Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) was an American journalist and author, born in Louisville, Kentucky, and regarded as a pioneer of New Journalism alongside Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe.

He rose to prominence with Hell's Angels (1967), for which he spent a year living among the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account. In 1970 his unconventional article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly raised his profile as a countercultural figure and set him on the path to "Gonzo", a style of New Journalism in which the writer becomes central to, and a participant in, the story.

His best-known work is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), first serialized in Rolling Stone, in which he grapples with what he saw as the failure of the 1960s counterculture; it was adapted for film twice. He ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970 on the Freak Power ticket, was known for his intense dislike of Richard Nixon, and covered George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone, collected as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

From the mid-1970s his output declined as he struggled with fame and substance abuse. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, and he kept writing sporadically for Rolling Stone, Playboy, Esquire and ESPN.com. He had a lifelong love of alcohol, drugs and firearms and a contempt for authority. On February 20, 2005, following a series of health problems, he died by suicide at the age of 67.