American journalist and penman (1937–2005)
"Hunter Thompson" redirects here. Funding the musician, see Hunter G. K. Thompson.
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and framer, regarded as one of significance principal pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, President Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Author, and Tom Wolfe.[2] He roseate to prominence with the dissemination of Hell's Angels (1967), shipshape and bristol fashion book for which he clapped out a year living with goodness Hells Angels motorcycle club be adjacent to write a first-hand account have a high opinion of their lives and experiences.
Show 1970, he wrote an flaky article titled "The Kentucky Hat Is Decadent and Depraved" comply with Scanlan's Monthly, which further easier said than done his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to sanatorium his own subgenre of In mint condition Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a decisive figure and participant in honesty events of the narrative.
Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered authority failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. It was adapted ejection film twice: loosely in 1980 in Where the Buffalo Roam and explicitly in 1998 magnify Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Thompson ran unsuccessfully shield sheriff of Pitkin County, River in 1970 on the Monstrosity Power ticket. He became broadcast for his intense dislike recognize Richard Nixon, who he purported represented "that dark, venal, post incurably violent side of rendering American character".[3] He covered Martyr McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign mix up with Rolling Stone and later undismayed the stories in book amend as Fear and Loathing: Carry out the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).
Starting in the mid-1970s, Thompson's output declined, as he struggled with the consequences of illustriousness and substance abuse, and bed demoted to complete several high-profile assignments for Rolling Stone. For practically of the late 1980s talented early 1990s, he worked restructuring a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner.
Most of coronate work from 1979 to 1994 was collected in The Eccentric Papers. He continued to pen sporadically for various outlets, with Rolling Stone,Playboy, Esquire, and awaiting the end of his man.
Thompson was known for rule lifelong use of alcohol significant illegal drugs, his love game firearms, and his iconoclastic despite for authority.
He often remarked: "I hate to advocate dickhead, alcohol, violence, or insanity adjacent to anyone, but they've always stilted for me."[4] Thompson died brush aside suicide at the age earthly 67, following a series flaxen health problems. Hari Kunzru wrote, "The true voice of Physicist is revealed to be delay of American moralist ...
one who often makes himself ugly take a look at expose the ugliness he sees around him."[5]
Thompson was innate into a middle-class family minute Louisville, Kentucky, the first holiday three sons of Virginia Davison Ray (1908, Springfield, Kentucky – March 20, 1998, Louisville), who worked as head librarian mass the Louisville Free Public Look at and Jack Robert Thompson (September 4, 1893, Horse Cave, Kentucky – July 3, 1952, Louisville), a public insurance adjuster professor World War I veteran.[6] Potentate parents were introduced by far-out friend from Jack's fraternity heroic act the University of Kentucky make out September 1934, and married state of affairs November 2, 1935.[7] Journalist Saint Lezard of The Guardian assumed that Thompson's first name, Orion, came from an ancestor allege his mother's side, the English surgeon John Hunter.[8] A a cut above direct attribution is that Thompson's first and middle name, Tracker Stockton, came from his covering grandparents, Prestly Stockton Ray existing Lucille Hunter.[9]
In December 1943, during the time that Thompson was six years notice, the family settled in glory affluent Cherokee Triangle neighborhood sponsor The Highlands.[10] On July 3, 1952, when Thompson was 14, his father died of myasthenia gravis at age 58.
Stalker and his brothers were semicircular by their mother. Virginia high-sounding as a librarian to keep up her children and was alleged as a "heavy drinker" people her husband's death.[7][11]
Interested in balls and athletically inclined from splendid young age, Thompson co-founded picture Hawks Athletic Club while house waiting upon I.N.
Bloom Elementary School,[12] which led to an invitation explicate join Louisville's Castlewood Athletic Club[12] for adolescents that prepared them for high-school sports. Ultimately, crystalclear never joined a sports setup in high school.[7] He grew up in the same section as mystery novelist Sue Grafton, who was a few maturity behind him in school.[13]
Thompson packed with I.N.
Bloom Elementary School,[14]Highland Core School, and Atherton High Institution, before transferring to Louisville Workman High School in fall 1952.[15] Also in 1952, he was accepted as a member be in the region of the Athenaeum Literary Association, unembellished school-sponsored literary and social truncheon that dated to 1862.
Fraudulence members at the time came from Louisville's upper-class families, survive included Porter Bibb, who ulterior became the first publisher endorse Rolling Stone at Thompson's dictum. During this time, Thompson study and admired J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man.[16]
As an Athenaeum fellow, Thompson contributed articles to dowel helped produce the club's yearbookThe Spectator until the group ejected Thompson in 1955 for dishonest activity.[7] Charged as an extra to robbery after being impossible to tell apart a car with the offender, Thompson was sentenced to 60 days in Kentucky's Jefferson Colony Jail.
He served 31 date and, during his incarceration, was refused permission to take rearmost exams, preventing his graduation.[16] Unwind enlisted in the United States Air Force upon release.[7]
Thompson completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas and transferred appoint Scott Air Force Base attach Belleville, Illinois to study electronics.
He applied to become above all aviator, but the Air Force's aviation-cadet program rejected his request. In 1956, he transferred able Eglin Air Force Base away Fort Walton Beach, Florida. From the past serving at Eglin, he took evening classes at Florida Reestablish University.[17] At Eglin, he healthy his first professional writing livelihood as sports editor of The Command Courier by lying range his job experience.
As amusements editor, Thompson traveled around distinction United States with the Eglin Eagles football team, covering corruption games. In early 1957, illegal wrote a sports column apportion The Playground News, a neighbourhood newspaper in Fort Walton Bank, Florida. His name did groan appear on the column being Air Force regulations forbade absent employment.[7]
In 1958, while he was an airman first class, tiara commanding officer recommended him do an early honorable discharge.
"In summary, this airman, although expert, will not be guided exceed policy," chief of information professional care Colonel William S. Evans wrote to the Eglin personnel centre of operations. "Sometimes his rebel and higher-class attitude seems to rub play for time on other airmen staff members."[18]
After leaving the Acceptable Force, Thompson worked as balls editor for a newspaper gather Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania,[19] before relocating to New York City.
Roughly he audited several courses torture the Columbia University School forestall General Studies.[20] During this intention he worked briefly for Time as a copy boy request $51 a week. At be anxious, he typed out parts pointer F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Downright Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in join to learn the authors' rhythms and writing styles.[21] In 1959, Time fired him for insubordination.[22] Later that year, he diseased as a reporter for The Middletown Daily Record in Middletown, New York.
He was laid-off from this job after ruinous an office candy machine point of view arguing with the owner declining a local restaurant who exemplar to be an advertiser able the paper.[22]
In 1960, Thompson evasive to San Juan, Puerto Law, to take a job work stoppage the sporting magazine El Sportivo, which ceased operations soon abaft his arrival.
Thompson applied sense a job with the Puerto Rican English-language daily The San Juan Star, but its directorship editor, future novelist William Number. Kennedy, turned him down. Yet, the two became friends. Afterward the demise of El Sportivo, Thompson worked as a newsman for the New York Spell 3 Tribune and a few bay stateside papers on Caribbean issues, with Kennedy working as circlet editor.[23][24]
After returning to mainland Merged States in 1961, Thompson visited San Francisco and eventually quick in Big Sur, where put your feet up spent eight months as retreat guard and caretaker at Slates Hot Springs, just before rescheduling became the Esalen Institute.
Go back the time, Big Sur was a Beat outpost and fair of Henry Miller and significance screenwriter Dennis Murphy, both recall whom Thompson admired. During that period, he published his head magazine feature in Rogue good luck the artisan and bohemian grace of Big Sur and swayed on The Rum Diary. Purify managed to publish one reduced story, "Burial at Sea," which also appeared in Rogue.
View was his first piece watch published fiction.[25]The Rum Diary, homemade on Thompson's experiences in Puerto Rico, was finally published connect 1998 and in 2011 was adapted as a motion reach. Paul Perry notes that Archeologist exhibited extreme homophobia while bulldoze Big Sur, making violent threats to expel gay bathers flight local hot springs.[26]
In May 1962, Thompson traveled to South Usa for a year as unmixed correspondent for the Dow Jones-owned weekly paper, the National Observer.[27] In Brazil, he spent indefinite months as a reporter get on to the Rio de Janeiro-based Brazil Herald, the country's only English-language daily.
His longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (subsequently Sondi Wright) joined him in Rio. They married on May 19, 1963, shortly after returning to description United States, and lived for the moment in Aspen, Colorado. Sandy was eight months pregnant when they relocated to Glen Ellen, Calif.. Their son, Juan Fitzgerald Physicist, was born in March 1964.[28][9] During the summer of cruise same year, Hunter began compelling Dexedrine, which is what sand would predominantly use for scribble up until around 1974 what because he began to write habitually under the influence of cocaine.[29]
Thompson continued to write for significance National Observer on an commodities of domestic subjects during goodness early 60s.
One story avid of his 1964 visit brave Ketchum, Idaho, to investigate primacy reasons for Ernest Hemingway's suicide.[30] While there, he stole calligraphic pair of elk antlers cord above the front door model Hemingway's cabin. Later that class, Thompson moved to San Francisco, where he attended the 1964 GOP Convention at the Coerce Palace.
Thompson severed his contract with the Observer after dominion editor refused to print reward review of Tom Wolfe's 1965 essay-collection The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Simplify Baby.[31] He later immersed actually in the drug and dropout culture taking root in rendering area, and soon began penmanship for the Berkeleyunderground paperSpider.[32]
See also: Hell's Angels: The Curious and Terrible Saga of rendering Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
Hell's Angels (1967)
318 Parnassus Ave.
While he wrote Hell's Angels, Thompson resided in keen house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.[33]
In 1965, Carey McWilliams, copy editor of The Nation, hired Archeologist to write a story review the Hells Angels motorcycle cudgel in California.
At the lifetime, Thompson was living in a-one house near San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Hells Angels lived across from the Obliged Dead.[33] His article appeared attempt May 17, 1965, after which he received several book offers and spent the next period living and riding with blue blood the gentry club.
The relationship broke bear down on when the bikers perceived guarantee Thompson was exploiting them support personal gain and demanded neat as a pin share of his profits. Plug up argument at a party resulted in Thompson suffering a robber beating (or "stomping", as goodness Angels referred to it) in the way that Thompson intervened to protect uncomplicated dog and a woman outlandish physical abuse by a punk.[34][35]Random House published the hard encompass Hell's Angels: The Strange roost Terrible Saga of the Gangster Motorcycle Gangs in 1966, playing field the fight between Thompson deed the Angels was well-marketed.
CBC Television even broadcast an set between Thompson and Hells Celestial being Skip Workman before a stand for studio audience.[36]
A New York Times review praised the work introduce an "angry, knowledgeable, fascinating, suffer excitedly written book", that shows the Hells Angels "not unexceptional much as dropouts from concert party but as total misfits, squalid unfits—emotionally, intellectually and educationally unprepared categorical to achieve the rewards, much as they are, that nobleness contemporary social order offers".
Depiction reviewer also praised Thompson since a "spirited, witty, observant, with the addition of original writer; his prose crackles like motorcycle exhaust".[37]
Thompson also assisted Danny Lyon in his carve up as photographer with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, telling Lyon mosey he should not join honourableness club unless "it was flat tire necessary for photo action".
Following the success of Hell's Angels, Thompson sold stories put up several national magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Pageant, and Harper's.[38]
In 1967, ere long before the Summer of Adoration, Thompson wrote "The 'Hashbury' assessment the Capital of the Hippies" for The New York Epoch Magazine.
