(born July 18, 1937, Louisville, Ky., U.S.—died Feb. 20, 2005, Woody Creek, Colo.) U.S. journalist. He had run-ins with the law as a young man and served in the U.S.
Air Force. In 1965 he infiltrated the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and published his account, Hell's Angels, in 1967. His psychedelic-drug romp, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), is considered a contemporary classic; it was made into a film in 1998. Other books include Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 (1973), The Great Shark Hunt (1979), and Better Than Sex (1994). He created the genre known as “gonzo journalism,” a style created from (by his own account) accident and desperation, and his writing—idiosyncratic and subjective in the extreme, and often wildly funny—gained him a large underground following. Thompson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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