Hunter S. Thompson, 67, counterculture journalist

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

DENVER — Hunter S. Thompson, a counterculture figure who rode with the Hells Angels, chronicled the Nixon administration and coined the term "gonzo journalism," committed suicide last night at his secluded home outside Aspen, his son said. Thompson was 67.

Thompson

Pitkin County Sheriff's officials confirmed yesterday that Thompson died of a gunshot wound, saying they got a call from his home shortly before 6 p.m.

Friends and neighbors said late yesterday that they were shocked by Thompson's suicide but knew he had his demons.

"We don't know anything about the circumstances surrounding his death, but he was a volatile person," said Troy Hooper, associate editor of the Aspen Daily News and longtime friend of the writer. "I was at his house last week, and there was nothing in his behavior that was different. He was no more distraught than usual; he was often either up or down."

Hooper said Thompson had been in pain from back surgery, an artificial hip and a broken leg, which happened when Thompson was recently in Hawai'i.

"He said he was executing a hairpin turn at the mini bar when he broke it," said Hooper.

Thompson, whose work included "Hells Angels," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72," was a well-known firearms aficionado who took frequent target practice in his back yard. In 2000, he slightly wounded his assistant while trying to shoot a bear on his property.

Buddy Ortega, 62, a real-estate broker and ski teacher, met Thompson back in the 1960s at a party. The pair hung out socially over the years, and Ortega supported Thompson's quixotic run for sheriff — though he figured it was a long shot when he saw campaign posters with pictures of peyote buds.

In recent years, Ortega said, the hard-living journalist had become more reclusive, hanging out at the home he called his "compound" and taking advantage of open space to fire his automatic weapons in peace.

"We all have demons," Ortega said. "Who knows, man? You sit down, have a few cocktails or maybe nothing — maybe you have a cup of green tea — and maybe nothing seems right. He was a little more complex than most of us, so maybe some of those demons surfaced and he didn't like what he saw."

Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky., and after a wild youth entered the Air Force, according to one account as part of a parole agreement.

His writing career is traced to the middle-1950s when he was serving in the Air Force and contributed to the newspaper at a Florida air base.

He later wrote unpublished fiction, sent reports on South America to a news wire service and made his name with an article on the motorcycle gang Hells Angels that was published in Harper's magazine.

His star rose while working for Rolling Stone magazine in the late 1960s and early '70s, where the two "Fear and Loathing" books first appeared.

Thompson called what he did "gonzo journalism," differentiating it from mainstream reporting by aggressively injecting himself into the story and giving up any pretense of objectivity.

Thompson's style of journalism — well-armed, well-drugged and wildly iconoclastic — made him a counterculture figure of rare longevity in the public memory.

"I hate to advocate weird chemicals, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me," Thompson famously preached.

Twice his life was brought to the screen; once by Bill Murray in the 1980 film "Where the Buffalo Roam," and then in the 1998 Terry Gilliam film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in which Johnny Depp took his turn as Thompson.

Thompson also triumphed in the comics page, where the character of Uncle Duke in the strip "Doonesbury" has for decades been a thinly disguised and always mercenary caricature of him.

William McKeen, an author and professor at the University of Florida, wrote the 1991 biography "Hunter S. Thompson" and kept in touch with the flamboyant journalist in the years since.

"He had clearly been amid a great renaissance in recent years where the public had rediscovered his value and their interest in him," McKeen said last night. "The news is stunning."

The Associated Press and Washington Post contributed to this report.