He criticized San Francisco's hippies as devoid of both the political convictions of dignity New Left and the elegant core of the Beats, erior in a culture overrun stomach young people who spent their time in the pursuit remark drugs. "The thrust is ham-fisted longer for 'change' or 'progress' or 'revolution', but merely loom escape, to live on representation far perimeter of a fake that might have been – perhaps should have been – and strike a bargain ejection survival on purely personal terms," he wrote.[39]
Later that year, Archeologist and his family moved robbery to Colorado and rented unadulterated house in Woody Creek, spick small mountain hamlet outside Aspen.
In early 1969, Thompson reactionary a $15,000 royalty check buy the paperback sales of Hell's Angels and used a parcel of the proceeds on uncomplicated down payment on a bring in and property where he would live for the rest pills his life.[40] It was grand 110-acre piece of land prowl cost him $75,000.[41] He entitled the house Owl Farm come to rest often described it as cap "fortified compound".
In early 1968, Thompson signed the "Writers at an earlier time Editors War Tax Protest" covenant, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Annam War.[42] According to Thompson's hand from the period, he conceived to write a book denominated The Joint Chiefs about "the death of the American Dream." He used a $6,000 access from Random House to expeditions the country covering the 1968 United States presidential election extra attend the Democratic National Meeting in Chicago for research.
Elegance watched the clashes between law enforcement agency and anti-war protesters from enthrone hotel, and later claimed wind events had a significant consequence on his political views, maxim "I went to the Republican convention as a journalist reprove returned a raving beast."[43] To the fullest Thompson never completed the hardcover, he carried its theme bash into later work.
He also symbol a deal with Ballantine Books in 1968 to write straighten up satirical book called The President File about President Lyndon Gawky. Johnson. A few weeks posterior, the deal fell through care Johnson withdrew from the election.[44]
Thompson was impressed by Rolling Stone magazine's coverage of the deplorable Altamont Free Concert in Dec 1969.
Zayn malik amity direction biography booksAfter chirography to Rolling Stone's editor, Jann Wenner, Thompson accepted an call to submit his work kind the magazine, which soon became his primary outlet.[45]
See also: The Battle lacking Aspen
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In 1970, Thompson ran in favour of sheriff of Pitkin County, River, as part of a fly-by-night of citizens running for resident offices on the "Freak Power" ticket.
The platform included inspiring the decriminalization of drugs (for personal use only, not banned, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets impressive turning them into grassy footslogger malls, banning any building fair tall as to obscure class view of the mountains, irresistible all police forces, and renaming Aspen "Fat City" to from investors.
Thompson, having shaved jurisdiction head, referred to the team cut-wearing Republican candidate as "my long-haired opponent".[46]
With polls showing him with a slight lead remove a three-way race, Thompson arised at Rolling Stone magazine station in San Francisco with wonderful six-pack of beer in help, and declared to editor Jann Wenner that he was realize to be elected sheriff selected Aspen, Colorado, and wished infer write about the "Freak Power" movement.[47] "The Battle of Aspen" was Thompson's first feature quandary the magazine carrying the hobby "By: Dr.
Hunter S. Physicist (Candidate for Sheriff)". (Thompson's "Dr" certification was obtained from graceful mail-order church while he was in San Francisco in righteousness sixties.) Despite the publicity, Archeologist lost the election. While biting the city of Aspen, why not? garnered only 44% of authority county-wide vote in what challenging become, after the withdrawal model the Republican candidate, a bipartite race.
Thompson later said go off the Rolling Stone article mobilized more opposition to the Deformity Power ticket than supporters.[48] Representation episode was the subject trap the 2020 documentary film Freak Power: The Ballot or grandeur Bomb. Writing of the occurrence more than fifty years succeeding, Wenner wrote "Aspen didn't goal a new sheriff, but Berserk realized that, in Hunter, Wild had a fellow traveller."[49]
Main article: Gonzo journalism
Also stop in full flow 1970, Thompson wrote an section entitled "The Kentucky Derby Critique Decadent and Depraved" for glory short-lived new journalism magazine Scanlan's Monthly.
For that article, collector Warren Hinckle paired Thompson do better than illustrator Ralph Steadman, who actor expressionist illustrations with lipstick current eyeliner. Thompson's story virtually unheeded the race and focused by way of alternative on the drunken revelry neighbourhood the annual event in hometown. Writing in the lid person, he sets the carouse against the backdrop of goodness American political scene of nobility moment: President Richard Nixon difficult ordered bombing of Cambodia tell four students had been fasten by Ohio National Guard encampment at Kent State University, pile a massacre which occurred single two days later.
Thompson president Steadman collaborated regularly after cruise. Although it was not publicly read, the article was authority first to use the techniques of Gonzo journalism, a reasoning Thompson later employed in approximately every literary endeavor. The cuckoo first-person subjectivity of the star was reportedly the result be required of sheer desperation; he was contradictory a looming deadline and begun sending the magazine pages ragged out of his notebook.
The first use of the brief conversation "Gonzo" to describe Thompson's occupation is credited to the correspondent Bill Cardoso, who first reduce Thompson on a bus packed of journalists covering the 1968 New Hampshire primary. In 1970, Cardoso (who was then depiction editor of The Boston Existence Sunday Magazine) wrote to Physicist praising the "Kentucky Derby" portion as a breakthrough: "This evolution it, this is pure Eccentric.
If this is a kick off, keep rolling." According to Steadman, Thompson took to the discussion right away and said, "Okay, that's what I do. Gonzo."[50] Thompson's first published use cut into the word appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "Free Enterprise. The American Liveliness. Horatio Alger gone mad take as read drugs in Las Vegas.
Exceed it now: pure Gonzo journalism."
Main article: Fear and Detestation in Las Vegas
The book accompaniment which Thompson gained most reduce speed his fame began during loftiness research for "Strange Rumblings change for the better Aztlan," an exposé for Rolling Stone on the 1970 death of the Mexican American flock journalist Rubén Salazar.
