For those of you who have the Biography Channel, VCR alert tonight:
http://news940.dserv.ca/news.php?cat=7&id=e03059A
Hunter S. Thompson, Osama bin Laden highlights of coming week's TV fare
at 14:56 on March 5, 2005, EST.
When Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in front of his typewriter, the word "counselor" was found typed in the centre of the page. Coming from this legendary "gonzo" journalist, the dispatch was unusually concise. But its presentation was typically flamboyant.
Thompson, who committed suicide Feb. 20 at age 67, is now the subject of a Biography Channel portrait. Airing 9 p.m. EST Monday, Biography: Hunter S. Thompson explores the life of this combustible reporter and the gonzo style he invented: a volatile mix of reporting, self-reflection and outright fiction.
It was Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - his 1971 account of a drug-fuelled trip to cover a district attorneys anti-drug conference for Rolling Stone magazine - that earned him stature in both journalism and pop-culture circles. But along with prose, his life was riddled with erratic behaviour, automatic weapons, illegal substances and a run for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colo., on a platform of decriminalizing drugs.
Biography includes interviews with Thompson as well as historian Douglas Brinkley; E. Jean Carroll, author of Hunter; Anita Thompson, his wife; and son Juan Thompson. (Monday, March 7, Biography)