Legendary writer Hunter S. Thompson killed himself with a handgun in his home near Aspen, Colorado, US on Sunday night. Thompson was 67. Las Vegas and gambling were remarkable parts of Thompon’s extravagant literary legacy.

‘Gonzo’ author Hunter S. Thompson takes own life aged 67

Legendary writer Hunter S. Thompson killed himself with a handgun in his home near Aspen, Colorado, US on Sunday night. Thompson was 67. Las Vegas and gambling were remarkable parts of Thompon’s extravagant literary legacy.Hunter Thompson was a journalist symbol of the U.S. counterculture since the 1960s and the father of "gonzo journalism," an unusual and highly personalized writing style, in which the writer is an essential component of the story. "Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," said his son, Juan Thompson.  Juan Thompson said he found his father's dead body. The writer’s wife, was not home at the time of the suicide. She said Thompson "was not going to age gracefully. He was going to go out with a bang. He was tormented."Thompson was born in Kentucky in 1937. He served two years in US Air Force, where he first tried his pen as a newspaper sports editor. He later was almost elected sheriff in Aspen in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner, but preferred writing to cop service.  Much of Thompson’s earliest work appeared in Rolling Stone magazine. In 1972 the writer authored the classic story Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about the author's own drug-addled visit to Sin City. Thompson gained much of his fame with this book and similarly-entitled book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era. He wrote that President Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character." Writing in The New York Times in 1973, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt worried Thompson might someday "lapse into good taste." "That would be a shame, for while he doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity," he wrote. "And in its own mad way, it's damned refreshing."Also, Hunter Thompson became a regular feature in the "Doonesbury" comic strips as Uncle Duke. He wrote a remarkable article for Harper's after the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, after year-long riding with the group.

Thompson once wrote: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone ... but they've always worked for me."