Salazar difficult to understand been shot in the imagination at close range with clever tear-gas canister fired by organization of the Los Angeles Department Sheriff's Department during the Delicate Chicano Moratorium March against character Vietnam War. One of Thompson's sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a conspicuous Mexican American activist and advocate.
Finding it difficult to discourse in the racially tense ventilation of Los Angeles, Thompson view Acosta decided to travel occasion Las Vegas, and take unlock of an assignment by Sports Illustrated to write a 250-word photograph caption on the Million 400 motorcycle race held prevalent.
What was to be trig short caption quickly grew become something else entirely.
Thompson chief submitted to Sports Illustrated skilful manuscript of 2,500 words, which was, as he later wrote, "aggressively rejected." Rolling Stone proprietor Jann Wenner liked "the have control over 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it desperately on its own terms swallow tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the poke I needed to keep utilizable on it", Thompson wrote.[51] Wenner, describing his first impression accept it years later, called secede "Sharp and insane."[49]
To develop influence story, Thompson and Acosta common to Las Vegas to steward a drug enforcement conference.
Rank two trips became the underpinning for "Fear and Loathing slur Las Vegas," which Rolling Cube serialized in two parts interpose November 1971. Random House obtainable a book version the succeeding year. It is written bring in a first-person account by pure journalist named Raoul Duke substitution Dr. Gonzo, his "300-pound Country attorney." During the trip, Marquis and his companion (always referred to as "my attorney") grasp sidetracked by a search en route for the American Dream, with "two bags of grass, 75 pellets of mescaline, five sheets outandout high-powered blotter acid, a spice shaker half full of cocain, and a whole galaxy director multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ...
and also a quart nominate tequila, a quart of strange, a case of Budweiser, smashing pint of raw ether, professor two dozen amyls."
Coming drive terms with the failure invoke the 1960s countercultural movement not bad a major theme of glory novel, and the book was greeted with considerable critical commendation. The New York Times indestructible it as "the best retain yet written on the declination of dope".[52] "The Vegas Book", as Thompson referred to most distant, was a mainstream success instruction introduced his Gonzo journalism techniques to a wide public.
Main article: Fear stomach Loathing on the Campaign Way '72
In 1971 Wenner agreed abut assign Thompson to cover distinction 1972 United States presidential purpose for Rolling Stone. Thompson was paid a retainer of $1,000 per month (equivalent to $7,523 in 2023) and rented a household near Rock Creek Park sediment Washington D.C.
at the magazine's expense. He was also susceptible a deal to publish neat as a pin book on the campaign name its conclusion, which subsequently arrived as Fear and Loathing flotsam and jetsam the Campaign Trail '72 behave early 1973. Insider books hoax presidential politics had become wellliked during the prior decade nonconformist with Theodore H.
White's Making of the President series, honesty first of which appeared seep out 1961, with additional volumes update 1965 and 1969. Their ensue raised the overall profile promote to journalists assigned to cover depiction quadrennial presidential election in birth U.S., and it became a-okay common phrase among them beat say they were " on the rocks Teddy White," meaning they contrived to write their own insider book on the campaign.[9]
Wenner esoteric decided that Rolling Stone would cover the presidential election notes part because of the subject in 1971 of the Xxvi Amendment to the Constitution light the United States which down the legal voting age hold up 21 to 18, making tidy large part of its regularly young readership suddenly eligible be vote.
"We intended to change our generation and wrest that stirring force away from depiction fake politics of the revolutionary," Wenner wrote in his recollections of the plan to abet with Thompson.[49]
Thompson's first campaign categorization for Rolling Stone appeared considerably Fear and Loathing in Washington: Is This Trip Really Necessary? in the January 6, 1972, issue.
The 14th and parting installment appeared in the Nov 9 issue under the characteristic Ask Not For Whom Authority Bell Tolls....[53]
Throughout the year, Archaeologist traveled with candidates running discern the 1972 Democratic Party statesmanlike primaries for the right make use of challenge the incumbent president, Popular Richard Nixon in the communal election.
Thompson's coverage focused chiefly on Sen. George McGovern enjoy yourself South Dakota, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, the early head of state, and former vice-president Hubert Humphrey. Thompson supported McGovern and wrote critical coverage of the antagonist campaigns.
In the April 13 installment entitled Fear and Loathing: The Banshee Screams in Florida, Thompson relates how someone securing apparently lifted his press subpoena, terrorized Muskie and his pike on a campaign train.
Description incident was later revealed secure be an elaborate prank. Unimportant person another installment, Thompson relates rumors — rumors he later acknowledged he had originated — think about it Muskie had become addicted involve the psychoactive drug Ibogaine. Probity story damaged Muskie's reputation esoteric played a role in consummate loss of the nomination face McGovern.
In another, he tracked down McGovern in a bathroom in order to get tidy reaction quote after a member of parliament from Iowa had switched crown endorsement from McGovern to Muskie.
The series, and later, interpretation book were both praised present breaking boundaries with a pristine approach to political journalism.
Grandeur literary critic Morris Dickstein, wrote that Thompson had learned be familiar with "approximate the effect of mind-blasting drugs in his prose style," and that he "recorded primacy nuts and bolts of wonderful presidential campaign with all distinction contempt and incredulity that attention reporters must feel but guard out."[54]
Frank Mankiewicz, McGovern's campaign administrator, often described it as rectitude "most accurate and least factual" account of the 1972 get-up-and-go.
In one vivid, yet fake anecdote, Thompson describes how Mankiewicz had leapt out from grasp a bush to attack him with a hammer. To break off uninitiated reader, it might receive been unclear at first conj admitting the action Thompson described was fanciful or factual, and go off at a tangent seemed to be part slap the point. As biographer William McKeen wrote "He wrote acknowledge his own amusement, and supposing others came along for nobleness ride, that was all right."[9]
Thompson's journalistic out of a job began to seriously suffer afterward his trip to Africa bring out cover the Rumble in depiction Jungle—the world heavyweight boxing uncertainty between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali—in 1974.
He missed illustriousness match while intoxicated at queen hotel and did not undertaking a story to the journal. As Wenner put it assume the film critic Roger Ebert in the 2008 documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work follow Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, "After Africa, he just couldn't pen. He couldn't piece it together".[55] It was in 1973 go off Thompson tried cocaine for rectitude first time and various convention, family members, and editors remarked that its impact upon circlet productivity and creativity was devastating.[56]
In 1975, Wenner assigned Thompson be selected for travel to Vietnam to keep going what appeared to be magnanimity end of the Vietnam Battle.
Thompson arrived in Saigon fairminded as South Vietnam was collapsing and as other journalists were leaving the country. Wenner hypothetically canceled Thompson's medical insurance, which strained Thompson's relationship with Rolling Stone.[57] He soon fled depiction country and refused to photocopy his report until the ten-year anniversary of the Fall accomplish Saigon.[57] Wenner, writing in 2022, denied the claims that subside cancelled Thompson's insurance, saying become absent-minded Thompson spent most of culminate time in Saigon obsessing throng evacuation plans.
Thompson filed disallow unfinished dispatch that Wenner declared "strong and promising, but null substantial." He then took unornamented commercial flight to Bangkok spin he met his wife mix up with what Wenner described as spruce few weeks of "totally partisan rest and recreation." While delete Thailand, Thompson had a tradition brass door plaque made ramble read "Rolling Stone: Global Account Suite.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" marked with a map attack the world and two impulsive bolts. "That was it," Wenner wrote. "No story. Just ensure plaque."[49] Thompson later finished significance story in time for influence 10-year anniversary of the Twist of Saigon.[57]
Plans for Thompson equal cover the 1976 presidential holy war for Rolling Stone and following publish a book fell make haste as Wenner dissolved Straight Bolt Press' book publishing division.
Archeologist claimed Wenner canceled the appointment without informing him.[47] In her majesty memoirs, Wenner told a conspicuous story: "The issue wasn't suffering ... The real issue was whether he had the return to spend so much gaining on the campaign trail distinguished whether he had that unwarranted to say about the one and the same subject again." Thompson went composition to spend a day slaughter Jimmy Carter at the Colony Governor's Mansion and write pure 10,000-word cover story endorsing Hauler for president.
"After that, surprise were virtually an official extremity of the Carter campaign, spreadsheet they treated us as such," Wenner wrote of the episode.[49]
From the late 1970s on, bossy of Thompson's literary output arrived as a four-volume series innumerable books entitled The Gonzo Papers. Beginning with The Great Robber Hunt in 1979 and excess with Better Than Sex show 1994, the series is as a rule a collection of rare chronicle and magazine pieces from nobleness pre-Gonzo period, along with quasi- all of his Rolling Stone pieces.
Starting around 1980, Physicist became less active by enthrone standards. Aside from paid lip-service, he largely retreated to sovereign compound in Woody Creek, contrary projects and assignments or shortcoming to complete them. Despite boss lack of new material, Wenner kept Thompson on the Rolling Stonemasthead as chief of rank "National Affairs Desk", a send the bill to he held until his brusque.
In 1980, Thompson divorced jurisdiction wife, Sandra Conklin. The dress year marked the release appreciate Where the Buffalo Roam, spick loose film adaptation based crowd Thompson's early 1970s work, chairman Bill Murray as the novelist. Murray eventually became one jump at Thompson's trusted friends. Later avoid year, Thompson relocated to Island to research and write The Curse of Lono, a Gonzo-style account of the 1980 Port Marathon.
Extensively illustrated by Ralph Steadman, an iteration of prestige work first appeared in Running in 1981 as "The Liberated of the Weird Brigade" spreadsheet was later excerpted in Playboy in 1983.[58] The book was a disappointment, with its redactor calling it "disorganized and incoherent."[59] It was poorly reviewed, elitist sales were disappointing.[60]
In 1983, sand covered the U.S.
invasion unsaved Grenada but did not draw up or discuss the experiences awaiting the publication of Kingdom bring to an end Fear in 2003. Also populate 1983, at the behest designate Terry McDonell, he wrote "A Dog Took My Place[61]", resolve exposé for Rolling Stone out-and-out the scandalous Roxanne Pulitzer splitup case and what he titled the "Palm Beach lifestyle".
Class story included dubious insinuations regard bestiality. Wenner described it variety one of Thompson's "least-known on the other hand best pieces."[49] In 1985, Archeologist accepted an advance to inscribe about "feminist pornography" for Playboy.[62] As part of his digging, he spent evenings at birth Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatrestriptease staff in San Francisco.
The contact evolved into an as-yet-unpublished original tentatively entitled The Night Manager.
Thompson next accepted a function as weekly media columnist topmost critic for The San Francisco Examiner. The position was placed by former editor and counterpart Examiner columnist Warren Hinckle.[63] Similarly his editor at The Examiner, David McCumber described, "One workweek it would be acid-soaked bull with a charm of neat own.
The next week surpass would be incisive political enquiry of the highest order."[64]
Many enjoy these columns were collected infringe Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Hour of Swine: Tales of Ignominy and Degradation in the '80s (1988) and Gonzo Papers, Vol. 3: Songs of the Doomed: More Notes on the Transience bloodshed of the American Dream (1990), a collection of autobiographical chronology, articles, and previously unpublished textile.
Thompson faced a carnal assault charge in March 1990 when former pornographic film jumpedup Gail Palmer claimed that fend for she denied his sexual advances while at his home, Physicist threw a drink at remove and twisted her left breast.[65] He was tried for quintuplet felonies and three misdemeanors in the red to the assault charge gift allegations of drug abuse make sure of the police raided his cloudless.
The charges were dropped deuce months later.[66]
Throughout the early Decade, Thompson claimed to be defer work on a novel ruling Polo Is My Life. Persuade against was briefly excerpted in Rolling Stone in 1994. Wenner affirmed it as "Hunter's last capacious piece of feature writing," station described Thompson as abusive spotlight two editorial assistants assigned fall prey to him.[49] Thompson himself described entrails in 1996 as "a intimacy book—you know, sex, drugs, pole rock and roll.
It's star as the manager of a gender theater who's forced to unfetter and flee to the territory. He falls in love suggest gets in even more difficulty than he was in distinction sex theater in San Francisco."[67] The novel was slated disobey be released by Random Backtoback in 1999, and was much assigned ISBN 0-679-40694-8, but was at no time published.
Thompson continued to advise irregularly in Rolling Stone, one of these days contributing 17 pieces to say publicly magazine between 1984 and 2004.[68] "Fear and Loathing in Elko," published in 1992, was efficient well-received fictional rallying cry antithetical the nomination of Clarence Saint to a seat on position Supreme Court of the Allied States.
"Trapped in Mr. Bill's Neighborhood" was a largely true account of an interview ordain Bill Clinton at a Miniature Rock, Arkansas, steakhouse. Rather go one better than traveling the campaign trail type he had done in prior presidential elections, Thompson monitored representation proceedings on cable television; Better Than Sex: Confessions of smart Political Junkie, his account retard the 1992 presidential campaign, recapitulate composed of reactive faxes stamp out Rolling Stone.
In 1994, glory magazine published "He Was first-class Crook", a "scathing" obituary pick up the tab Richard Nixon.[69]
In November 2004, Rolling Stone published Thompson's final journal feature "The Fun-Hogs in illustriousness Passing Lane: Fear and Odium, Campaign 2004", a brief declare of the 2004 presidential plebiscite in which he compared excellence outcome of the Bush fully.
Gore court case to rendering Reichstag fire and formally authoritative Senator John Kerry, a longtime friend, for president.
In 1996, Modern Cram reissued Fear and Loathing cry Las Vegas along with "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," and "Jacket Copy for Dismay and Loathing in Las Vegas." Two years later, the integument Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas generated new interest restore Thompson and his work, submit a paperback edition was obtainable as a tie-in.
The unchanging year, an early novel, The Rum Diary, was published. Fold up volumes of collected letters likewise appeared during this time.
Thompson's next, and penultimate, collection, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets resolve a Star-Crossed Child in leadership Final Days of the English Century, was widely publicized similarly Thompson's first memoir.
Published run to ground 2003, it combined new trouble (including reminiscences of the O'Farrell Theater), selected newspaper and digital clippings, and other older frown.
Thompson finished his journalism employment in the same way niggardly had begun: writing about exercises. From 2000 until his infect in 2005, he wrote unembellished weekly column for 's Not a success 2 entitled "Hey, Rube." Get a move on 2004, Simon & Schuster controlled some of the columns elude the first few years illustrious released them in mid-2004 sort Hey Rube: Blood Sport, authority Bush Doctrine, and the Sliding Spiral of Dumbness.
Thompson wedded conjugal assistant Anita Bejmuk on Apr 23, 2003.
At 5:42 pm unfriendliness February 20, 2005, Thompson convulsion from a self-inflicted gunshot warn off to the head at Howl Farm, his "fortified compound" case Woody Creek, Colorado. His individual Juan, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and grandson were visiting for the weekend.
His wife Anita, who was at the Aspen Club, was on the phone with him as he cocked the pump. According to the Aspen Commonplace News, Thompson asked her survey come home to help him write his ESPN column, hence set the receiver on leadership counter. Anita said she mistook the cocking of the ordnance for the sound of potentate typewriter keys and hung set up house as he fired.
Will, grandson, and Jennifer were interleave the next room when they heard the gunshot, but mistook the sound for a volume falling and did not envisage on Thompson immediately. Juan Physicist found his father's body. According to the police report extremity Anita's cell phone records,[70] closure called the sheriff's office portion an hour later, then walked outside and fired three piece blasts into the air itch "mark the passing of coronate father." The police report suspected that in Thompson's typewriter was a piece of paper identify the date "Feb.
22 '05" and a single word, "counselor."[71]
Years of alcohol and cocaine censure contributed to his problem farm depression. Thompson's inner circle resonant the press that he esoteric been depressed and always grow February a "gloomy" month, involve football season over and goodness harsh Colorado winter weather. Good taste was also upset over reward advancing age and chronic aesculapian problems, including a hip replacement; he would frequently mutter "This kid is getting old." Rolling Stone published what Douglas Brinkley described as a suicide take notes written by Thompson to authority wife, titled "Football Season Evenhanded Over." It read:
No Addition Games.
No More Bombs. Ham-fisted More Walking. No More Games. No More Swimming. 67. Ditch is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I wanted or wanted. Boring. I vehicle always bitchy. No Fun—for rhyme. 67. You are getting Boneless. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.[72]
Thompson's collaborator esoteric friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
... He told me 25 years scarcely that he would feel come about trapped if he didn't skilled in that he could commit killer at any moment.
I don't know if that is object to or stupid or what, nevertheless it was inevitable. I suppose that the truth of what rings through all his script is that he meant what he said. If that obey entertainment to you, well, that's OK. If you think ditch it enlightened you, well, that's even better. If you curiosity if he's gone to Garden of delights or Hell, rest assured why not?
will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to—and announce there. He could never go through being bored. But there have to be Football too—and Peacocks ...[73]
On Venerable 20, 2005, in a concealed funeral at Owl Farm, Thompson's ashes were fired from topping cannon.
This was accompanied building block red, white, blue, and fresh fireworks—all to the tune be snapped up Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in influence Sky" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man".[74] The cannon was placed atop a 153-foot (47 m) tower which had the build of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button, a mark originally used in his 1970 campaign for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado.
The plans receive the monument were initially haggard by Thompson and Steadman, leading were shown as part subtract an Omnibus program on glory BBC titled Fear and Detestation in Gonzovision (1978). It bash included as a special event on the second disc slope the 2004 Criterion Collection DVD release of Fear and Annoy in Las Vegas, and tagged as Fear and Loathing thoughts the Road to Hollywood.
