early 1970s work, with [[Bill Murray]] starring as the author. Murray would go on to become one of Thompson's trusted friends. After the lukewarm reception of the film, Thompson temporarily relocated to [[Hawaii]] to work on a book, ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', a Gonzo-style account of a marathon held in that state. Extensively illustrated by [[Ralph Steadman]], the piece first appeared in ''Running'' magazine in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was excerpted in ''[[Playboy]]'' in 1983.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.gonzo.org/books/cl/ |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — Books — The Curse of Lono |publisher=Gonzo.org |date= |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref>
On July 21, 1981, in Aspen, Colorado, Thompson was pulled over for running a stop sign at 2 a.m., and began to "rave" at a state trooper. He also refused to submit to intoxication tests. Consequently he was arrested, but the drunk-driving charges against him were later dropped.
In 1983, he covered the [[Invasion of Grenada|U.S. invasion of Grenada]] but would not discuss these experiences until the publication of ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'' 20 years later. Later that year he authored a piece for ''Rolling Stone'' called "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé of the scandalous [[Roxanne Pulitzer]] divorce and what he termed the "[[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] lifestyle." The article contained dubious insinuations of [[bestiality]] (among other things) but was considered to be a return to proper form by many.
Shortly thereafter, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for ''Playboy''. As part of his research, in the spring of 1985 he spent evenings at the [[Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater]] [[striptease club]] in San Francisco and his experience there eventually evolved into a full-length novel tentatively titled ''The Night Manager.'' Neither the novel nor the article has been published.
At the behest of old friend and editor [[Warren Hinckle]], Thompson became a media critic for the ''[[San Francisco Examiner]]'' from the mid-1980s until the end of that decade. Thompson's editor at the Examiner, David McCumber (who would write a [[Mitchell brothers]] biography not long after Jim Mitchell fatally shot his brother Art in 1991), was reportedly deeply disappointed in the quality of Thompson's Examiner columns.
In 1990, former porn director [[Gail Palmer]] visited Thompson's home in Woody Creek. She later accused him of sexual assault, claiming that he twisted her breast when she refused to join him in the hot tub. She also described cocaine use to authorities. A six person 11 hour search of Thompson's home turned up various kinds of drugs and a few sticks of [[dynamite]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=Dirk|title=Aspen Journal; New Fear and Loathing: Gonzo Writer on Trial|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/22/us/aspen-journal-new-fear-and-loathing-gonzo-writer-on-trial.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 May 1990}}</ref> All charges were dismissed after a pre-trial hearing. Thompson would later describe this experience at length in ''Kingdom of Fear''.
By the early 1990s, Thompson was said to be working on a novel called ''[[Polo Is My Life]]'', which was briefly excerpted in ''Rolling Stone'' in 1994, and which Thompson himself described in 1996 as "...a sex book — you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco".<ref name="fargone">{{cite web|last=T.|first=Marlene|title=Transcript of Hunter S. Thompson Interview|url=http://www.fargonebooks.com/hunter.html|work=The Book Report|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> The novel was slated to be released by [[Random House]] in 1999, and was even assigned ISBN 0-679-40694-8, but was not published.
Thompson continued to contribute irregularly to ''Rolling Stone''. "Fear and Loathing in Elko", published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against [[Clarence Thomas]], while "Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely non-fictional account of an interview with [[Bill Clinton]] in an [[Arkansas]] diner. Rather than embarking on the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings from cable television; ''[[Better Than Sex (book)|Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie]],'' his account of the [[1992 Presidential Election]] campaign, is composed of reactionary faxes sent to ''Rolling Stone''. A decade later, he contributed "Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004"—an account of a road jaunt with [[John Kerry]] during his presidential campaign that would be Thompson's final magazine feature.
Thompson was named a [[Kentucky Colonel]] by the Governor of [[Kentucky]] in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.<ref>{{cite web|author=Whitehead, Ron|title=''Hunter S. Thompson, Kentucky Colonel''|work=''Reykjaviks Magazine''|date=March 11, 2005|url=http://www.grapevine.is/Home/ReadArticle/Hunter-S-Thompson-1937-2005}}</ref>
===''The Gonzo Papers''===
Despite publishing a novel and numerous newspaper and magazine articles, the majority of Thompson's literary output after the late 1970s took the form of a 4-volume series of books called ''[[The Gonzo Papers]]''. Beginning with ''[[The Great Shark Hunt]]'' in 1979 and ending with ''[[Better Than Sex (book)|Better Than Sex]]'' in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his ''Rolling Stone'' short pieces, excerpts from the ''Fear and Loathing...'' books, and so on.
By the late 1970s, Thompson received complaints from critics, fans and friends that he was regurgitating his past glories without much new on his part;<ref>{{cite interview|url=http://www.gonzo.org/hst/interviews.asp?ID=10 |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — HST & Friends — Rolling Stone College Papers 1980 |publisher=Gonzo.org |date=1999-04-14 |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref> these concerns are alluded to in the introduction of ''[[The Great Shark Hunt]],'' where Thompson suggested that his "old self" committed suicide.
Perhaps in response to this, as well as the strained relationship with ''Rolling Stone,'' and the failure of his marriage, Thompson became more reclusive after 1980. He would often retreat to his compound in Woody Creek and reject assignments or refuse to complete them. Despite the dearth of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the ''Rolling Stone'' [[masthead (publishing)|masthead]] as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he would hold until his death.
===''Fear and Loathing'' redux===
Thompson's work was popularized again with the 1998 release of the film ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]'', which opened to considerable fanfare. The book was reprinted to coincide with the film, and Thompson's work was introduced to a new generation of readers.
Soon thereafter, Thompson's "long lost" novel ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'' was published, as were the first two volumes of his [[#Letters|collected letters]], which were greeted with critical acclaim.
In July 2000, he shot his then assistant Deborah Fuller and told reporters she'd been wounded because he had "mistaken her for a bear".<ref>{{cite news |title=Interview: More Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail |author=ROBERT CHALMERS |url= |newspaper=Independent on Sunday |date=October 31, 2004 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'', was a combination of new material, selected newspaper clippings, and some older works. Released in 2003, it was perceived by critics to be an angry, vitriolic commentary on the passing of the [[American Century]] and the state of affairs after the September 2001 attacks.
Hunter married his longtime assistant, Anita Bejmuk, on April 23, 2003.
Thompson completed his journalism career in the same way it had begun: writing about sports. Thompson penned a weekly column called "Hey, Rube" for [[ESPN]].com's "[[Page 2]]". The column ran from 2000 until his death in 2005. [[Simon & Schuster]] bundled many of the columns from the first few years and released it in mid-2004 as ''[[Hey Rube (book)|Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness]]''.
==Death==
Thompson died at his "fortified compound" known as "Owl Farm" in [[Woody Creek, Colorado]], at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a [[suicide|self-inflicted]] [[gunshot wound]] to the head.
Thompson's son (Juan), daughter-in-law (Jennifer) and grandson (Will) were visiting for the weekend at the time of his suicide. Will and Jennifer were in the adjacent room when they heard the gunshot. Mistaking the shot for the sound of a book falling, they continued with their activities for a few minutes before checking on him. The police report concerning his death stated that in a typewriter in front of Thompson, they found "a piece of paper carrying the date 'Feb 22 '05' and the single word 'counselor'."<ref>{{cite web | title = Citizen Thompson — Police report of death scene reveals gonzo journalist's "rosebud" | author = | url = http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/citizen-thompson | publisher = [[The Smoking Gun]] | date = 2005-09-08 | accessdate = 2008-10-13}}</ref>
They reported to the press that they do not believe his suicide was out of desperation, but was a premeditated act resulting from Thompson's many painful and chronic medical conditions, which included a hip replacement. Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, who was at The Aspen Club at the time of her husband's death, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the ''Aspen Daily News'', before setting the receiver on the counter, he asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column. Mistaking the sound of the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys, she hung up as he fired the gun. Juan Thompson found his father's body after hearing the gunshot. According to police reports and Anita Thompson's cell phone records,<ref>{{cite web|title=Combined Records Department—Law Incident Table|url=http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/citizen-thompson|publisher=The Smoking Gun|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 March 2005}}</ref> he called the sheriff a half hour later. Juan Thompson then walked outside the Woody Creek home and fired three shotgun blasts into the air as police were driving to the scene.
"Juan told me he had shot a shotgun into the air to mark the passing of his father," Pitkin County Deputy Sheriff John Armstrong said in his report.
What Doug Brinkley describes as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, Anita Thompson, was later published by ''Rolling Stone'' in the September issue #983. Titled "Football Season Is Over", it read:
: "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your (old) age. Relax — This won't hurt."<ref>{{cite web | title = Football Season Is Over Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's final note . . . Entering the no more fun zone | author = Douglas Brinkley | url = http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7605448/football_season_is_over | archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20080619074031/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7605448/football_season_is_over | archivedate = 2008-06-19 | publisher = Rolling Stone | date = 2005-09-08 | accessdate = 2008-10-13}}</ref>
Artist and friend [[Ralph Steadman]] wrote:
: "...He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one [[Richard Nixon|Richard Milhous Nixon]] went to — and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too — and Peacocks..."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ralphsteadman.com/04frmrlph2.asp?entry_id=79|author=Steadman, Ralph|date=February 2005|work=Ralphsteadman.com|title="Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005"}accessdate=March 19, 2005.</ref>
===Funeral===
On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon to the tune of [[Norman Greenbaum]]'s "[[Spirit in the Sky]]" and [[Bob Dylan]]'s "[[Mr. Tambourine Man]]."<ref name="editorandpublisher1">{{cite web|author=Up for Discussion Jump to Forums |url=http://www.billboard.com/news/hot-product-1001018730.story#/news/hot-product-1001018730.story |title=Hunter Thompson Blown Sky High |publisher=Billboard.com |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}{{dead link|date=February 2011}}</ref> The cannon was placed atop a {{convert|153|ft|m|sing=on}} tower of his own design, in the shape of a [[:File:Gonzo.svg|double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button]] originally used in Hunter S. Thompson's 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor [[Johnny Depp]], a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the ''[[Associated Press]]'', "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."<ref name="editorandpublisher1"/>
Other famous attendees at the funeral included [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] [[John Kerry]]<ref name="Brooks">Patricia Brooks, Jonathan Brooks, ''Laid to Rest in California: A Guide to the Cemeteries and Grave SItes of the Rich and Famous'' (2006), p. 321.</ref> and former U.S. Senator [[George McGovern]];<ref name="Brooks"/> ''[[60 Minutes]]'' correspondents [[Ed Bradley]] and [[Charlie Rose]]; actors [[Jack Nicholson]], [[John Cusack]], [[Bill Murray]], [[Benicio del Toro]], [[Sean Penn]], and [[Josh Hartnett]]; singers [[Lyle Lovett]], [[John Oates]] and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.
The plans for this monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman and were shown as part of an ''[[Omnibus (TV series)|Omnibus]]'' program on the [[BBC]] entitled ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood|Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision]]'' (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2003 [[Criterion Collection]] DVD release of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' labeled on the DVD as ''Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood''.
==Legacy==
===Writing style===
{{Main|Gonzo journalism}}
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the [[New Journalism]] literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the [[first person narrative|first person]], while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow. His writing aimed to be humorous, colorful and bizarre, and he often exaggerated events to be more entertaining.
The term Gonzo has since been applied in kind to numerous other forms of highly subjective artistic expression.
Despite his having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 Interview in ''[[Playboy]]'' addressed the issue himself, saying "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They’re both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don’t think of myself as a reporter." [[Tom Wolfe]] would later describe Thompson's style as "...part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric."<ref name="wolfetom">{{cite news|last=Wolfe|first=Tom|title=As Gonzo in Life as in His Work|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20050222142331/http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325|archivedate=2005-02-22|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=22 February 2005}}</ref> Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a [[fly in the ointment]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345396358.html |title=Better Than Sex by Hunter S. Thompson - Trade Paperback |publisher=Random House |date=1995-08-22 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Along with [[Joe Eszterhas]] and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from [[Howlin' Wolf]] to [[Lou Reed]]. Armed with early [[fax]] machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at ''Rolling Stone'', wrote that "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn’t always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps....Hunter was close friends with many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we’d call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and [[caliber]], and there was no faking it."<ref name="love-cjr">Love, Robert. (May–June 2005) {{cite web |url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/132678871.html |title=''A Technical Guide For Editing Gonzo''|year=2005|month=May–June |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080126234542/http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/hst.asp |archivedate=2008-01-26|work=Columbia Journalism Review.|accessdate=2009-03-18}}</ref>
===Persona===
{{Main|Raoul Duke}}
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing as well, sometimes using the name [[Raoul Duke]] as an [[author surrogate]] whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late sixties, Thompson acquired his famous [[Honorary degree|title of]] "Doctor" from the [[Universal Life Church]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gonzo.org/hst/hst.asp?ID=0 |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — HST & Friends — Who Is (Dr.) Hunter S. Thompson? |publisher=Gonzo.org |date= |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref> He later preferred to be called Dr. Thompson, and his "alter-ego" [[Raoul Duke]] called himself a "doctor of journalism". Thompson was as fond of personae as W.C. Fields: besides "Raoul Duke", Thompson also toyed with the idea of taking the names "Jefferson Rank", "Gene Skinner", and "Sebastian Owl" for various purposes literary and non-literary, naming his "compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado, "Owl Farm" after the last of these.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred.<ref>{{cite news|author=Cohen, Rich|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/books/review/17COHENRE.html?pagewanted=print&position=|title=''Gonzo Nights''|work=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 17, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Hunter S. Thompson (2/23/05)|url=http://theopinionmill.wordpress.com/2006/12/26/hunter-s-thompson-22305|work=26 December 2006|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Clifford|first=Peggy|title=Love Song for Hunter S. Thompson/18706|url=http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=157|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 March 2005}}</ref> Thompson himself admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ...I'm leading a normal life and right along side me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."<ref>{{cite web|title=Fear And Loathing In Gonzovision|url=http://thenewishjournalism.blogspot.com/2007/10/fear-and-loathing-in-gonzovision.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=15 October 2007}}</ref>
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a [[cult following]] in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for [[Halloween]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&hs=293&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&resnum=0&q=hunter%20s%20thompson%20halloween&spell=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi |title=Hunter S. Thompson Halloween |publisher=Images.google.com |date=2006-10-31 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
===Political beliefs===
In the documentary ''[[Breakfast with Hunter]]'', Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different [[Che Guevara]] t-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend [[Benicio del Toro]] has stated that Thompson kept a "big" [[Che Guevara (photo)|picture of Che]] in his kitchen.<ref>[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article5324264.ece Hunter S Thompson: The Movie] by Alex Gibney, ''The Sunday Times'', December 14, 2008{{dead link|date=August 2012}}</ref>
Although Thompson rarely personally endorsed political labels or programmes in his writings, in his letters he expressed affinity with the [[far left]]. In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for [[Joe Hill]] and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics."<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 509</ref> In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with [[Karl Marx]], and compared him to [[Thomas Jefferson]].<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 493</ref> In a letter to [[William Kennedy (author)|William Kennedy]], Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the [[free enterprise]] system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery."<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 456</ref>
Thompson wrote passionately on behalf of [[African American]] rights and the [[African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)|African American Civil Rights Movement]].<ref>Hunter S. Thompson, ''The Great Shark Hunt'', (London 1980), page 43-51</ref> He strongly criticised the dominance in American society of, what he called, "white power structures".<ref>Hunter S. Thompson, ''The Great Shark Hunt'', (London 1980), page 44-50</ref> He was a proponent of the [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|right to bear arms]] and [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|privacy rights]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Glassie|first=John|title=Hunter S. Thompson|url=http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/02/03/thompson/index.html?pn=2|publisher=Salon|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=3 February 2003}}</ref> A member of the [[National Rifle Association]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Susman|first=Tina|title=Writer's suicide shocks friends|url=http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushunt224153856feb22,0,4715271.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20071127024140/http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushunt224153856feb22,0,4715271.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines|archivedate=2007-11-27|publisher=Newsday.com|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=22 February 2005}}</ref> Thompson was also co-creator of "The Fourth Amendment Foundation", an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted [[search and seizure]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Higgins|first=Matt|title=The Gonzo King|url=http://hightimes.com/entertainment/mhiggins/970|publisher=High Times|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 September 2003}}</ref>
Part of his work with The Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a [[Colorado]] woman who was sentenced for [[Life imprisonment|life]] in 1997 under [[felony murder rule|felony murder]] charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence.<ref>{{cite web|last=McMaken|first=Ryan|title=Hunter S. Thompson's Last Stand|url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken134.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' outlining the case. The [[Colorado Supreme Court]] eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.<ref>Mosely, Matt. "Lisl Released From Tooley Hall" www.lisl.com April 26, 2006</ref>
Thompson was a [[firearm]]s and [[Explosive material|explosives]] enthusiast (in his writing and in real life) and owned a vast collection of [[handgun]]s, [[rifle]]s, [[shotgun]]s, and various [[automatic firearm|automatic]] and [[semi-automatic firearm|semi-automatic]] weapons, along with numerous forms of [[Lachrymatory agent|gaseous crowd control]] and many other homemade devices.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of [[Drug liberalization|drug legalization]] and became known for his detailed accounts of his own [[Recreational drug use|drug use]]. He was an early supporter of the [[National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws]] and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death.<ref>{{cite web|title=Aspen Legal Seminar|url=http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6823|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]]: all it did was [[Rum-running#History|make a lot of criminals rich]]."<ref name="fargone"/>
After the [[September 11 attacks]], Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the [[9/11 Commission Report|official story on who was responsible for the attacks]]. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been [[False flag|conducted by]] [[9/11 conspiracy theories|the U.S. Government or with the government's assistance]], though readily admitted he had no way to prove his theory.<ref>{{cite web|last=Bulger|first=Adam|title=The Hunter S. Thompson Interview|url=http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=287|publisher=FreezerBox|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=9 March 2004}}</ref>
In 2004, Thompson, regarding politics, wrote: "[[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil [[George W. Bush|Bush]]–[[Dick Cheney|Cheney]] gang, I would happily vote for him."<ref>{{cite web|last=Thompson|first=Hunter S.|title=Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6562575/fear_and_loathing_campaign_2004|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080709073911/http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6562575/fear_and_loathing_campaign_2004|archivedate=2008-07-09|publisher=Rolling Stone|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=24 October 2004}}</ref>
==Works==
{{Main|Hunter S. Thompson bibliography}}
===Books===
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 through the end of his life. His most well-known works in this field include ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|''Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'', ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'', and ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]''.
===Articles===
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various [[Periodical literature|periodicals]]. He wrote for many publications, including ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', ''[[New York Times]]'', ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', ''[[The San Juan Star]]'', and ''[[Playboy]]''. A collection of his articles for ''Rolling Stone'' was released in 2011 as ''[[Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson]]''. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, [[Jann Wenner|Jann S. Wenner]], who also provided an introduction to the collection.
===Letters===
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Proudhighway.jpg|thumb|''The Proud Highway...Fear and Loathing Letters Vol. 1'']] -->
Thompson wrote many letters and they were his primary means of personal conversation. Thompson made [[carbon copy|carbon copies]] of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenage years.
''The Fear and Loathing Letters,'' is a planned three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by the historian [[Douglas Brinkley]]. The first volume, ''The Proud Highway'' was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. ''[[Fear and Loathing in America]]'' was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, tentatively titled ''The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005'' has yet to see print.
===Illustrations===
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist [[Ralph Steadman]] offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a close friendship, and often traveled together. Though his illustrations occur in most of Thompson's books, they are conspicuously featured in full page color in Thompson's ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', set in Hawaii.
===Photography===
Thompson was an avid amateur [[photographer]] throughout his life and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition 224 page collection of Thompson photos called ''[[Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson|Gonzo]]'', with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic [[still life]] photos. The ''[[London Observer]]'' called the photos "astonishingly good" and that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."<ref>{{cite web|last=Ferguson|first=Euan|title=Hunter gets captured by the frame|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/feb/04/photography.features|publisher=The Guardian, The Observer|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=3 February 2007}}</ref>
===Feature films===
The film ''[[Where the Buffalo Roam]]'' (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the [[Super Bowl]] and the [[U.S. presidential election, 1972|1972 U.S. presidential election]]. It stars [[Bill Murray]] as Thompson and [[Peter Boyle]] as Thompson's attorney [[Oscar Zeta Acosta]], referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|The 1998 film adaptation]] of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' was directed by [[Monty Python]] veteran [[Terry Gilliam]], and starred [[Johnny Depp]] (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as "Hunter Thompson/Raoul Duke" and [[Benicio del Toro]] as [[Oscar Zeta Acosta|Oscar Acosta]], referred to in the movie as "Dr. Gonzo". The film has achieved something of a [[cult film|cult following]]. (Thompson himself shaved Depp's head into the bald pate that Depp sports in the film.)
[[The Rum Diary (film)|The film adaptation]] of Thompson's novel ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'' was released in October 2011, starring [[Johnny Depp]] as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by [[Bruce Robinson]].<ref name="rumdiaryimdb">{{cite web
| title = The Rum Diary (2011) - IMDb
| url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376136/
| accessdate = December 8, 2010}}
</ref>
At a press junket for ''The Rum Diary'' shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', "[[The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved]]", and ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|Hell's Angels]]'' for the big screen: "I’d just keep playing Hunter. There’s a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."<ref>{{cite web|author=By: mryan |url=http://www.movieline.com/2011/10/johnny-depp-bruce-robinson-and-co-exalt-hunter-s-thompson-while-talking-the-rum-diary.php |title=Johnny Depp, Bruce Robinson, and Co. Exalt Hunter S. Thompson While Talking The Rum Diary |publisher=Movieline |date=2011-10-28 |accessdate=2011-12-24}}</ref>
===Documentaries===
''[[Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood|Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision]]'' (1978) is an extended television profile by the [[BBC]]. It can be found on disc 2 of [[The Criterion Collection]] edition of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.
The [[Mitchell brothers]], owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called ''Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die''.
[[Wayne Ewing]] created three documentaries about Thompson. The film ''[[Breakfast with Hunter]]'' (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' his arrest for [[drunk driving]], and his subsequent fight with the court system. ''When I Die'' (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. ''Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver'' (2006) chronicles Thompson efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she didn't commit. All three films are only available online.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hunterthompsonfilms.com/ |title=Hunter Thompson Films |publisher=Hunter Thompson Films |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
In ''Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.manifestation.tv/ |title=Manifestation.tv |publisher=Manifestation.tv |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref> (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
''Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film'' (2006) was directed by [[Tom Thurman]], written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the [[Starz Entertainment Group]]. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as [[Johnny Depp]], [[Benicio del Toro]], [[Bill Murray]], [[Sean Penn]], [[John Cusack]], Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators [[George McGovern]] and [[Gary Hart]], writers [[Tom Wolfe]] and [[William F. Buckley, Jr.|William F. Buckley]], actors [[Gary Busey]] and [[Harry Dean Stanton]], and the illustrator [[Ralph Steadman]] among others.
''Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson'' (2006), produced, directed, photographed and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S Thompson. ''Blasted!!!'' premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, [[Academy Award]]-winning documentarian [[Alex Gibney]] (''[[Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room]]'', ''[[Taxi to the Dark Side]]'') wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, entitled ''[[Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson]]''. The film premiered on January 20, 2008 at the [[Sundance Film Festival]]. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies and lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
===Theatre===
''GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis'' is a one-man show about Hunter S.Thompson written by Paul Addis. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show presents the life of Hunter during the years between 1968 and 1971. Addis played the role of Hunter.
===Accolades and tributes===
* Author [[Tom Wolfe]] has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.<ref name="wolfetom"/>
*The 2006 documentary film ''[[Fuck (film)|Fuck]]'', which features Hunter S. Thompson commenting on the usage of that word, is dedicated to his memory.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.premiere.com/Review/Movies/Fuck |title=Fuck |publisher=Premiere |date=2006-11-10 |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref>
*Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of ''Rolling Stone'', May 18 - June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". [[Johnny Depp]] also appeared on the cover.<ref>{{Cite news |url= http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/2006-rolling-stone-covers-20061214/rs-1000-1001-may-18-june-1-2006-16271508 |accessdate=2011-09-24 |title= 2006 Rolling Stone Covers; RS 1000-1001 (May 18 - June 1, 2006) |magazine= [[Rolling Stone]] |postscript= <!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}} }}</ref>
*The Thompson-inspired character [[Uncle Duke]] appears on a recurring basis in ''[[Doonesbury]]'', the daily newspaper comic strip by [[Garry Trudeau]]. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7005168/ |date=2005-05-19 |title=Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080316134223/http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/02/21/thompson.obit/index.html |archivedate=2008-03-16}}</ref> although it was reported that he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide) and March 12, 2005, ''Doonesbury'' ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of [[Ralph Steadman]], and later strips featured various [[Non sequitur (absurdism)|non sequiturs]] (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals) which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
*{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-journalism-no-1-hunter-s-thompson| title=Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1| author= Douglas Brinkley, Terry McDonell| work=The Paris Review| date=Fall 2000 }}
* "Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", [http://totallygonzo.org/gonzowriting/hst-hey-rube-espn-page-2/]
* "Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", [http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213 Thompson's final column] for [[ESPN|ESPN.com's]] ''Page 2.''
* {{IMDb name|0860219|Hunter S. Thompson}}
* A collection of articles on Thompson [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/page/0,8097,1419505,00.html from ''The Guardian'']
* {{worldcat id|id=lccn-n50-8356}}
* [http://www.mbart.com/artists/_Hunter%20S.%20Thompson/ Thompson's photography]
*{{cite journal| url=http://kotorimagazine.com/index.php?news=897| title=So Long, Mistah Thompson| author= Jake McGee, Bob Freville| work=Kotori Magazine| date=March 2005 }}
{{Hunter Thompson|state=collapsed}}
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New page wikitext, after the edit (new_wikitext) | '{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Hunter S. Thompson
| birth_name = Hunter Stockton Thompson
| image = Hunter S. Thompson, 1988 crop.jpg
| caption = Thompson at the [[Miami Book Fair International]] of 1988
| alt =
| imagesize = 270px
| birth_date = {{birth date|1937|7|18|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Louisville, Kentucky]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2005|2|20|1937|7|18}}
| death_cause = [[suicide|self-inflicted]] [[gunshot wound]] to the head
| death_place = [[Woody Creek, Colorado]]
| occupation = [[Journalist]], author
| genre = [[Gonzo journalism]]
| movement = [[New Journalism]]
| notableworks = ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|Hell's Angels]]''<br />''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]''<br />''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]''<br />''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''<br /> ''[[The Curse of Lono]]''
| influences = [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Menad|first=Louis|title=Believer|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/07/050307ta_talk_menand|work=The New Yorker|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=7 March 2005}}</ref> [[William S. Burroughs]], [[Joseph Conrad]], [[Federico García Lorca]],<ref>{{cite web|title=A conversation with journalist Hunter S. Thompson|url=http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/4620|publisher=Charlie Rose|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=30 October 1998}}</ref> [[J. P. Donleavy]], [[William Faulkner]], [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[H. L. Mencken]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Ken Kesey]], [[George Plimpton]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/030929.html |title=George Plimpton, uber alles |accessdate=2010-06-01}}</ref>
| influenced = [[Mark Ames]], [[Lester Bangs]], [[Cameron Crowe]], [[Jeffrey Morgan]], [[P. J. O'Rourke]], [[Matt Taibbi]], [[Cintra Wilson]], [[Caleb Schaber]], ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', [[David Foster Wallace]], [[Warren Ellis]]
}}
'''Hunter Stockton Thompson''' (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. Born in [[Louisville, Kentucky]] to a [[middle class]] family, Thompson went off the rails at the age of 15 after the death of his father left the family in poverty. Sentenced to 60 days in prison at the age of 18 for abetting a robbery, he never formally graduated school due to his incarceration. He subsequently joined the [[United States Air Force]] before moving into journalism. He travelled frequently, including stints in Puerto Rico and Brazil, before settling in [[Aspen]], [[Colorado]] in the early 1960s.
Thompson became known internationally with the publication of ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' (1967), for which he had spent a year living and riding with the Angels, experiencing their lives and hearing their stories first hand. Previously a relatively conventional journalist, with the publication in 1970 of [[The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved]], he became a [[counter cultural]] figure, with his own brand of [[New Journalism]] he termed "[[Gonzo journalism|Gonzo]]", an experimental style of [[journalism]] where [[reporter]]s involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. The work he remains best known for is ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream]]'' (1972), a rumination on the failure of the [[1960s counterculture]] movement. It was first serialised in ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', a magazine with which Thompson would be long associated, and was released as a [[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|film]] starring [[Johnny Depp]] and directed by [[Terry Gilliam]] in 1998.
Politically minded, Thompson ran unsuccessfully for [[sheriff]] of [[Pitkin County]], Colorado, in 1970, on the Freak Power ticket. He was well known for his inveterate hatred of [[Richard Nixon]], who he claimed represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character"<ref>{{cite news|title=Obituary: Hunter S Thompson|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4283349.stm|work=BBC News|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=21 February 2005}}</ref> and who he characterised in what many consider to be his greatest contribution to [[American Literature|American letters]], ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''. His output notably declined from the mid 1970s, with Thompson struggling with the consequences of fame, and complaining that he could no longer merely report on events as he was too easily recognised. Thompson was known also for his lifelong use of [[alcoholic beverage|alcohol]] and illegal drugs; his love of [[firearm]]s and his [[iconoclasm|iconoclastic]] contempt for [[authoritarianism]], and remarked that, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me".
Whilst suffering a bout of health problems, he took his own life at the age of 67. As per his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend, Johnny Depp, and attended by a host of friends including Senator [[John Kerry]] and the actor [[Jack Nicholson]]. [[Hari Kunzru]] wrote that, "the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist ... one who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him.".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n20/hari-kunzru/the-first-person-steroid-enhanced |title=Hari Kunzru reviews ‘The Rum Diary’ by Hunter S. Thompson and ‘The Proud Highway’ by Hunter S. Thompson, edited by Douglas Brinkley · LRB 15 October 1998 |publisher=Lrb.co.uk |date= |accessdate=October 11, 2012}}</ref>
==Early life==
Thompson was born into a [[middle class]] family in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], the first of three sons, to Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, [[Horse Cave, Kentucky]] – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a [[Public Insurance Adjusting|public insurance adjuster]] and [[World War I]] veteran, and Virginia Ray Davison (1908, [[Springfield, Kentucky]] – March 20, 1998, Louisville), a librarian.<ref>{{cite web|last=Reitwiesner|first=William Addams|title=Ancestry of Hunter Thompson|url=http://www.wargs.com/other/thompson.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> His parents were introduced to each other by a friend from Jack's fraternity at the [[University of Kentucky]] in September 1934, and were married on November 2, 1935.<ref name="whitmer">{{cite book | last=Whitmer | first=Peter O.| authorlink= | year=1993 | title= When The Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson I LIKE MASSIVE COCK IN MY ASS _ AUSTIN WESTOFF | edition=First|publisher=[[Hyperion (publisher)|Hyperion]] | isbn=1-56282-856-8 | pages = 23–27}}</ref> Thompson's first name came from a purported ancestor on his mother's side, the Scottish surgeon [[John Hunter (surgeon)|John Hunter]].<ref>{{cite news |title=AN OUTLAW COMES HOME |author=Nicholas Lezard |url= |newspaper=The Guardian (London) |date=October 11, 1997 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
On December 2, 1943, when Thompson was six years old, the family settled at 2437 Ransdell Avenue, in the [[Cherokee Triangle, Louisville|Cherokee Triangle]] neighborhood of [[The Highlands (Louisville)|The Highlands]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Eblen|first=Tom|title=For sale: Hunter S. Thompson’s childhood home — bullet holes, Gates of Hell not included|url=http://tomeblen.bloginky.com/2008/05/07/for-sale-hunter-s-thompsons-childhood-home-bullet-holes-gates-of-hell-not-included-2/|work=The Bluegrass and Beyond|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14 years old, his father, aged 58, died of [[myasthenia gravis]]. Hunter and his brothers, Davison Wheeler (born June 18, 1940) and James Garnet (February 2, 1949 – March 25, 1993),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11188338 |title=James Garnet Thompson |publisher=Find A Grave |date=2005-06-17 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref> were raised by their mother. (Hunter also had a much older half-brother, James Thompson, Jr., from his father's first marriage. James, Jr. was not part of the Thompson household.)
Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and is described as having become a "heavy drinker" following her husband's death.<ref name="whitmer"/><ref>{{cite web|author=Hunter S Thompson Biography and Notes |url=http://www.biblio.com/hunter-s-thompson~142810~author |title=Books by Hunter S. Thompson - biography and notes |publisher=Biblio.com |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
===Education===
Interested in sports and athletically inclined from a young age, Thompson joined Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club, a [[club]] for adolescents that prepared them for [[Amateur sports|high-school sports]], and excelled in [[Amateur baseball in the United States|baseball]], though he never joined any sports teams in high school, where he was often in trouble.<ref name="whitmer"/>
Thompson attended I. N. Bloom Elementary School, [[Highland Middle School (Louisville, Kentucky)|Highland Middle School]], and [[Atherton High School]], before transferring to [[Louisville Male High School]] in September 1952. Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum [[Literary society|Literary Association]], a school-sponsored literary and social club that had been founded at Male High in 1862. Its members at the time, generally drawn from Louisville's wealthy [[American upper class|upper-class]] families, included [[Porter Bibb]], who became the first publisher of ''[[Rolling Stone]]''. During this time Thompson read and adored [[JP Donleavy]]'s ''[[The Ginger Man]]''.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite news |title=Obituary: Hunter S Thompson: Colourful chronicler of American life whose 'gonzo' journalism contrived to put him always at the centre of the action |author=Eric Homberger |url= |newspaper=The Guardian |date=February 22, 2005 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles and helped edit the club's [[yearbook]] ''The Spectator''; but the group ejected Thompson in 1955, citing his legal problems.<ref name="whitmer"/> Charged as an [[Accessory (legal term)|accessory]] to [[robbery]] after being in a car with the robber, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson County]] Jail. He served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the [[United States Air Force]].<ref name="whitmer"/> Whilst he was in jail the school [[superintendent (education)|superintendent]] refused him permission to take his high school final examinations, and as a result he did not graduate.<ref name=autogenerated1 />
===Military service===
Thompson completed [[Recruit training|basic training]] at [[Lackland Air Force Base]] in [[San Antonio, Texas]], and transferred to [[Scott Air Force Base]] in [[Belleville, Illinois]] to study [[electronics]]. He applied to become an aviator, but was rejected by the Air Force's [[Military aviation|aviation]]-[[cadet]] program. In 1956, he transferred to [[Eglin Air Force Base]] near [[Fort Walton Beach, Florida]]. While serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at [[Florida State University]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Thompson, Hunter S.|url=http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-03546.html|work=American National Biography Online|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> At Eglin, he landed his first professional writing job as [[Sports Journalism|sports editor]] of the ''The Command Courier'' by lying about his job experience. In this capacity, he covered the Eglin Eagles, a [[American football|football]] team that included future professional players [[Bart Starr]], [[Max McGee]] and [[Zeke Bratkowski]]. Thompson traveled with the team around the US, covering its games. In early 1957, he wrote a sports column for ''[[Northwest Florida Daily News|The Playground News]]'', a local newspaper in [[Fort Walton Beach, Florida]]. He could not use his name on the column because the Air Force did not allow airmen to hold other jobs.<ref name="whitmer"/>
Thompson was discharged from the Air Force in June 1958 as an [[Airman First Class]], having been recommended for an early [[honorable discharge]] by his commanding officer. "In summary, this airman, although talented, will not be guided by policy", Col. William S. Evans, chief of information services wrote to the Eglin personnel office. "Sometimes his rebel and superior attitude seems to rub off on other airmen staff members."<ref>{{cite book |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=WHmc5IJaeC0C&pg=PA28 |page=28 |last=Perry |first=Paul |title=Fear and Loathing: The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson |publisher=Da Capo Press |year=2004 |isbn=1560256052 |edition=2}}</ref>
===Early journalism career===
After the Air Force, he worked as sports editor for a newspaper in [[Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania]]<ref name="songsdoomed">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | year=2002 | title= Songs of the Doomed | edition=Reprint|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]] | isbn=0-7432-4099-5 | pages = 29–32}}</ref> before relocating to New York City. There he attended the [[Columbia University School of General Studies]] part-time on the [[G.I. Bill]], taking classes in [[creative writing]].<ref name="proudway">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | editor = Douglas Brinkley | year=1998 | title= The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman | edition=1st|publisher=[[Ballantine Books]] | isbn=0-345-37796-6 | page = 139}}</ref>
During this time he worked briefly for ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]],'' as a [[gofer|copy boy]] for $51 a week. While working, he used a typewriter to copy [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' and [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s ''[[A Farewell to Arms]]'' in order to learn about the writing styles of the authors. In 1959, ''Time'' fired him for [[insubordination]].<ref name="proudway"/> Later that year, he worked as a reporter for ''[[Times Herald-Record|The Middletown Daily Record]]'' in [[Middletown, Orange County, New York|Middletown]], [[New York]]. He was fired from this job after damaging an office [[Vending machine|candy machine]] and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.<ref name="proudway"/>
In 1960, Thompson moved to [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]], to take a job with the sporting magazine ''El Sportivo,'' which folded soon after his arrival. Thompson applied for a job with the Puerto Rico English-language daily ''[[The San Juan Star]]'', but its managing editor, future novelist [[William J. Kennedy]], turned him down. Nonetheless, the two became friends and after the demise of ''El Sportivo'', Thompson worked as a [[stringer (journalism)|stringer]] for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'' and a few stateside papers on Caribbean issues with Kennedy working as his editor.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hunter S. Thompson: 'Proud Highway' (audio)|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1038689|publisher=NPR|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=7 August 1997}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=William Kennedy Biography|url=http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/wjkennedybio.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> After returning to the States, Hunter [[hitchhiking|hitchhiked]] across the United States along [[U.S. Route 40|U.S. Hwy 40]], eventually ending up in [[Big Sur, California]] working as a [[security guard]] and [[property caretaker|caretaker]] at the Big Sur [[hot spring]]s for an eight-month period in 1961, just before it became the [[Esalen Institute]]. While there, he was able to publish his first magazine feature in the nationally distributed ''[[Rogue (magazine)|Rogue]]'' magazine on the [[artisan]] and [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] culture of Big Sur. Thompson had had a rocky tenure as caretaker of the hot springs, and the unwanted publicity generated from the article finally got him fired.
During this period, Thompson wrote two novels, ''[[Prince Jellyfish]]'' and ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'', and submitted many [[short story|short stories]] to publishers with little success. ''The Rum Diary'', which fictionalized Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was eventually published in 1998, long after Thompson had become famous.
From May 1962 to May 1963, Thompson traveled to South America as a correspondent for a [[Dow Jones & Company|Dow Jones]]-owned weekly newspaper, the ''[[National Observer (USA)|National Observer]]''. In [[Brazil]], he spent several months working also as a reporter on the ''[[Brazil Herald]]'', the country's only English-language [[Newspaper#Types|daily]], published in [[Rio de Janeiro]]. His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (aka Sandy Conklin Thompson, now Sondi Wright) later joined him in Rio.
Thompson and Conklin were married on May 19, 1963, shortly after they returned to the United States. They briefly relocated to [[Aspen, Colorado]], and had one son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, born March 23, 1964. The couple conceived five more times together. Three of the pregnancies were [[miscarriage|miscarried]], and the other two pregnancies produced infants who died shortly after birth. Hunter and Sandy divorced in 1980 but remained close friends until Thompson's death.
Writing to a friend in November 1963, Thompson first used what would become his well-known phrase "fear and loathing" to describe how he felt at the assassination of President [[John F Kennedy]].<ref name=autogenerated1 />
In 1964, the Thompson family then moved to [[Glen Ellen, California]], where Thompson continued to write for the ''National Observer'' on an array of domestic subjects, including a story about his 1964 visit to [[Ketchum, Idaho]], in order to investigate the reasons for [[Ernest Hemingway]]'s [[Ernest Hemingway#Suicide|suicide]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Brinkley|first=Douglas|title=The Final Days at Owl Farm|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7092353/the_final_days_at_owl_farm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20071018060554/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7092353/the_final_days_at_owl_farm|archivedate=2007-10-18|work=Rolling Stone|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=10 March 2005}}</ref> While working on the story, Thompson symbolically stole a pair of [[elk]] antlers hanging above the front door of Hemingway's cabin. Thompson and the editors at the ''Observer'' eventually had a falling out after the paper refused to print Thompson's review of [[Tom Wolfe]]'s 1965 essay collection ''[[The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby]]'',<ref>Brinkley, Douglas or Sadler, Shelby. {{cite book |
last=Thompson |
first=Hunter |
editor =Douglas Brinkley |
year=2000 |
title= Fear and Loathing in America |
edition=1st |
publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |
isbn=0-684-87315-X |
page = 784}} Introduction to letter to Tom Wolfe, p.43.</ref> and he moved to [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]], immersing himself in the [[drug culture|drug]] and [[hippie|hippie culture]] that was [[History of San Francisco, California#Counterculture|taking root in the area]]. About this time. he began writing for the [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] [[Underground press|underground paper]] ''The Spyder''.<ref>{{cite web|last=Louison|first=Cole|title=This is skag folks, pure skag: Hunter Thompson|url=http://www.ithaca.edu/buzzsaw/archive_skag.htm|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20060903032602/http://www.ithaca.edu/buzzsaw/archive_skag.htm|archivedate=2006-09-03|work=Buzzsaw Haircut|publisher=Ithaca.edu|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref>
===''Hell's Angels''===
{{See also|Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs}}
In 1965, [[Carey McWilliams (journalist)|Carey McWilliams]], editor of ''[[The Nation]]'', offered Thompson the opportunity to write a story based on his experience with the California-based [[Hells Angels]] [[Outlaw motorcycle club|motorcycle club]]. After ''The Nation'' published the article (May 17, 1965), Thompson received several book offers and spent the next year living and riding with the Hell's Angels. The relationship broke down when the bikers concluded that Thompson was exploiting them for his personal gain. The gang demanded a share of the profits from his writings and after an argument at a party Thompson ended up with a savage beating, or "stomping" as the Angels referred to it. [[Random House]] published the hard cover ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' in 1966, and the fight between Thompson and the Angels was well-marketed. [[CBC Television]] went as far as broadcasting an encounter between Thompson and Hells Angel Skip Workman, all before a live studio audience.<ref>{{cite web|title=RetroBites: Hunter S. Thompson & Hell's Angels (1967)|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo|work=Youtube|publisher=CBC|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref>
A reviewer for ''[[The New York Times]]'' praised it as an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating and excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not so much as dropouts from society but as total misfits, or unfits — emotionally, intellectually and educationally unfit to achieve the rewards, such as they are, that the contemporary [[social order]] offers." The reviewer also praised Thompson as a "spirited, witty, observant and original writer; his [[prose]] crackles like motorcycle exhaust."<ref name="nytimes">Fremont-Smith, Eliot (February 23, 1967) "Books of The Times; Motorcycle Misfits—Fiction and Fact." ''The New York Times'', p.33.</ref>
[[File:318 Parnassus Ave San Francisco.jpg|thumb|upright|Thompson's residence during the ''Hell's Angels'' period, 318 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco.]]
Following the success of ''Hells Angels'', Thompson was able to publish articles in a number of well-known magazines during the late 1960s, including ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', ''[[Pageant (magazine)|Pageant]]'', and ''[[Harper's]]''. In the ''Times Magazine'' article, published in 1967, shortly before the "[[Summer of Love]]", and entitled "The Hashbury is the Capital of the Hippies", Thompson wrote in-depth about the [[History of the hippie movement|Hippies]] of San Francisco, deriding a culture that began to lack the political convictions of the [[New Left]] and the artistic core of the [[beat generation|Beats]], instead becoming overrun with newcomers lacking any purpose other than obtaining [[Psychedelic drug|drugs]].<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. "The Hashbury Is the Capital of the Hippie", ''The New York Times Magazine'' May 17, 1967</ref> It was an observation on [[Counterculture of the 1960s|the 1960s' counterculture]] that Thompson would further examine in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' and other articles.
