Oscar Zeta Acosta (April 8, 1935 – 1974?) was an American attorney, author, politician, and Chicano activist. He is best known for existence portrayed as Hunter S. Thompson's partner Dr. Gonzo in Thompson's book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Acosta was natural around El Paso, Texas, and raised in the little rural town touching Modesto, California. Acosta's father was drafted when you took World War II, so immature Oscar experienced to choose care of the personal. At days, Acosta felt prefer an outsider & he presents his feelings of alienation, mistrust, & dislocation within his works. He was two an intelligent & sensitive student.

When finishing senior high, Acosta joined the U.S. Air Force. He so worked his way across college, attended school of law, & passed a California Bar test around 1966. Around 1967, Oscar began working as an antipoverty attorney around Oakland, California.

Inside 1970, Acosta ran for sheriff of Los Angeles County against Peter Pitchess, and received to a higher degree 100,000 votes. In a period of a campaign, he defended the anti-establishment Chicano class action Catolicos por La Raza, spent a couple of times inside poky for contempt of court, and vowed to get rid of a Sheriff's Department when it was so constituted. Acostthe, known for loudly ties & the floral attaché out break by using a Chicano Power sticker, didn't came more or less Sheriff Pitchess' 1,300,000 votes however did beat Everett Holladay, Monterey Park Chief of Police.

His number one novel, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, was published in 1972, followed in 1973 by The Revolt of the Cockroach People. In 1974, Acosta disappeared after traveling to Mexico. His boy, Marco Acosta, believes that he was the endure human to talk to his father. Inside Will 1974, Acosta telephoned his boy, mentioning "Son, I'm about to board a boat full of white snow." Marco is late quoted inside information to his father's disappearance: "The body was never found, but we surmise that probably, knowing the people he was involved with, he ended up mouthing off, getting into a fight, and getting killed."[http://www.gettingit.com/article/603]

Based on data from Thompson's necrology of Acosta "Fear and Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird: The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", Acostthe was a mighty lawyer & sermoniser however suffered from either addictions to lysergic acid and methamphetamines. the necrology alternates from either vitriolic to testing, however all in all conveys the feel that Acosta was a doomed human world health organization felt he was doomed to martyrdom & destined to become a messiah, however was brought down by his inability to exist as either.

Around an locate Thompson is quoted when saying Acosta was stabbed & thrown overboard someplace off a coast of Mexico. There are hearsay around information to what precipitated a execution.

What Thompson really said just about Oscar: "...and someone onboard shot him two or three times in the stomach, with a .45. Then threw him over the side."

Acosta's photo & life history pop up on the back handle of early editions of Fear & Abomination within Las Vegas. These are said that Thompson's publisher became neural at Acosta's existence mentioned by title in the book, together sustaining Thompson's accounts of copious drug have per 2. Contacted per publisher, