Thompson maintained that unpredictable, wild man persona until his death in 2005, after which actor Johnny Depp (who played Thompson on screen in the 1998 adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” paid the cost of having Thompson’s ashes shot out of a cannon on Thompson’s beloved ranch in Woody Creek, Colo. But more than just his first national exposure as a writer of importance, “Hell’s Angels” had a profound effect on Thompson, who blazed his own trail in what he described as the ethos of Gonzo journalism. Published by Random House in 1967, “Hell’s Angels” began as “The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders” for the May 17, 1965, issue of The Nation magazine. Thompson, of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” fame. “Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs” was the book that launched the career of legendary journalist and novelist Hunter S. Here’s a look at five ways the Hells Angels and its longtime leader left tire tracks on on pop culture. That legacy lives on every time a radio station or streamer plays Steppenwolf’s counterculture anthem “Born to Be Wild” and in every unspooling of landmark movies like 1969’s “Easy Rider” and the Maysles brothers’ 1970 concert film “Gimme Shelter.” The mythos of the rebel clad in black leather astride their prized “hogs,” as their often-chopped Harley-Davidson motorcycles are known, is now entrenched in the public’s imagination. Barger’s death on June 29 at the age of 83 made international headlines because of that reach.īarger was the face of the Hells Angels for decades, but the origin story of the Hells Angels began nearly a decade before when the club was founded in Fontana, Calif., in 1948. It’s hard to appreciate today, but when Barger founded the Oakland chapter in 1957, the mythology of the outlaw biker had already been emblazoned on the national consciousness through the Hells Angels’ impact on fashion, movies and music, as a symbol of rebellion.
With the death this week of Ralph “Sonny” Barger, national president of famed motorcycle club the Hells Angels, a piece of vibrant American pop culture history recedes farther into the past.
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