In early 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>“Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” January 30, 1968 ''New York Post''</ref> According to Thompson's letters and his later writings, at this time he planned to write a book called ''The Joint Chiefs'' about "the death of the [[American Dream]]." He used a $6,000 advance from [[Random House]] to travel on the 1968 Presidential campaign trail and attend the [[1968 Democratic Convention]] in [[Chicago]] for research purposes. From his hotel room in Chicago, Thompson watched the clashes between police and protesters, which he wrote had a great effect on his political views. The planned book was never finished, but the theme of the death of the American dream would be carried over into his later work, and the contract with Random House was eventually fulfilled with the 1972 book ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.<ref name="Thompson 2001 784">{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | year=2001 | title= Fear and Loathing in America | edition=2nd | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | isbn=978-0-684-87316-9 | page = 784}}</ref>
Thompson also signed a deal with [[Ballantine Books]] in 1968 to write a satirical book called ''The Johnson File'' about [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]. A few weeks after the contract was signed, however, Johnson announced that he would not stand for re-election, and the deal was canceled.<ref name="Thompson 2001 784"/>
By late 1967, Thompson and his family moved back to Colorado and rented a house in [[Woody Creek, Colorado|Woody Creek]], a small mountain hamlet outside Aspen. In early 1969, Thompson finally received a $15,000 royalty check for the paperback sales of ''Hells Angels'' and used two-thirds of the money for a down payment on a modest home and property where he would live for the rest of his life.<ref>{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | year=2006 | title= Fear and Loathing in America | edition=Paperback | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | isbn=978-0-684-87316-9 | page = 784}}</ref> He named the house Owl Farm and often described it as his "fortified compound."
==Middle years==
{{See also|The Battle of Aspen}}
In 1970, Thompson ran for [[Sheriffs in the United States|sheriff]] of [[Pitkin County, Colorado]], as part of a group of citizens running for local offices on the [[The Battle of Aspen|"Freak Power"]] ticket. The platform included promoting the [[Drug liberalization|decriminalization of drugs]] (for personal use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of [[Profiteering (business)|profiteering]]), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy [[pedestrian mall]]s, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to deter investors. Thompson, having shaved his head, referred to the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] candidate as "my long-haired opponent", as he wore a [[crew cut]].
With polls showing him with a slight lead in a three-way race, Thompson appeared at ''Rolling Stone'' magazine headquarters in San Francisco with a six-pack of beer in hand and declared to editor [[Jann Wenner]] that he was about to be elected the next sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and wished to write about the Freak Power movement.<ref name=interviews1976>{{cite journal|journal=New Times|date=10 December 1970|year=1970|month=December|url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> Thus, Thompson's first article in ''Rolling Stone'' was published as ''[[The Battle of Aspen]]'' with the byline "By: Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Candidate for Sheriff)." Despite the publicity, Thompson ended up narrowly losing the election. While actually carrying the city of Aspen, he garnered only 44% of the county-wide vote in what became a two-way race as the Republican candidate for sheriff agreed to withdraw from the contest a few days before the election in order to consolidate the anti-Thompson votes, in return for the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] withdrawing their candidate for county commissioner. Thompson later remarked that the ''Rolling Stone'' article mobilized his opposition far more than his supporters.<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. (2003) ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'' Simon & Schuster. p.95.</ref>
===Birth of Gonzo===
{{Main|Gonzo journalism}}
Also in 1970, Thompson wrote an article entitled ''[[The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved]]'' for the short-lived [[new journalism]] magazine ''[[Scanlan's Monthly]]''. Although it was not widely read at the time, the article is the first of Thompson's to use techniques of [[Gonzo journalism]], a style he would later employ in almost every literary endeavor. The manic [[First-person narrative|first-person]] subjectivity of the story was reportedly the result of sheer desperation; he was facing a looming deadline and started sending the magazine pages ripped out of his notebook. [[Ralph Steadman]], who would later collaborate with Thompson on several projects, contributed [[expressionism|expressionist]] pen-and-ink illustrations.
The first use of the word ''Gonzo'' to describe Thompson's work is credited to the journalist [[Bill Cardoso]]. Cardoso had first met Thompson on a bus full of journalists covering the [[New Hampshire primary#1968|1968 New Hampshire primary]]. In 1970, Cardoso (who, by this time had become the editor of ''[[The Boston Globe]] Sunday Magazine'') wrote to Thompson praising the "Kentucky Derby" piece in ''Scanlan's Monthly'' as a breakthrough: "This is it, this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling." Thompson took to the word right away, and according to illustrator Ralph Steadman said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo."<ref name=cardoso-obit>{{cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|title=Bill Cardoso, 68, Editor Who Coined 'Gonzo', Is Dead|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/national/16cardoso.html?_r=1&ei=5088&en=c7b5fe5f62a5d95e&ex=1300165200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=16 March 2006}}</ref> Thompson's first published use of the word Gonzo appears in a passage in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'': "Free Enterprise. The [[American Dream]]. [[Horatio Alger]] gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it ''now'': pure Gonzo journalism."
===''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''===
{{Main|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas}}
The book for which Thompson gained most of his fame had its genesis during the research for ''[[Strange Rumblings in Aztlan]]'', an exposé for ''Rolling Stone'' on the 1970 killing of the [[Mexican American|Mexican-American]] television journalist [[Rubén Salazar]]. Salazar had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the [[Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department]] during the [[Chicano Moratorium|National Chicano Moratorium March]] against the [[Vietnam War]]. One of Thompson's sources for the story was [[Oscar Zeta Acosta]], a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Finding it difficult to talk in the racially tense atmosphere of [[Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles]], Thompson and Acosta decided to travel to [[Las Vegas]], and take advantage of an assignment by ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'' to write a 250-word photograph caption on the [[Mint 400]] motorcycle race held there.
What was to be a short caption quickly grew into something else entirely. Thompson first submitted to ''Sports Illustrated'' a manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." ''Rolling Stone'' publisher [[Jann Wenner]] was said to have liked "the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it", Thompson later wrote.<ref>{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Hunter | authorlink=Hunter Thompson | year=1979 | title= The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time | edition=1st | publisher=[[Summit Books]] | isbn=0-671-40046-0 | pages = 105–109}}</ref>
The result of the trip to Las Vegas became the 1971 book ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' which first appeared in the November 1971 issues of ''Rolling Stone'' as a two-part series. It is written as a first-person account by a journalist named [[Raoul Duke]] on a trip to Las Vegas with [[Oscar Zeta Acosta|Dr. Gonzo]], his "300-pound [[Samoans|Samoan]] attorney", to cover a [[Prohibition (drugs)|narcotics officers]]' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400". During the trip, Duke and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") become sidetracked by a search for the [[American Dream]], with "...two bags of [[cannabis (drug)|grass]], seventy-five pellets of [[mescaline]], five sheets of high-powered [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|blotter acid]], a salt shaker half full of [[cocaine]], and a whole galaxy of multi-colored [[Amphetamine|uppers]], [[Barbiturates|downers]], [[Methamphetamine|screamers]], [[Nitrous Oxide|laughers]] [...] and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw [[Diethyl ether|ether]], and two dozen [[amyl nitrite|amyls]]."
Coming to terms with the failure of the 1960s [[counterculture|countercultural movement]] is a major theme of the novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical acclaim, including being heralded by ''[[The New York Times]]'' as "by far the best book yet written on the decade of dope".<ref>{{cite news|last=Woods|first=Crawford|title='Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/23/books/thompson-1972-vegar.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=23 July 1972}}</ref> "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to it, was a mainstream success and introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
===''Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72''===
{{Main|Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72}}
Within the next year, Thompson wrote extensively for ''Rolling Stone'' while covering the [[U.S. presidential election, 1972|election campaigns]] of President [[Richard Nixon]] and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator [[George McGovern]]. The articles were soon combined and published as ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''. As the title suggests, Thompson spent nearly all of his time traveling the "campaign trail", focusing largely on the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]]'s primaries (Nixon, as an [[incumbent]], performed little campaign work) in which McGovern competed with rival candidates [[Edmund Muskie]] and [[Hubert Humphrey]]. Thompson was an early supporter of McGovern and wrote unflattering coverage of the rival campaigns in the increasingly widely read ''Rolling Stone''.
Thompson went on to become a fierce critic of Nixon, both during and after his presidency. After Nixon's death in 1994, Thompson famously described him in ''Rolling Stone'' as a man who "could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time" and said "his casket [should] have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. [He] was an evil man—evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the [[Devil]] can understand it."<ref>Thompson, Hunter S. (June 15, 1994) [http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=1507 ''He Was A Crook''] Rolling Stone{{dead link|date=August 2012}}</ref> Following Nixon's pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974, Hunter ruminated on the approximately $400,000 pension Nixon manoeuvred his way into by resigning before being formally indicted. While the ''Washington Post'' was lamenting Nixon's "lonely and depressed" state after being forced from the White House, Hunter wrote that '[i]f there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his [Nixon's] rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.'<ref>{{cite book|author=Thompson, Hunter S|title=Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S Thompson|published=2011|page=337}}</ref> There was however one passion shared by Thompson and Nixon: a love of football, discussed in ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]]''.
Thompson was to provide ''Rolling Stone'' similar coverage for the [[United States presidential election, 1976|1976 Presidential Campaign]] that would appear in a book published by the magazine. Reportedly, as Thompson was waiting for a $75,000 advance cheque to arrive, he learned that ''Rolling Stone'' publisher Jann Wenner had pulled the plug on the endeavor without telling Thompson.<ref name="interviews1976"/>
Wenner then asked Thompson to travel to [[Vietnam]] to report on what appeared to be the closing of the [[Vietnam War]]. Thompson accepted, and left for [[Saigon]] immediately. He arrived with the country in chaos, just as the United States was [[Fall of Saigon|preparing to evacuate]] and other journalists were scrambling to find transportation out of the region. While there, Thompson learned that Wenner had pulled the plug on this excursion as well, and Thompson found himself in Vietnam without health insurance or additional financial support. Thompson's story about the fall of Saigon would not be published in ''Rolling Stone'' until ten years later.<ref name="interviews1976"/>
These two incidents severely strained the relationship between the author and the magazine, and Thompson contributed far less to the publication in later years.
==Later years==
The year 1980 marked both his divorce from Sandra Conklin and the release of ''[[Where the Buffalo Roam]]'', a loose film adaptation of situations from Thompson's early 1970s work, with [[Bill Murray]] starring as the author. Murray would go on to become one of Thompson's trusted friends. After the lukewarm reception of the film, Thompson temporarily relocated to [[Hawaii]] to work on a book, ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', a Gonzo-style account of a marathon held in that state. Extensively illustrated by [[Ralph Steadman]], the piece first appeared in ''Running'' magazine in 1981 as "The Charge of the Weird Brigade" and was excerpted in ''[[Playboy]]'' in 1983.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.gonzo.org/books/cl/ |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — Books — The Curse of Lono |publisher=Gonzo.org |date= |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref>
On July 21, 1981, in Aspen, Colorado, Thompson was pulled over for running a stop sign at 2 a.m., and began to "rave" at a state trooper. He also refused to submit to intoxication tests. Consequently he was arrested, but the drunk-driving charges against him were later dropped.
In 1983, he covered the [[Invasion of Grenada|U.S. invasion of Grenada]] but would not discuss these experiences until the publication of ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'' 20 years later. Later that year he authored a piece for ''Rolling Stone'' called "A Dog Took My Place", an exposé of the scandalous [[Roxanne Pulitzer]] divorce and what he termed the "[[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] lifestyle." The article contained dubious insinuations of [[bestiality]] (among other things) but was considered to be a return to proper form by many.
Shortly thereafter, Thompson accepted an advance to write about "couples pornography" for ''Playboy''. As part of his research, in the spring of 1985 he spent evenings at the [[Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater]] [[striptease club]] in San Francisco and his experience there eventually evolved into a full-length novel tentatively titled ''The Night Manager.'' Neither the novel nor the article has been published.