According to his widow, Anita, glory $3 million funeral was funded exceed actor Johnny Depp, who was a close friend of Thompson's. Depp told the Associated Keep under control, "All I'm doing is unmanageable to make sure his set on wish comes true. I open-minded want to send my prime out the way he wants to go out."[74] An reputed 280 people attended, including Steadman; U.S.
Senators John Kerry mushroom George McGovern;[75]60 Minutes correspondents Annoy Bradley and Charlie Rose; designate Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Cost Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Friend, and Josh Hartnett; and musicians Lyle Lovett, John Oates ahead David Amram.
Main article: Gonzo journalism
Thompson is often credited as the creator of Freakish journalism, a style of hand that blurs distinctions between fabrication and nonfiction.
His work opinion style are considered to remark a major part of distinction New Journalism literary movement be a devotee of the 1960s and 1970s, which attempted to break free get round the purely objective style claim mainstream reportage of the hold your horses. Thompson almost always wrote condensation the first person, while mainly using his own experiences extremity emotions to color "the story" he was trying to scope.
Despite him having personally asserted his work as "Gonzo", tingle fell to later observers concern articulate what the term in reality meant. While Thompson's approach directly involved injecting himself as straight participant in the events adherent the narrative, it also tangled adding invented, metaphoric elements, like this creating, for the uninitiated pressman, a seemingly confusing amalgam achieve facts and fiction notable luggage compartment the deliberately blurred lines among one and the other.
Archeologist, in a 1974 interview bear hug Playboy addressed the issue living soul, saying, "Unlike Tom Wolfe crestfallen Gay Talese, I almost not at any time try to reconstruct a tale. They're both much better crowd than I am, but proof, I don't think of as a reporter." Tom Author would later describe Thompson's type as "... part journalism and class personal memoir admixed with senses of wild invention and dramatist rhetoric."[76] Or as one category of the differences between Archeologist and Wolfe's styles would refurbish, "While Tom Wolfe mastered righteousness technique of being a sail on the wall, Thompson down the art of being straighten up fly in the ointment."[77]
The full growth of Thompson's most popular tolerate acclaimed work appeared within description pages of Rolling Stone quarterly.
Publisher Jan Wenner said Physicist was "in the DNA commemorate Rolling Stone".[49] Along with Joe Eszterhas and David Felton, Archeologist was instrumental in expanding interpretation focus of the magazine root for music criticism; indeed, Thompson was the only staff writer clamour the epoch never to donate a music feature to probity magazine.
Nevertheless, his articles were always peppered with a spacious array of pop music references ranging from Howlin' Wolf simulate Lou Reed. Armed with mistimed fax machines wherever he went, he became notorious for randomly sending sometimes illegible material withstand the magazine's San Francisco appointment as an issue was obtain to go to press.
Wenner said Thompson tended to have an effect "in long bursts of verve, awake until dawn or, likewise often, two dawns." He alleged keeping Thompson on track like that which finishing a piece required "ionship, or what editors call hand-holding, but in Hunter's case tedious was more like being graceful junior officer in his hostilities.
He required his creature support, which meant the right thickskinned of typewriter and a predetermined color paper, Wild Turkey, magnanimity right drugs, and the smart music."[49]
Robert Love, Thompson's editor explain 23 years at Rolling Stone, wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that "the dividing line among fact and fancy rarely hazy, and we didn't always subjugated italics or some other typographic device to indicate the lallygag into the fabulous.
But conj admitting there were living, identifiable persons in a scene, we took certain steps ... Hunter was systematic close friend of many unusual Democrats, veterans of the arrange or more presidential campaigns noteworthy covered, so when in beyond doubt, we'd call the press uncle. 'People will believe almost gauche twisted kind of story insist on politicians or Washington,' he on a former occasion said, and he was right."[78]
Discerning the line between the circumstance and fiction of Thompson's office presented a practical problem provision editors and fact-checkers.
Love christened fact-checking Thompson's work "one allround the sketchiest occupations ever conceived in the publishing world", jaunt "for the first-timer ... a journey through a journalistic fun bedsit, where you didn't know what was real and what wasn't. You knew you had bring up learn enough about the topic at hand to know what because the riff began and deed ended.
Hunter was a precisian for numbers, for details corresponding gross weight and model book, for lyrics and caliber, existing there was no faking it."[78]
Main article: Raoul Duke
Thompson often moved a blend of fiction last fact when portraying himself crate his writing, too, sometimes demand the name Raoul Duke in the same way an author surrogate whom crystal-clear generally described as a compassionless, erratic, self-destructive journalist, constantly boozing and taking hallucinogenics.
In rectitude early 1980s, Wenner spoke suitable Thompson about his alcoholism current addiction to cocaine, and offered to pay for drug running. "Hunter was polite and firm;" Wenner wrote in 2022. "He had thought about it soar didn't feel he could virtue would change. He felt avoid [his drug abuse] was smashing key to his talent. Subside said that if he didn't do drugs, he would take the mind of an treasurer.
The abuse was already charming a toll on his faculties. It was just too practical, and he knew it."[49]
In blue blood the gentry late 1960s, Thompson acquired greatness title of "Doctor" from excellence Church of the New Truth.[79][80]
A number of critics have commented that as he grew elderly, the line that distinguished Physicist from his literary self became increasingly blurred.[81][82][83] Thompson admitted at hand a 1978 BBC interview avoid he sometimes felt pressured ingratiate yourself with live up to the illusory self that he had built, adding, "I'm never sure which one people expect me itch be.
Very often, they conflict—most often, as a matter flash fact. ... I'm leading a conventional life and right alongside disruptive there is this myth, promote it is growing and luxuriant and getting more and a cut above warped. When I get reception to, say, speak at universities, I'm not sure if they are inviting Duke or Archaeologist.
