Jump to content

Hunter S. Thompson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.121.19.69 (talk) at 19:16, 24 May 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter S. Thompson, New York City, 1979 (Photo: Allen G. Arpadi)
Hunter S. Thompson, New York City, 1979 (Photo: Allen G. Arpadi)
BornJuly 18, 1937
Louisville, Kentucky
DiedFebruary 20, 2005
Woody Creek, Colorado
Occupationjournalist, author
GenreGonzo journalism
Literary movementNew Journalism

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. He is credited as the creator of gonzo journalism, a style of reporting which blurs distinctions between author and subject, fiction and nonfiction.

Early years

A Louisville, Kentucky native, Thompson grew up in the Cherokee Triangle neighborhood of the Highlands and attended Louisville Male High School. His parents, Jack (d. 1952) and Virginia (d. 1999), married in 1935. Jack's death left three sons—Hunter, Davison, and James—to be brought up by their mother, who was a heavy drinker.Template:Fn

Hunter was arrested in 1956 for robbery. After crashing an employer's delivery truck, he joined the U.S. Air Force during the mandatory waiting period before army conscription. After working in the information services department at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida in 1956, he became the sports editor of the base's newspaper, The Command Courier. He also wrote for several local newspapers, despite regulations against this.

He was honorably discharged in 1958 as an airman second class, having been recommended for an early discharge by his commanding officer. In summary, this airman, although talented will not be guided by policy, Col. W.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. Thompson claimed in a mock press release he wrote about the end of his duty to have been issued a "totally unclassifiable" status.[1]

After the Air Force he moved to New York City and on the GI Bill attended Columbia University's School of General Studies where he took classes on short story writing.

During this time he worked briefly for Time Magazine as a copywriter for $50 a week. While working, he copied F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms onto a typewriter, saying that he wanted to learn about the writing styles of the authors. In 1956, Time fired him for insubordination. Later that year, he worked as a reporter for the Middletown Daily Record in New York. He was fired from this job after damaging an office candy machine and arguing with the owner of a local restaurant who happened to be an advertiser with the paper.

In 1960 Thompson moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico to take a job with the sporting magazine El Sportivo which soon folded. But the move to Puerto Rico allowed Thompson to travel in the Caribbean and South America writing freelance articles for several American daily newspapers. While in Puerto Rico he befriended journalist William Kennedy. Thompson also spent time as a South American correspondent for a Dow Jones-owned weekly newspaper, the National Observer. During an eight-month period in 1961 he lived and worked as a security guard and caretaker at Big Sur Hot Springs just before it became the Esalen Institute. While living in San Francisco in the 1960s, Thompson received a doctorate in Divinity from a mail-order church.

File:Gonzo quote.PNG
A modification of one of Thompson's original Gonzo flyers during his bid for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado.

During that time, Thompson wrote two novels (Prince Jellyfish and The Rum Diary) and submitted many short stories to publishers. The Rum Diary was eventually published in 1998 after Thompson had become famous. Kennedy later remarked that he and Thompson were both failed novelists who had turned to journalism to make a living.[citation needed]

He married his longtime girlfriend Sandra Dawn Conklin (aka Sandy Conklin Thompson, now Sondi Wright) on May 19, 1963 and they had one son, Juan Fitzgerald Thompson, born March 23, 1964. The couple conceived five more times together. Three were miscarriages and two died shortly after birth. In a tribute issue for Hunter in Rolling Stone issue 970, Sandy wrote, " I ... want to acknowledge the five children Hunter and I lost — two full term babies, three miscarriages.... I had so wanted more Hunters! One of the most beautiful gifts that Hunter ever gave me ... Sarah, our full term, eight-pound baby, lived about twelve hours. I lay there in Aspen Valley Hospital waiting, and when I saw the doctor's face it was unbearable. I thought I might go mad. Hunter leaned over the bed and said, 'Sandy, if you want to go out there for a while — do that, just know that Juan and I really need you.' I was back." After nineteen years together and seventeen years of marriage, Hunter and Sandy divorced in 1980; the two remained close friends until Hunter's death.

In 1965, The Nation editor Carey McWilliams offered Thompson an opportunity to write a story based on his experience with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Previously, Thompson spent a year living and riding with the Hells Angels, but the relationship broke down when the bikers suspected that Thompson made money from his writing. The gang demanded a share of the profits and Thompson ended up with a savage beating, or 'stomping' as the Angels referred to it. After the The Nation published the article (May 17, 1965), Thompson received several book offers and Random House published the hard cover Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966.

Middle years

Thompson went on to work for Rolling Stone magazine where his next two books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, were first serialized.

Published in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a first-person account by a journalist (Thompson himself, under the pseudonym "Raoul Duke") on a trip to Las Vegas with his "300-pound Samoan" attorney, "Dr. Gonzo" (a character inspired by Thompson's friend, Chicano lawyer Oscar Zeta Acosta) to cover a narcotics officers' convention and the "fabulous Mint 400" motorcycle race. During the trip, he and his lawyer become sidetracked by a search for the American dream, with the aid of copious amounts of alcohol, LSD, ether, adrenochrome, mescaline, cocaine, marijuana and other drugs. Ralph Steadman, who collaborated with Thompson on several projects, contributed expressionist pen and ink illustrations.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is a collection of Rolling Stone articles he wrote while covering the election campaigns of President Richard M. Nixon and his unsuccessful opponent, Senator George McGovern. The book focuses largely on the Democratic Party's primaries (Nixon, as an incumbent, performed little campaign work) and its breakdown due to splits between the different candidates; McGovern was extolled while Ed Muskie and Hubert Humphrey were ridiculed. Thompson would go 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." [2]

Thompson debuted in Rolling Stone with an article describing his 1970 bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado on the "Freak Power" ticket. Thompson narrowly lost the election, having run on a platform promoting drugs decriminalization (but for use only, not trafficking, as he disapproved of profiteering), tearing up the streets and turning them into grassy pedestrian malls, banning any building so tall as to obscure the view of the mountains, and renaming Aspen, Colorado to "Fat City" — . The incumbent Republican sheriff whom he ran against had a crew cut, prompting Thompson to shave his head bald and refer to his opposition as "my long-haired opponent."

During the 1980's, Thompson held a series of cocaine parties, that some sources claim a young George W. Bush attended. Whether or not this is true or if Thompson was aware of this is murky. Either way, he would later devote his work to fervently bashing the President, in both books and editorials.

Later years

One of Thompson's last books, Kingdom of Fear, is an angry commentary on the passing of the American Century. Thompson also wrote a web column, "Hey Rube," for ESPN "Page 2," which was later compiled into a book of the same name. He had at times also toured on the lecture circuit, once with John Belushi.

Thompson was fond of firearms and was an avid firearms enthusiast with a vast collection of handguns, rifles, shotguns, numerous forms of gaseous crowd control, automatic and semi-automatic weaponry, and virtually every form of manufactured and homemade explosive known to man.

Thompson's brother James (born 1949 and died from AIDS complications in 1994) claimed Thompson was offended by his homosexuality, and the two were never close. James complained how the burden of caring for their drunken mother fell to him over the many years Hunter was away, including sometimes having to take a taxi to pick her up off the pavement where she had passed out.

Hunter married Anita Bejmuk, his long-time assistant, on April 24, 2003.

Death

Thompson died at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado, at 5:42 p.m. on February 20, 2005, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 67 years old.

Thompson's son (Juan), daughter-in-law (Jennifer Winkel Thompson) and grandson (Will Thompson) were visiting for the weekend at the time of his suicide. Will and Jennifer were in the adjacent room when they heard the gunshot, though the gunshot was mistaken for a book falling, and so they continued with their activities for a few minutes before checking on him; "Winkel Thompson continued playing 20 questions with Will, Juan Thompson continued taking a photo" Thompson was sitting at his typewriter with the word "counselor" written in the center of the page. Template:Fn

They reported to the press that they do not believe his suicide was out of desperation, but was a well-thought out act resulting from Thompson's many painful medical conditions.Template:Fn Thompson's wife, Anita, who was at the gym at the time of her husband's death, was on the phone with Thompson when he ended his life.

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 Milhous Nixon went to —and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too —and Peacocks..." Template:Fn

Three months later, Rolling Stone released what was claimed to be Thompson's final written words, written with a marker four days before his death, The title was "Football Season is over":

"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."

Funeral

On August 20, 2005, in a private ceremony, Thompson's ashes were fired from a cannon atop a 153-foot tower of his own design (in the shape of a double-thumbed fist clutching a peyote button) to the tune of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, known to be the song most respected by the late writer. Red, white, blue and green fireworks were launched along with his ashes. As the city of Aspen would not allow the cannon to remain for more than a month, the cannon has been dismantled and put into storage until a suitable permanent location can be found. There is talk of a public party sometime in the summer of 2006. According to widow Anita Thompson, the actor Johnny Depp, a close friend of Thompson (and who portrayed Thompson in the movie adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), financed the funeral. 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." [3] Other famous attendees at the funeral included: U.S. Senator John Kerry and former U.S. Senator George McGovern; 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley; actors Bill Murray (who portrayed Hunter S. Thompson in the movie Where the Buffalo Roam), Sean Penn and Josh Hartnett; singers Lyle Lovett and John Oates; and numerous other friends. An estimated 280 people attended the funeral.

The plans for this impressive monument were initially drawn by Thompson and Ralph Steadman and were shown as part of an Omnibus program on the BBC entitled 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. The video footage of Steadman and Thompson drawing the plans and outdoor footage showing where he wanted the cannon constructed were played prior to the unveiling of his cannon at the funeral.

Douglas Brinkley, a friend and now the family's spokesman, said of the ceremony: "If that's what he wanted, we'll see if we can pull it off." Template:Fn

Legacy

Writing style and persona

Thompson's writing aimed to be humorous, colourful and bizarre. He often exaggerated events to be more entertaining, blurring the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction. Thompson often wrote in the first person and frequently used action verbs.

Hunter often portrayed himself as a callous, erratic, self-destructive journalist who constantly took alcohol and hallucinatory drugs. During a BBC interview, he said that he sometimes felt obligated to live up to the fictional self that he had created.

A slogan of Thompson's, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," appears as a chapter heading in Kingdom of Fear. He was also quoted as saying, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." Another one of his favorite sayings, "Buy the ticket, take the ride," is easily applied to virtually all of his exploits. "Too weird to live, too rare to die", a phrase applied to Oscar Zeta Acosta (Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), has been widely used to qualify the "Good Doctor" after his death.

The Hawaiian word "mahalo" also frequently appears in Thompson's works and correspondence. Loosely translated, it means "may you be in divine breath." On more than one occasion, "mahalo" followed Thompson's usage of "buy the ticket, take the ride."

Letters

Thompson wrote many letters and they were his primary means of personal conversation. Thompson made carbon copies of all his letters, usually typed, a habit that began in his teenage years. His letters contained early traces of his later style and were sent to friends, public officials and reporters.

Some of his letters have begun to be published in a series of books called The Fear and Loathing Letters. The first volume, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955 - 1967, is over 650 pages, while the second volume Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist passed 700. Douglas Brinkley, who edits the letter series, said that for every letter included, fifteen were cut. Brinkley estimated Thompson’s own archive to contain over 20,000 letters. According to Amazon.com, the last of the three planned volumes of Thompson’s letters will be published on October 1, 2006 as The Mutineer: Rants, Ravings, and Missives from the Mountaintop 1977-2005.

Three biographies have been written about Thompson, although he did not write an autobiography himself. But his letters contained "asides" to "his [imagined] biographers" that he assumed could be "reading in" on his collected letters. Some of these letters were already bundled into Thompson's Kingdom of Fear, though it is not considered an autobiography.

Accolades and direct influence

Author Tom Wolfe has called Thompson the greatest American comic writer of the 20th century.

Hunter Thompson appears as Uncle Duke in Doonesbury, the Garry Trudeau comic strip. (Raoul Duke was a pseudonym used by Thompson.) When the character was first introduced, Thompson protested, (he was once quoted in an interview saying that he would set Trudeau on fire if the two ever met) [4] although it was reported that he liked the character in later years.

Between 7 March 2005 (roughly two weeks after Thompson's suicide) and 12 March 2005, the strip ran a tribute to Hunter, with Uncle Duke lamenting the death of the man he called his "inspiration." The first of these strips [5] featured a panel with artwork similar to that of Ralph Steadman, and later strips featured various non sequiturs (with Duke variously transforming into a monster, melting, and shrinking to the size of an empty drinking glass) which seemed to mirror some the effects of hallucinatory drugs described in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Spider Jerusalem, the gonzo journalist protagonist of Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan, is partly based on Thompson.

Political beliefs

Thompson's letters to friends suggest an interest in Ayn Rand's school of Objectivist philosophy. He later drifted away from Rand's version of anti-establishment politics. His political writings during the 1972 and 1976 elections suggest that he embraced democracy and freedom. His political position was frequently libertarian, anarchist, and socialist. In the documentary "Breakfast With Hunter", Thompson can be seen in several scenes wearing different Che Guevara t-shirts, while his son Juan Thompson acknowledges that his father had "a perverse resistance to security and predictability, and a deliberate disregard for propriety."

Thompson's official biographer and longtime friend Douglas Brinkley said:

"He’s both a kind of old-fashioned believer in democratic virtues, but also an anarchist. There’s always that unpredictable element with him. In any given situation, as soon as he feels there’s a system closing in, he’ll destroy it."

In 2004 Thompson, regarding politics, wrote: "Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for—but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him." (Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004, Rolling Stone)

Movies

The film Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) depicts Thompson's attempts at writing stories for both the Super Bowl and the 1972 U.S. presidential election. It stars Bill Murray as Thompson and Peter Boyle as Thompson's attorney Oscar Acosta, referred to in the movie as Carl Laslow, Esq.

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 Hunter's basement to 'study' Thompson's persona before assuming his role in the film) as Raoul Duke and Benicio Del Toro as Dr. Gonzo. Thompson appeared in the scene at the club "The Matrix", sitting at a table. The film has achieved something of a cult following.

The film Breakfast With Hunter (2003) was directed and edited by Wayne 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), also by Wayne Ewing, is a video chronicle of making Thompson's final farewell wishes a reality and the great send-off itself.

A new film is in production as of 2005, based upon Thompson's novel The Rum Diary. Depp is signed on to star in this new Thompson film. Del Toro was supposed to have directed and starred as Sala, but he withdrew from directing in January 2004; Officially he is not signed on to star. Bruce Robinson is directing instead.

Thompson was long rumored to have appeared on the early 90's Nickelodeon TV series, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, in the episode "New Years Pete." However, the creators have since debunked this in several interviews, explaining that the "Man on the Street" was simply an extra who, coincidentally, happened to be named Hunter Thompson. [6]

Paul Giamatti ("American Splendor", "Sideways") has been mentioned as a possible candidate to play Thompson in a future film.

Trivia

  • Thompson appeared on the cover of the 1000th Rolling Stone issue (May 18 - June 1, 2006). He appeared as a devil playing the guitar next to the two "L"'s in the word Rolling Stone.

Articles

  • Playboy
    • The Great Shark Hunt — 1974
    • Fear and Justice in the Kingdom of Sex — 2004

Bibliography

References

  • ^ Rolfsen, (Jeff Feb. 21, 2005) Writer Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide. Air Force Times.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Hunter S. Thompson.
Wikinews has related news:

Online sources

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter_S._Thompson&oldid=54933426"