Hunter S. Thompson
1939-
Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky.
Typewriter:IBM Selectric (Red)

Thompson is best known as a proponent of "new journalism", a form of writing that engages the subjectivity of its author and often includes fictional elements to dramatize real occurrences. Among numerous examples of his eccentric and daredevil approach towards writing, he became the first reporter to infiltrate the Hell's Angels. He rode with them for a year, an experience that led to his being savagely beaten up.

Thompson produced a stream of outrageous books, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), which was made into a film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in 1998; and Generations of Swine (1988). At the end of the 1980s he contributed a weekly column to the San Francisco Examiner. He has also worked as a writer for the television series Nash Bridges (in 1996), starring Don Johnson.