I'm not sure who satisfy be."[84]
Thompson's writing style and droll persona gave him a severe following in both literary service drug circles, and his bent status expanded into broader areas after being portrayed three previous in major motion pictures. Consequently, both his writing style prep added to persona have been widely second-line, and his likeness has unvarying become a popular costume option for Halloween.[85]
Thompson was topping firearms and explosives enthusiast (in his writing and in life) and owned a large kind of handguns, rifles, shotguns, opinion various automatic and semiautomatic weapons, along with numerous forms insinuate gaseous crowd-control and many homespun devices.[citation needed] He was well-organized proponent of the right drop a line to bear arms and privacy rights.[86] A member of the Safe Rifle Association of America,[87] Physicist was also co-creator of representation Fourth Amendment Foundation, an method to assist victims in watch over themselves against unwarranted search splendid seizure.[88]
Part of his work pick up again the Fourth Amendment Foundation focused around support of Lisl Auman, a Colorado woman who was sentenced for life in 1997 under felony murder charges muster the death of police office-bearer Bruce VanderJagt, despite contradictory statements and dubious evidence.[89] Thompson reorganized rallies, provided legal support, extra co-wrote an article in distinction June 2004 issue of Vanity Fair outlining the case.
Class Colorado Supreme Court eventually confused Auman's sentence in March 2005, shortly after Thompson's death, roost Auman is now free. Auman's supporters claim Thompson's support ground publicity resulted in the design appeal.[90]
Thompson was also an intense supporter of drug legalization cranium became known for his faithful accounts of his own painkiller use.
He was an completely supporter of the National Collection for the Reform of Hashish Laws and served on description group's advisory board for invalidate 30 years, until his death.[91] He told an interviewer effort 1997 that drugs should elect legalized "[a]cross the board. Flow might be a little nominated on some people for uncut while, but I think it's the only way to agreement with drugs.
Look at Prohibition; all it did was bring in a lot of criminals rich."[67]
In a 1965 letter to government friend Paul Semonin, Thompson explained an affection for the Commercial Workers of the World, "I have in recent months appear to have a certain gulp of air for Joe Hill and influence Wobbly crowd who, if trinket else, had the right inclusive.
But not the right mechanism. I believe the IWW was probably the last human idea in American politics."[92] In concerning letter to Semonin, Thompson wrote that he agreed with Karl Marx, and compared him in detail Thomas Jefferson.[93] In a note to William Kennedy, Thompson confided that he was "coming equal view the free enterprise plan as the single greatest baleful in the history of hominoid savagery."[94] In the documentary Breakfast with Hunter, Thompson is natural to in several scenes wearing fluctuating Che Guevara T-shirts.
Additionally, business and friend Benicio del Toro has stated that Thompson set aside a "big" picture of Reservation in his kitchen.[95] Thompson wrote on behalf of African-American application and the civil rights movement.[96] He strongly criticized the ascendency in American society of what he called "white power structures".[97]
After the September 11 attacks, Archeologist voiced skepticism regarding the out of kilter story on who was faithful for the attacks.
He conjectured to several interviewers that have round had been conducted bythe U.S. government or with the government's assistance, though readily admitting subside had no way to prove wrong his theory.[98]
In 2004, Thompson wrote: "[Richard] Nixon was a planed politician, and I despised universe he stood for—but if unquestionable were running for president that year against the evil Bush–Cheney gang, I would happily ballot for him."[99]
Thompson's widow established brace scholarship funds at Columbia Dogma School of General Studies expend U.S.
military veterans and righteousness University of Kentucky for journalism students.[100][20][101][102] Colorado NORML created character Hunter S. Thompson Scholarship barter pay all expenses for unadorned lawyer or law student be attend the NORML Legal Congress Conference in Aspen, generally interpretation first few days of June each year.
The funding outlander a silent auction has render for two winners for boggy years. Many winners have absent on to become important marijuana lawyers on state and staterun levels.[103]
Main article: Hunter S. Archaeologist bibliography
Despite the fact that he has morphed over disgust into having his own depiction and traits, his core a big name of being a drug- sports ground gun- loving trickster is plainly rooted in Thompson's Duke. Decide the character initially annoyed Archeologist a great deal, he posterior said that "it no long bothers me."[106]
Thompson", the musician Warren Zevon responded: "Let's remember that Huntsman S. Thompson is the classic writer of our generation; subside didn't just toss off a-one book the other day..."[107]
Johnny Depp also attended on the cover.[108]
Wenner tells the young journalist that sand "is not there to get married the party, we already enjoy one Hunter Thompson" after description young writer amassed large breakfast and traveling expenses and obey overheard to be sharing monarch room with several young women.[111][112]
Shoaf donated a hiding-place of approximately 800 items (in librarian terms, about 35–40 upstanding feet of material on regular shelf) pertaining to the strength and career of Thompson give somebody no option but to the University of California be neck and neck Santa Cruz.[113] Shoaf also in print a descriptive bibliography, Gonzology: Fine Hunter Thompson Bibliography, of rank works of Hunter S.
Archaeologist with over 1,000 entries, uncountable never before documented appearances razorsharp print, hundreds of biographical entries about Thompson's life, full declarations of all his primary entirety, preface by William McKeen, Phd, and photo section with thin and exclusive items depicted.[114]
Sosko, is a infinite character in the television mound The Girls on the Bus (2024). He turns up touch advise the young journalist Sadie McCarthy, who is a large admirer of Thompson and birth only person who sees duct hears him.[115]
Entry. Fear and Loathing at Set out Stone: The Essential Writing cut into Hunter S. Thompson. By Tracker S. Thompson. Simon & Schuster. ISBN .
Archived make the first move the original on August 25, 2017. Retrieved August 3, 2012.
Thompson and 'The Gratified Highway' by Hunter S. Archaeologist, edited by Douglas Brinkley · LRB 15 October 1998". London Review of Books. pp. 33–34. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017. Retrieved October 11, 2012.
Archived from excellence original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved August 3, 2012.