At the behest of old friend and editor [[Warren Hinckle]], Thompson became a media critic for the ''[[San Francisco Examiner]]'' from the mid-1980s until the end of that decade. Thompson's editor at the Examiner, David McCumber (who would write a [[Mitchell brothers]] biography not long after Jim Mitchell fatally shot his brother Art in 1991), was reportedly deeply disappointed in the quality of Thompson's Examiner columns.
In 1990, former porn director [[Gail Palmer]] visited Thompson's home in Woody Creek. She later accused him of sexual assault, claiming that he twisted her breast when she refused to join him in the hot tub. She also described cocaine use to authorities. A six person 11 hour search of Thompson's home turned up various kinds of drugs and a few sticks of [[dynamite]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Johnson|first=Dirk|title=Aspen Journal; New Fear and Loathing: Gonzo Writer on Trial|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/22/us/aspen-journal-new-fear-and-loathing-gonzo-writer-on-trial.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 May 1990}}</ref> All charges were dismissed after a pre-trial hearing. Thompson would later describe this experience at length in ''Kingdom of Fear''.
By the early 1990s, Thompson was said to be working on a novel called ''[[Polo Is My Life]]'', which was briefly excerpted in ''Rolling Stone'' in 1994, and which Thompson himself described in 1996 as "...a sex book — you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll. It's about the manager of a sex theater who's forced to leave and flee to the mountains. He falls in love and gets in even more trouble than he was in the sex theater in San Francisco".<ref name="fargone">{{cite web|last=T.|first=Marlene|title=Transcript of Hunter S. Thompson Interview|url=http://www.fargonebooks.com/hunter.html|work=The Book Report|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> The novel was slated to be released by [[Random House]] in 1999, and was even assigned ISBN 0-679-40694-8, but was not published.
Thompson continued to contribute irregularly to ''Rolling Stone''. "Fear and Loathing in Elko", published in 1992, was a well-received fictional rallying cry against [[Clarence Thomas]], while "Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely non-fictional account of an interview with [[Bill Clinton]] in an [[Arkansas]] diner. Rather than embarking on the campaign trail as he had done in previous presidential elections, Thompson monitored the proceedings from cable television; ''[[Better Than Sex (book)|Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie]],'' his account of the [[1992 Presidential Election]] campaign, is composed of reactionary faxes sent to ''Rolling Stone''. A decade later, he contributed "Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004"—an account of a road jaunt with [[John Kerry]] during his presidential campaign that would be Thompson's final magazine feature.
Thompson was named a [[Kentucky Colonel]] by the Governor of [[Kentucky]] in a December 1996 tribute ceremony where he also received keys to the city of Louisville.<ref>{{cite web|author=Whitehead, Ron|title=''Hunter S. Thompson, Kentucky Colonel''|work=''Reykjaviks Magazine''|date=March 11, 2005|url=http://www.grapevine.is/Home/ReadArticle/Hunter-S-Thompson-1937-2005}}</ref>
===''The Gonzo Papers''===
Despite publishing a novel and numerous newspaper and magazine articles, the majority of Thompson's literary output after the late 1970s took the form of a 4-volume series of books called ''[[The Gonzo Papers]]''. Beginning with ''[[The Great Shark Hunt]]'' in 1979 and ending with ''[[Better Than Sex (book)|Better Than Sex]]'' in 1994, the series is largely a collection of rare newspaper and magazine pieces from the pre-gonzo period, along with almost all of his ''Rolling Stone'' short pieces, excerpts from the ''Fear and Loathing...'' books, and so on.
By the late 1970s, Thompson received complaints from critics, fans and friends that he was regurgitating his past glories without much new on his part;<ref>{{cite interview|url=http://www.gonzo.org/hst/interviews.asp?ID=10 |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — HST & Friends — Rolling Stone College Papers 1980 |publisher=Gonzo.org |date=1999-04-14 |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref> these concerns are alluded to in the introduction of ''[[The Great Shark Hunt]],'' where Thompson suggested that his "old self" committed suicide.
Perhaps in response to this, as well as the strained relationship with ''Rolling Stone,'' and the failure of his marriage, Thompson became more reclusive after 1980. He would often retreat to his compound in Woody Creek and reject assignments or refuse to complete them. Despite the dearth of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the ''Rolling Stone'' [[masthead (publishing)|masthead]] as chief of the "National Affairs Desk", a position he would hold until his death.
===''Fear and Loathing'' redux===
Thompson's work was popularized again with the 1998 release of the film ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]'', which opened to considerable fanfare. The book was reprinted to coincide with the film, and Thompson's work was introduced to a new generation of readers.
Soon thereafter, Thompson's "long lost" novel ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'' was published, as were the first two volumes of his [[#Letters|collected letters]], which were greeted with critical acclaim.
In July 2000, he shot his then assistant Deborah Fuller and told reporters she'd been wounded because he had "mistaken her for a bear".<ref>{{cite news |title=Interview: More Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail |author=ROBERT CHALMERS |url= |newspaper=Independent on Sunday |date=October 31, 2004 |accessdate=25 June 2012}}</ref>
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, ''[[Kingdom of Fear (book)|Kingdom of Fear]]'', was a combination of new material, selected newspaper clippings, and some older works. Released in 2003, it was perceived by critics to be an angry, vitriolic commentary on the passing of the [[American Century]] and the state of affairs after the September 2001 attacks.
Hunter married his longtime assistant, Anita Bejmuk, on April 23, 2003.
Thompson completed his journalism career in the same way it had begun: writing about sports. Thompson penned a weekly column called "Hey, Rube" for [[ESPN]].com's "[[Page 2]]". The column ran from 2000 until his death in 2005. [[Simon & Schuster]] bundled many of the columns from the first few years and released it in mid-2004 as ''[[Hey Rube (book)|Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness]]''.
==Death==
Thompson died at his "fortified compound" known as "Owl Farm" in [[Woody Creek, Colorado]], at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a [[suicide|self-inflicted]] [[gunshot wound]] to the head.
Thompson's son (Juan), daughter-in-law (Jennifer) and grandson (Will) were visiting for the weekend at the time of his suicide. Will and Jennifer were in the adjacent room when they heard the gunshot. Mistaking the shot for the sound of a book falling, they continued with their activities for a few minutes before checking on him. The police report concerning his death stated that in a typewriter in front of Thompson, they found "a piece of paper carrying the date 'Feb 22 '05' and the single word 'counselor'."<ref>{{cite web | title = Citizen Thompson — Police report of death scene reveals gonzo journalist's "rosebud" | author = | url = http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/citizen-thompson | publisher = [[The Smoking Gun]] | date = 2005-09-08 | accessdate = 2008-10-13}}</ref>
They reported to the press that they do not believe his suicide was out of desperation, but was a premeditated act resulting from Thompson's many painful and chronic medical conditions, which included a hip replacement. Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, who was at The Aspen Club at the time of her husband's death, was on the phone with him as he cocked the gun. According to the ''Aspen Daily News'', before setting the receiver on the counter, he asked her to come home to help him write his ESPN column. Mistaking the sound of the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys, she hung up as he fired the gun. Juan Thompson found his father's body after hearing the gunshot. According to police reports and Anita Thompson's cell phone records,<ref>{{cite web|title=Combined Records Department—Law Incident Table|url=http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/citizen-thompson|publisher=The Smoking Gun|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 March 2005}}</ref> he called the sheriff a half hour later. Juan Thompson then walked outside the Woody Creek home and fired three shotgun blasts into the air as police were driving to the scene.
"Juan told me he had shot a shotgun into the air to mark the passing of his father," Pitkin County Deputy Sheriff John Armstrong said in his report.
What Doug Brinkley describes as a suicide note written by Thompson to his wife, Anita Thompson, was later published by ''Rolling Stone'' in the September issue #983. Titled "Football Season Is Over", it read:
: "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your (old) age. Relax — This won't hurt."<ref>{{cite web | title = Football Season Is Over Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's final note . . . Entering the no more fun zone | author = Douglas Brinkley | url = http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7605448/football_season_is_over | archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20080619074031/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7605448/football_season_is_over | archivedate = 2008-06-19 | publisher = Rolling Stone | date = 2005-09-08 | accessdate = 2008-10-13}}</ref>
Artist and friend [[Ralph Steadman]] wrote:
: "...He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you wonder if he's gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one [[Richard Nixon|Richard Milhous Nixon]] went to — and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too — and Peacocks..."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ralphsteadman.com/04frmrlph2.asp?entry_id=79|author=Steadman, Ralph|date=February 2005|work=Ralphsteadman.com|title="Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005"}accessdate=March 19, 2005.</ref>
===Funeral===
On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon to the tune of [[Norman Greenbaum]]'s "[[Spirit in the Sky]]" and [[Bob Dylan]]'s "[[Mr. Tambourine Man]]."<ref name="editorandpublisher1">{{cite web|author=Up for Discussion Jump to Forums |url=http://www.billboard.com/news/hot-product-1001018730.story#/news/hot-product-1001018730.story |title=Hunter Thompson Blown Sky High |publisher=Billboard.com |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}{{dead link|date=February 2011}}</ref> The cannon was placed atop a {{convert|153|ft|m|sing=on}} tower of his own design, in the shape of a [[:File:Gonzo.svg|double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button]] originally used in Hunter S. Thompson's 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. Red, white, blue, and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. According to his widow Anita, Thompson's funeral was financed by actor [[Johnny Depp]], a close friend of Thompson. Depp told the ''[[Associated Press]]'', "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."<ref name="editorandpublisher1"/>
Other famous attendees at the funeral included [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] [[John Kerry]]<ref name="Brooks">Patricia Brooks, Jonathan Brooks, ''Laid to Rest in California: A Guide to the Cemeteries and Grave SItes of the Rich and Famous'' (2006), p. 321.</ref> and former U.S. Senator [[George McGovern]];<ref name="Brooks"/> ''[[60 Minutes]]'' correspondents [[Ed Bradley]] and [[Charlie Rose]]; actors [[Jack Nicholson]], [[John Cusack]], [[Bill Murray]], [[Benicio del Toro]], [[Sean Penn]], and [[Josh Hartnett]]; singers [[Lyle Lovett]], [[John Oates]] and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.
The plans for this monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Steadman and were shown as part of an ''[[Omnibus (TV series)|Omnibus]]'' program on the [[BBC]] entitled ''[[Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood|Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision]]'' (1978). It is included as a special feature on the second disc of the 2003 [[Criterion Collection]] DVD release of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' labeled on the DVD as ''Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood''.
==Legacy==
===Writing style===
{{Main|Gonzo journalism}}
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of writing that blurs distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. His work and style are considered to be a major part of the [[New Journalism]] literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free from the purely objective style of mainstream reportage of the time. Thompson almost always wrote in the [[first person narrative|first person]], while extensively using his own experiences and emotions to color "the story" he was trying to follow. His writing aimed to be humorous, colorful and bizarre, and he often exaggerated events to be more entertaining.
The term Gonzo has since been applied in kind to numerous other forms of highly subjective artistic expression.
Despite his having personally described his work as "Gonzo", it fell to later observers to articulate what the term actually meant. While Thompson's approach clearly involved injecting himself as a participant in the events of the narrative, it also involved adding invented, metaphoric elements, thus creating, for the uninitiated reader, a seemingly confusing amalgam of facts and fiction notable for the deliberately blurred lines between one and the other. Thompson, in a 1974 Interview in ''[[Playboy]]'' addressed the issue himself, saying "Unlike Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese, I almost never try to reconstruct a story. They’re both much better reporters than I am, but then, I don’t think of myself as a reporter." [[Tom Wolfe]] would later describe Thompson's style as "...part journalism and part personal memoir admixed with powers of wild invention and wilder rhetoric."<ref name="wolfetom">{{cite news|last=Wolfe|first=Tom|title=As Gonzo in Life as in His Work|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20050222142331/http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006325|archivedate=2005-02-22|accessdate=3 August 2012|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=22 February 2005}}</ref> Or as one description of the differences between Thompson and Wolfe's styles would elaborate, "While Tom Wolfe mastered the technique of being a fly on the wall, Thompson mastered the art of being a [[fly in the ointment]]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345396358.html |title=Better Than Sex by Hunter S. Thompson - Trade Paperback |publisher=Random House |date=1995-08-22 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
The majority of Thompson's most popular and acclaimed work appeared within the pages of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Along with [[Joe Eszterhas]] and David Felton, Thompson was instrumental in expanding the focus of the magazine past music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer of the epoch never to contribute a music feature to the magazine. Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a wide array of pop music references ranging from [[Howlin' Wolf]] to [[Lou Reed]]. Armed with early [[fax]] machines wherever he went, he became notorious for haphazardly sending sometimes illegible material to the magazine's San Francisco offices as an issue was about to go to press.
Robert Love, Thompson's editor of 23 years at ''Rolling Stone'', wrote that "the dividing line between fact and fancy rarely blurred, and we didn’t always use italics or some other typographical device to indicate the lurch into the fabulous. But if there were living, identifiable humans in a scene, we took certain steps....Hunter was close friends with many prominent Democrats, veterans of the ten or more presidential campaigns he covered, so when in doubt, we’d call the press secretary. 'People will believe almost any twisted kind of story about politicians or Washington,' he once said, and he was right."
Discerning the line between the fact and the fiction of Thompson's work presented a practical problem for editors and fact-checkers of his work. Love called fact-checking Thompson's work "one of the sketchiest occupations ever created in the publishing world", and "for the first-timer ... a trip through a journalistic fun house, where you didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. You knew you had better learn enough about the subject at hand to know when the riff began and reality ended. Hunter was a stickler for numbers, for details like gross weight and model numbers, for lyrics and [[caliber]], and there was no faking it."<ref name="love-cjr">Love, Robert. (May–June 2005) {{cite web |url=https://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/132678871.html |title=''A Technical Guide For Editing Gonzo''|year=2005|month=May–June |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080126234542/http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/3/hst.asp |archivedate=2008-01-26|work=Columbia Journalism Review.|accessdate=2009-03-18}}</ref>
===Persona===
{{Main|Raoul Duke}}
Thompson often used a blend of fiction and fact when portraying himself in his writing as well, sometimes using the name [[Raoul Duke]] as an [[author surrogate]] whom he generally described as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly drank alcohol and took hallucinogenic drugs. Fantasizing about causing bodily harm to others was also a characteristic in his work used to comedic effect and an example of his brand of humor.
In the late sixties, Thompson acquired his famous [[Honorary degree|title of]] "Doctor" from the [[Universal Life Church]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gonzo.org/hst/hst.asp?ID=0 |title=The Great Thompson Hunt — HST & Friends — Who Is (Dr.) Hunter S. Thompson? |publisher=Gonzo.org |date= |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref> He later preferred to be called Dr. Thompson, and his "alter-ego" [[Raoul Duke]] called himself a "doctor of journalism". Thompson was as fond of personae as W.C. Fields: besides "Raoul Duke", Thompson also toyed with the idea of taking the names "Jefferson Rank", "Gene Skinner", and "Sebastian Owl" for various purposes literary and non-literary, naming his "compound" in Woody Creek, Colorado, "Owl Farm" after the last of these.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}
A number of critics have commented that as he grew older the line that distinguished Thompson from his literary self became increasingly blurred.<ref>{{cite news|author=Cohen, Rich|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/books/review/17COHENRE.html?pagewanted=print&position=|title=''Gonzo Nights''|work=''[[The New York Times]]''|date=April 17, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Hunter S. Thompson (2/23/05)|url=http://theopinionmill.wordpress.com/2006/12/26/hunter-s-thompson-22305|work=26 December 2006|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Clifford|first=Peggy|title=Love Song for Hunter S. Thompson/18706|url=http://www.smmirror.com/MainPages/DisplayArticleDetails.asp?eid=157|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 March 2005}}</ref> Thompson himself admitted during a 1978 BBC interview that he sometimes felt pressured to live up to the fictional self that he had created, adding "I'm never sure which one people expect me to be. Very often, they conflict — most often, as a matter of fact. ...I'm leading a normal life and right along side me there is this myth, and it is growing and mushrooming and getting more and more warped. When I get invited to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Thompson. I'm not sure who to be."<ref>{{cite web|title=Fear And Loathing In Gonzovision|url=http://thenewishjournalism.blogspot.com/2007/10/fear-and-loathing-in-gonzovision.html|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=15 October 2007}}</ref>
Thompson's writing style and eccentric persona gave him a [[cult following]] in both literary and drug circles, and his cult status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three times in major motion pictures. Hence, both his writing style and persona have been widely imitated, and his likeness has even become a popular costume choice for [[Halloween]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&hs=293&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&resnum=0&q=hunter%20s%20thompson%20halloween&spell=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi |title=Hunter S. Thompson Halloween |publisher=Images.google.com |date=2006-10-31 |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
===Political beliefs===
In the documentary ''[[Breakfast with Hunter]]'', Hunter S. Thompson is seen in several scenes wearing different [[Che Guevara]] t-shirts. Additionally, actor and friend [[Benicio del Toro]] has stated that Thompson kept a "big" [[Che Guevara (photo)|picture of Che]] in his kitchen.<ref>[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article5324264.ece Hunter S Thompson: The Movie] by Alex Gibney, ''The Sunday Times'', December 14, 2008{{dead link|date=August 2012}}</ref>
Although Thompson rarely personally endorsed political labels or programmes in his writings, in his letters he expressed affinity with the [[far left]]. In a 1965 letter to his friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the [[Industrial Workers of the World]], "I have in recent months come to have a certain feeling for [[Joe Hill]] and the Wobbly crowd who, if nothing else, had the right idea. But not the right mechanics. I believe the IWW was probably the last human concept in American politics."<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 509</ref> In another letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with [[Karl Marx]], and compared him to [[Thomas Jefferson]].<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 493</ref> In a letter to [[William Kennedy (author)|William Kennedy]], Thompson confided that he was "coming to view the [[free enterprise]] system as the single greatest evil in the history of human savagery."<ref>Hunter S Thompson ''The Proud Highway: 1955-67, Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman'', page 456</ref>
Thompson wrote passionately on behalf of [[African American]] rights and the [[African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)|African American Civil Rights Movement]].<ref>Hunter S. Thompson, ''The Great Shark Hunt'', (London 1980), page 43-51</ref> He strongly criticised the dominance in American society of, what he called, "white power structures".<ref>Hunter S. Thompson, ''The Great Shark Hunt'', (London 1980), page 44-50</ref> He was a proponent of the [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|right to bear arms]] and [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|privacy rights]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Glassie|first=John|title=Hunter S. Thompson|url=http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/02/03/thompson/index.html?pn=2|publisher=Salon|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=3 February 2003}}</ref> A member of the [[National Rifle Association]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Susman|first=Tina|title=Writer's suicide shocks friends|url=http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushunt224153856feb22,0,4715271.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20071127024140/http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushunt224153856feb22,0,4715271.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines|archivedate=2007-11-27|publisher=Newsday.com|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=22 February 2005}}</ref> Thompson was also co-creator of "The Fourth Amendment Foundation", an organization to assist victims in defending themselves against unwarranted [[search and seizure]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Higgins|first=Matt|title=The Gonzo King|url=http://hightimes.com/entertainment/mhiggins/970|publisher=High Times|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=2 September 2003}}</ref>
Part of his work with The Fourth Amendment Foundation centered around support of Lisl Auman, a [[Colorado]] woman who was sentenced for [[Life imprisonment|life]] in 1997 under [[felony murder rule|felony murder]] charges for the death of police officer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence.<ref>{{cite web|last=McMaken|first=Ryan|title=Hunter S. Thompson's Last Stand|url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcmaken/mcmaken134.html|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> Thompson organized rallies, provided legal support, and co-wrote an article in the June 2004 issue of ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' outlining the case. The [[Colorado Supreme Court]] eventually overturned Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, and Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support and publicity resulted in the successful appeal.<ref>Mosely, Matt. "Lisl Released From Tooley Hall" www.lisl.com April 26, 2006</ref>
Thompson was a [[firearm]]s and [[Explosive material|explosives]] enthusiast (in his writing and in real life) and owned a vast collection of [[handgun]]s, [[rifle]]s, [[shotgun]]s, and various [[automatic firearm|automatic]] and [[semi-automatic firearm|semi-automatic]] weapons, along with numerous forms of [[Lachrymatory agent|gaseous crowd control]] and many other homemade devices.
Thompson was also an ardent supporter of [[Drug liberalization|drug legalization]] and became known for his detailed accounts of his own [[Recreational drug use|drug use]]. He was an early supporter of the [[National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws]] and served on the group's advisory board for over 30 years, until his death.<ref>{{cite web|title=Aspen Legal Seminar|url=http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6823|accessdate=3 August 2012}}</ref> He told an interviewer in 1997 that drugs should be legalized "[a]cross the board. It might be a little rough on some people for a while, but I think it's the only way to deal with drugs. Look at [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]]: all it did was [[Rum-running#History|make a lot of criminals rich]]."<ref name="fargone"/>
After the [[September 11 attacks]], Thompson voiced skepticism regarding the [[9/11 Commission Report|official story on who was responsible for the attacks]]. He speculated to several interviewers that it may have been [[False flag|conducted by]] [[9/11 conspiracy theories|the U.S. Government or with the government's assistance]], though readily admitted he had no way to prove his theory.<ref>{{cite web|last=Bulger|first=Adam|title=The Hunter S. Thompson Interview|url=http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=287|publisher=FreezerBox|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=9 March 2004}}</ref>
In 2004, Thompson, regarding politics, wrote: "[[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil [[George W. Bush|Bush]]–[[Dick Cheney|Cheney]] gang, I would happily vote for him."<ref>{{cite web|last=Thompson|first=Hunter S.|title=Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6562575/fear_and_loathing_campaign_2004|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080709073911/http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6562575/fear_and_loathing_campaign_2004|archivedate=2008-07-09|publisher=Rolling Stone|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=24 October 2004}}</ref>
==Works==
{{Main|Hunter S. Thompson bibliography}}
===Books===
Thompson wrote a number of books, publishing from 1966 through the end of his life. His most well-known works in this field include ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|''Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'', ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'', and ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]''.
===Articles===
As a journalist over the course of decades, Thompson published numerous articles in various [[Periodical literature|periodicals]]. He wrote for many publications, including ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', ''[[The Boston Globe]]'', ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', ''[[New York Times]]'', ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', ''[[The San Juan Star]]'', and ''[[Playboy]]''. A collection of his articles for ''Rolling Stone'' was released in 2011 as ''[[Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Writings of Hunter S. Thompson]]''. The book was edited by the magazine's co-founder and publisher, [[Jann Wenner|Jann S. Wenner]], who also provided an introduction to the collection.
===Letters===
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Proudhighway.jpg|thumb|''The Proud Highway...Fear and Loathing Letters Vol. 1'']] -->
Thompson wrote many letters and they were his primary means of personal conversation. Thompson made [[carbon copy|carbon copies]] of all his letters, usually typed, a habit begun in his teenage years.
''The Fear and Loathing Letters,'' is a planned three-volume collection of selections from Thompson's correspondence, edited by the historian [[Douglas Brinkley]]. The first volume, ''The Proud Highway'' was published in 1997, and contains letters from 1955 to 1967. ''[[Fear and Loathing in America]]'' was published in 2000 and contains letters dating from 1968 to 1976. A third volume, tentatively titled ''The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977–2005'' has yet to see print.
===Illustrations===
Accompanying the eccentric and colorful writing of Hunter Thompson, illustrations by British artist [[Ralph Steadman]] offer visual representations of the Gonzo style. Steadman and Thompson developed a close friendship, and often traveled together. Though his illustrations occur in most of Thompson's books, they are conspicuously featured in full page color in Thompson's ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', set in Hawaii.
===Photography===
Thompson was an avid amateur [[photographer]] throughout his life and his photos have been exhibited since his death at art galleries in the United States and United Kingdom. In late 2006, AMMO Books published a limited-edition 224 page collection of Thompson photos called ''[[Gonzo: Photographs by Hunter S. Thompson|Gonzo]]'', with an introduction by Johnny Depp. Thompson's snapshots were a combination of the subjects he was covering, stylized self-portraits, and artistic [[still life]] photos. The ''[[London Observer]]'' called the photos "astonishingly good" and that "Thompson's pictures remind us, brilliantly in every sense, of very real people, real colours."<ref>{{cite web|last=Ferguson|first=Euan|title=Hunter gets captured by the frame|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/feb/04/photography.features|publisher=The Guardian, The Observer|accessdate=3 August 2012|date=3 February 2007}}</ref>
===Feature films===
The film ''[[Where the Buffalo Roam]]'' (1980) depicts heavily fictionalized attempts by Thompson to cover the [[Super Bowl]] and the [[U.S. presidential election, 1972|1972 U.S. presidential election]]. It stars [[Bill Murray]] as Thompson and [[Peter Boyle]] as Thompson's attorney [[Oscar Zeta Acosta]], referred to in the movie as Carl Lazlo, Esq.
[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (film)|The 1998 film adaptation]] of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' was directed by [[Monty Python]] veteran [[Terry Gilliam]], and starred [[Johnny Depp]] (who moved into Thompson's basement to "study" Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as "Hunter Thompson/Raoul Duke" and [[Benicio del Toro]] as [[Oscar Zeta Acosta|Oscar Acosta]], referred to in the movie as "Dr. Gonzo". The film has achieved something of a [[cult film|cult following]]. (Thompson himself shaved Depp's head into the bald pate that Depp sports in the film.)
[[The Rum Diary (film)|The film adaptation]] of Thompson's novel ''[[The Rum Diary (novel)|The Rum Diary]]'' was released in October 2011, starring [[Johnny Depp]] as the main character, Paul Kemp. The novel's premise was inspired by Thompson's own experiences in Puerto Rico. The film was written and directed by [[Bruce Robinson]].<ref name="rumdiaryimdb">{{cite web
| title = The Rum Diary (2011) - IMDb
| url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376136/
| accessdate = December 8, 2010}}
</ref>
At a press junket for ''The Rum Diary'' shortly before the film's release, Depp said that he would like to adapt ''[[The Curse of Lono]]'', "[[The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved]]", and ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs|Hell's Angels]]'' for the big screen: "I’d just keep playing Hunter. There’s a great comfort in it for me, because I get a great visit with my old friend who I miss dearly."<ref>{{cite web|author=By: mryan |url=http://www.movieline.com/2011/10/johnny-depp-bruce-robinson-and-co-exalt-hunter-s-thompson-while-talking-the-rum-diary.php |title=Johnny Depp, Bruce Robinson, and Co. Exalt Hunter S. Thompson While Talking The Rum Diary |publisher=Movieline |date=2011-10-28 |accessdate=2011-12-24}}</ref>
===Documentaries===
''[[Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood|Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision]]'' (1978) is an extended television profile by the [[BBC]]. It can be found on disc 2 of [[The Criterion Collection]] edition of ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.
The [[Mitchell brothers]], owners of the O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, made a documentary about Thompson in 1988 called ''Hunter S. Thompson: The Crazy Never Die''.
[[Wayne Ewing]] created three documentaries about Thompson. The film ''[[Breakfast with Hunter]]'' (2003) was directed and edited by Ewing. It documents Thompson's work on the movie ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,'' his arrest for [[drunk driving]], and his subsequent fight with the court system. ''When I Die'' (2005) is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality, and documents the send-off itself. ''Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver'' (2006) chronicles Thompson efforts in helping to free Lisl Auman, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the shooting of a police officer, a crime she didn't commit. All three films are only available online.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hunterthompsonfilms.com/ |title=Hunter Thompson Films |publisher=Hunter Thompson Films |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref>
In ''Come on Down: Searching for the American Dream''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.manifestation.tv/ |title=Manifestation.tv |publisher=Manifestation.tv |date= |accessdate=2010-07-30}}</ref> (2004) Thompson gives director Adamm Liley insight into the nature of the American Dream over drinks at the Woody Creek Tavern.
''Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film'' (2006) was directed by [[Tom Thurman]], written by Tom Marksbury, and produced by the [[Starz Entertainment Group]]. The original documentary features interviews with Thompson's inner circle of family and friends, but the thrust of the film focuses on the manner in which his life often overlapped with numerous Hollywood celebrities who became his close friends, such as [[Johnny Depp]], [[Benicio del Toro]], [[Bill Murray]], [[Sean Penn]], [[John Cusack]], Thompson's wife Anita, son Juan, former Senators [[George McGovern]] and [[Gary Hart]], writers [[Tom Wolfe]] and [[William F. Buckley, Jr.|William F. Buckley]], actors [[Gary Busey]] and [[Harry Dean Stanton]], and the illustrator [[Ralph Steadman]] among others.
''Blasted!!! The Gonzo Patriots of Hunter S. Thompson'' (2006), produced, directed, photographed and edited by Blue Kraning, is a documentary about the scores of fans who volunteered their privately owned artillery to fire the ashes of the late author, Hunter S Thompson. ''Blasted!!!'' premiered at the 2006 Starz Denver International Film Festival, part of a tribute series to Hunter S. Thompson held at the Denver Press Club.
In 2008, [[Academy Award]]-winning documentarian [[Alex Gibney]] (''[[Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room]]'', ''[[Taxi to the Dark Side]]'') wrote and directed a documentary on Thompson, entitled ''[[Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson]]''. The film premiered on January 20, 2008 at the [[Sundance Film Festival]]. Gibney uses intimate, never-before-seen home videos, interviews with friends, enemies and lovers, and clips from films adapted from Thompson's material to document his turbulent life.
===Theatre===
''GONZO: A Brutal Chrysalis'' is a one-man show about Hunter S.Thompson written by Paul Addis. Set in the writing den of Thompson's Woody Creek home, the show presents the life of Hunter during the years between 1968 and 1971. Addis played the role of Hunter.
===Accolades and tributes===
* Author [[Tom Wolfe]] has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.<ref name="wolfetom"/>
*The 2006 documentary film ''[[Fuck (film)|Fuck]]'', which features Hunter S. Thompson commenting on the usage of that word, is dedicated to his memory.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.premiere.com/Review/Movies/Fuck |title=Fuck |publisher=Premiere |date=2006-11-10 |accessdate=2009-07-13}}</ref>
*Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1,000th issue of ''Rolling Stone'', May 18 - June 1, 2006, as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word "Rolling". [[Johnny Depp]] also appeared on the cover.<ref>{{Cite news |url= http://www.rollingstone.com/music/photos/2006-rolling-stone-covers-20061214/rs-1000-1001-may-18-june-1-2006-16271508 |accessdate=2011-09-24 |title= 2006 Rolling Stone Covers; RS 1000-1001 (May 18 - June 1, 2006) |magazine= [[Rolling Stone]] |postscript= <!-- Bot inserted parameter. Either remove it; or change its value to "." for the cite to end in a ".", as necessary. -->{{inconsistent citations}} }}</ref>
*The Thompson-inspired character [[Uncle Duke]] appears on a recurring basis in ''[[Doonesbury]]'', the daily newspaper comic strip by [[Garry Trudeau]]. When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, quoted in an interview as saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7005168/ |date=2005-05-19 |title=Hunter S. Thompson dead at 67 |archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080316134223/http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/02/21/thompson.obit/index.html |archivedate=2008-03-16}}</ref> although it was reported that he liked the character in later years. Between March 7, 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide) and March 12, 2005, ''Doonesbury'' ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration". The first of these strips featured a panel with artwork similar to that of [[Ralph Steadman]], and later strips featured various [[Non sequitur (absurdism)|non sequiturs]] (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass, or people around him turning into animals) which seemed to mirror some of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs described in ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas''.
==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}
==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
*{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-journalism-no-1-hunter-s-thompson| title=Hunter S. Thompson, The Art of Journalism No. 1| author= Douglas Brinkley, Terry McDonell| work=The Paris Review| date=Fall 2000 }}
* "Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN Page 2 Archive", [http://totallygonzo.org/gonzowriting/hst-hey-rube-espn-page-2/]
* "Shotgun Golf With Bill Murray", [http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213 Thompson's final column] for [[ESPN|ESPN.com's]] ''Page 2.''
* {{IMDb name|0860219|Hunter S. Thompson}}
* A collection of articles on Thompson [http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/page/0,8097,1419505,00.html from ''The Guardian'']
* {{worldcat id|id=lccn-n50-8356}}
* [http://www.mbart.com/artists/_Hunter%20S.%20Thompson/ Thompson's photography]
*{{cite journal| url=http://kotorimagazine.com/index.php?news=897| title=So Long, Mistah Thompson| author= Jake McGee, Bob Freville| work=Kotori Magazine| date=March 2005 }}
{{Hunter Thompson|state=collapsed}}
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
| NAME= Thompson, Hunter Stockton
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
| SHORT DESCRIPTION= American journalist and author
| DATE OF BIRTH= {{birth date|1937|7|18|mf=y}}
| PLACE OF BIRTH= [[Louisville, Kentucky]], United States
| DATE OF DEATH= {{death date|2005|2|20|mf=y}}
| PLACE OF DEATH= [[Woody Creek, Colorado]], United States
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Hunter S.}}
[[Category:American columnists]]
[[Category:American essayists]]
[[Category:American journalists]]
[[Category:American novelists]]
[[Category:American political writers]]
[[Category:American sportswriters]]
[[Category:American tax resisters]]
[[Category:Motorcycling writers]]
[[Category:Censorship in the arts]]
[[Category:Columbia University alumni]]
[[Category:Drug policy reform activists]]
[[Category:Florida State University alumni]]
[[Category:Journalists who committed suicide]]
[[Category:Kentucky colonels]]
[[Category:Louisville Male High School alumni]]
[[Category:People from Louisville, Kentucky]]
[[Category:People self-identifying as substance abusers]]
[[Category:Psychedelic drug advocates]]
[[Category:Suicides by firearm in Colorado]]
[[Category:United States Air Force airmen]]
[[Category:Writers from Colorado]]
[[Category:Writers from Kentucky]]
[[Category:Writers who committed suicide]]
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:2005 deaths]]
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