Trivia

After covering the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami for Rolling Stone, Thompson went for an evening swim in the ocean to clear his head. When a light tropical storm blew up, Thompson was caught in a riptide and swept out to sea. He spent the rest of the night fighting to swim back to the beach, finally crawling ashore at 9:00 A.M.

Following Richard Nixon's appearance in New Hampshire during the 1968 presidential campaign, he offered Thompson a lift to the airport on the condition that they would only talk about football. Thompson accepted, mostly because he thought Nixon knew nothing about the sport. Nixon turned out to be an avid fan.

To improve his writing style, he once copied F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" word for word, from start to finish.

His favorite pastime was to load a barrel or oil drum with explosives and then shoot it from a safe distance with one of his many handguns.

Thompson and Don Johnson, wrote a script for a 2-hour TV movie. "Bridges" was about an unstable cop battling alcoholism and drug addiction who works in L.A. with a short Latino partner and dates a mafia boss's daughter. NBC bought the script and turned it into the series Nash Bridges (1996).

Ran for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, in 1969 on the Freak Power Party ticket, and narrowly lost.

Lived next to Don Johnson.

Shortly after Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in Ketcham, Idaho, Thompson wrote an article titled, "What Lured Hemingway to Ketcham". Thompson concluded that Hemingway became depressed because all of his favorite haunts, such as Paris and Cuba, had changed, and all of his friends were dead or different. Therefore, Hemingway had nothing to live for.

His will stipulated that his body be cremated and his ashes shot out of a 150-foot cannon his Colorado ranch. Journalist friend Troy Hooper said "He was a big fan of bonfires and explosions and anything that went bang, and I'm sure he'd like to go bang as well." His wishes were fulfilled on August 20, 2005, during a celebration of his life attended by Sean Penn, Johnny Depp, Lyle Lovett, and other close friends and family. A cannon was specially constructed for the event.

During his adolescence, he and 2 friends broke into and robbed the same Lexington, Ky. gas station on 3 consecutive nights.

At 15, he made an electric go-kart using a washing machine motor.

His mother was a chronic alcoholic.

The band Avenged Sevenfold wrote the song "Bat Country" about him.

Graduate of Louisville (Ky.) Male High School, class of 1955. He missed his graduation ceremony because he was in jail. Afterward, he joined the Air Force as a condition of his parole. He later bought a doctorate in Divinity from a church by mail order, and started calling himself Dr. Thompson.

His second wife, Anita, was 35 years younger than him.

Rode a BSA A65 Lightning, most notably while researching his seminal book "Hell's Angels". He wrote that they beat him up toward the end of his time with them.

One of the most widely quoted lines from tributes and obituaries to him was from one written by Frank Kelly Rich, editor and publisher of Modern Drunkard Magazine: "There was always a powerful comfort in knowing he was out there somewhere in the night, roaring drunk, guzzling high-octane whiskey and railing against a world amok with complacency and hypocrisy."

His lifelong antipathy for Richard Nixon was known by the former president, who barred him from the White House.

His grandson, son of his only child Juan, was born 1998.

He had his first run-in with the law at age 9, when he and a group of friends knocked a federal mailbox in front of a city bus.

Was a huge fan of the British TV soap Coronation Street, and insisted his friend Ralph Steadman mail him VHS tapes of the show each month.

Hunter Thompson and Sandra Dawn Thompson were married for almost 18 years. In that time, he wrote "Hells Angels" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", which were considered his two greatest books. Sandra's drug and alcohol habits led to several miscarriages; only one of her pregnancies produced a healthy baby, her now-grown son Juan. Eventually, the drugs sent Hunter into a depression that lasted for several years. The Thompsons fought a lot in that time, sometimes physically. Sandy took several beatings, and sometimes injured Hunter. When she told him she wanted a divorce, Hunter destroyed some of her possessions and burned the manuscripts she had been writing. Sandy called the sheriff, a family friend, who sent a deputy to her house to escort her into town. When the deputy asked Sandy if Hunter had any firearms in the house, she truthfully replied, "Yes, 22 of them, and every one is loaded".

The character of "Duke" in Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury" comic strip is based on him.

When he lived in Big Sur in the early 1960s, a group of religious fanatics moved in next door. He got rid of them by nailing the head of a wild boar to their front door, and putting its entrails in their car.

Once sold a Cadillac Eldorado to Lyle Lovett.

He and two friends robbed a liquor store by starting a fight with the clerks, then cleaning out the cash register in the confusion.

Appeared on a 1967 broadcast of To Tell the Truth (1956) when his book detailing his experiences with the "Hell's Angels" was published.

On July 27, 2000, Thompson accidentally wounded his assistant, Deborah Fuller, with a shotgun while trying to scare a bear from his property in Aspen. He was cleared of criminal charges on August 3rd.

Was extremely critical of the Bush administration. He once said "If Nixon were running, I would happily vote for him instead".

Thompson wrote a weekly column, "Hey Rube", for ESPN.com's Page 2 from October 2000 to 2005. Shortly before his death, he wrote about 'inventing' a new sport: Shotgun Golf.

Critics have often said that his writing style declined noticeably after his first wife, Sandy, divorced him.

His son Juan graduated from college Magna Cum Laude.

When he lived in Big Sur in the early 1960s, his next door neighbor was Joan Baez.

When he lived in Big Sur in the early 1960s, he rode his BSA Lightning so much he was known as "The Wild One of Big Sur".

In 1987 he pleaded no contest to a drunk driving charge in San Francisco.

Underground cartoonist turned comics and animation historian Scott Shaw based a recurring character in his works after Thompson: an anthropomorphic dog named "Pointer X. Toxin".

Was a staunch opponent of the Iraq War in his later years.

He was the basis for the character Spider Jerusalem in the comic series "Transmetropolitan" by Warren Ellis and Darik Robertson.

Charged with possessing child pornography and sexually assaulting former porn star Gail Palmer. An 11-hour search of his home in Woody Creek, Colorado, turned up insufficient evidence to prosecute him on either charge, and the DA dropped the case.

Biography/bibliography in: "Contemporary Authors". New Revision Series, Vol. 133, pp. 410-417. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 538-541. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.