this sucks.

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'Gonzo' writer Hunter S. Thompson found dead
CTV.ca News Staff

Hunter S. Thompson, the prominent countercultural writer who personified "gonzo journalism," has been found dead.

He apparently died of a gunshot wound. Police do not suspect foul play.

It happened Sunday evening at his home near Aspen, Colorado. Thompson was 67. His wife Anita was not home at the time.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," his only son Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. Juan found the body.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis confirmed the death to the local newspaper.

Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937. After a delinquent youth, he joined the Air Force (as a condition of parole) where he became exposed to writing by working for an airbase paper.

A man with an appetite for alcohol, drugs and life, he left this as his signature quote: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Thompson wrote himself and his adventures into his non-fiction stories and books. One, Hells Angels, published in 1966, had him recounting how he was "stomped" by members of the infamous motorcycle gang that he had been living and riding with.

In 1970, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin County in Colorado on the Freak Power ticket and almost won.

He found a home for a while with Rolling Stone magazine, a distinctly countercultural publication in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Titles such as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas were considered classics of the gonzo genre.

The latter was made into a 1998 movie starring Johnny Depp. Thompson was also immortalized in the film Where The Buffalo Roam, starring Bill Murray.

He is also considered to be the basis for the "Uncle Duke" character in the Doonesbury comic strip drawn by Garry Trudeau.

His last book was Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness.

With files from The Associated Press