Posted on 01/13/2026 11:28:14 PM PST by nickcarraway
Hunter S Thompson sits on a deck chair. For some reason, he always seemed to be sitting on deck chairs, a noted shirker of upholstery. He chokes down another gulp of his cigarette and considers the question as deeply as he has ever considered anything in his life: is Hunter S Thompson the man, now inseparable from Hunter S Thompson the myth?
The speed freak has perhaps never paused so fully to ponder anything as much in his life. Where does one end and the other begin? Is he destined to keep up chaotic appearances because that’s what’s expected of him, or is the cavalcade of madness simply perpetuated by virtue of his freakish nature? Could he settle down without surrendering his true self?
At the midpoint of his manic life, he didn’t seem quite so sure of the answer himself. There were surely Monday mornings and bleak comedowns where he considered the former and almost flirted with a sobering chamomile and a calming long walk, but there are also only so many times you can accidentally burn down a yacht with a flare gun while high on mushrooms and not think that maybe something about you is hardwired for the highwire life.
Bill Murray certainly figured that only bedlam was bound to follow in the writer’s blazing trail. The actor’s view was that Hunter was mad and always had been; there were no questions about a mask eating into the face.
Even when the cameras weren’t rolling, and no stories were being sketchily stirred up on the wing, he was a rampaging freak with no known equal. Murray was an authority on the matter because one night, he tried to be his equal, and it almost cost him his life.
Hunter S Thompson - Author - Journalist The writer and wild man Hunter S Thompson. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy) How Hunter S Thompson almost killed Bill Murray The Groundhog Day star was cast to play the gonzo reporter in the 1980 movie Where the Buffalo Roam. The semi-autobiographical comedy captured the journalist’s rise to fame or infamy, depending on who you ask. In the build-up to shooting the project in the late 1970s, Murray began spending plenty of time with the fellow he was set to portray. In fact, all of the cast and crew got to see him plenty of times thanks to the self-appointed role of “executive consultant” that the late writer took up.
When the script was first presented to him, he called it “bad, dumb, low-level, low rent” and railed against it. Originally, he had signed off on the film rights to the obituary he had written for the celebrated Chicano activist Oscar ‘Zeta’ Acosta without question. But he suddenly took an active interest as shooting time drew nearer. That being said, all this materialised from this sudden, hands-on interest, was Thompson roving around the set, firing machine guns into the distance. However, it did give Murray the chance to get a grip on his character.
Sadly, taking this to the next step almost caused him to lose his grip on life. “One day at Thompson’s Aspen, Colorado home, after many drinks and after much arguing over who could out-Houdini whom, Thompson tied Billy to a chair and threw him into the swimming pool,” Saturday Night Live associate Doug Hill recalls.
Murray had asserted that he was confident a simple underwater knot slip while heavily intoxicated would be absolutely no problem. After all, he had no experience in the art of escapology, so he was destined to be blessed with beginner’s luck.
Thompson agreed. ‘Nothing that ever amounts to a great anecdote ever goes wrong’ was his line of thinking and, essentially, the motto he lived by. The issue was that there was apparently no rope on hand, so they used duct tape instead. That’s a detail that is difficult to ratify, and accounts vary. But rope, tape or otherwise, an uslippable knot left Murray floundering at the bottom of the pool while Thomspon was idly pouring himself another drink.
Whether he was too intoxicated to care, just letting the anecdote overlords do their work, or supremely confident that Murray was down there seamlessly slipping out of his restraints like an eel in handcuffs, for a frighteningly long time, Thomspon failed to do anything other than embellish the banks of his bloodstream with yet more booze.
Alas, something must have eventually stirred in him, and somehow, he summoned the strength to plunge into the pool and carry the weight of Murray, whatever chair he was bound to – likely a deck chair – and probably a few kilos worth of duct tape to the surface where the party promptly continued.
As Hill’s simple conclusion states, “Billy nearly drowned before Thompson pulled him out”.
However, as though a spell had been cast by this near-death battle of stupidity unbecoming of men in their 40s and late 30s, respectively, Murray was in the clutches of Thompson mania when he returned to Saturday Night Live after long months of shooting Where the Buffalo Roam, he would lounge around puffing cigarettes through a trademark Thompson-esque holder, a living facsimile of the gonzo king.
He was trapped in the character, seemingly blissfully unaware that the same man had almost killed him through a daft misadventure a few tumultuous weeks earlier.
It’s a good job that all this hard work and near-death death wasn’t simply dismissed by Thompson. No, it was far worse than that; he called it a “horrible pile of crap. And while he did add that “Murray did a good job,” he sore conclusion was thus: “You can’t beat a bad script. It was just a horrible movie. A cartoon.”
And call Bill Murray what you will but he was a very kind and gentle person. The best story I ever heard about him was from here in Alaska. This husband and wife/boyfriend girlfriend whatever picked up a guy that was hitchhiking on the side of the road because he was broken down. His rental car quit and he was driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Anyway, these people picked him up and when they got to Fairbanks he asked if they would want his autograph or something from him. They had no idea who was sitting in the back of their car. He was so kind and so sweet and until the end he did not let on to who he was.
Bill Murray - The comedian who wasn’t the least bit funny.
“Bill Murray - The comedian who wasn’t the least bit funny.”
indeed ... a very good human being in real life, but not a very funny comedian or a very good actor in my opinion ...
I came to see Hunter as largely a phony flake that the left thought was deep and that served them, so they promoted him and sold him as a giant, a familiar routine with them.
What little I read of Hunter convinced me he was psycho.
Tied with Will Farrell.
P
To be fair, according to many, many sources, Bill Murray had multiple near-death experiences - because of his mouth . . .
Saw the movie back in the day. It was crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QsorI-fZsY
He’s quirky but I think a pretty fair actor. He was great in “lost in translation” which was not a comedy. “What About Bob” was pretty funny. I think Bill Murray is more of a character than an actor or comedian.
Duct tape, swimming pools and booze sounds like fun.
Still funnier than Chevy Chase any day of the week. While I agree with you overall there were still some movies of his I enjoyed, while I can’t think of anything chase did that was any good.
i actually liked him in “Groundhog Day” ...
one of his homes is in Charleston, SC and he was featured as a Charleston local in a couple of Anthony Bourdain’s cooking shows ...
“Monday mornings and bleak comedowns where he considered the former and almost flirted with a sobering chamomile and a calming long walk, but there are also only so many times you can accidentally burn down a yacht with a flare gun while high on mushrooms and not think that maybe something about you is hardwired for the”
Oh brother. The author seems to be trying to impress Thompson with his writing. Meh.
Sounds a trifle exaggerated. Wouldn’t it be pretty quickly fatal to be tossed underwater while restrained?
Hardly time to pour a leisurely drink and contemplate the situation before rescuing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.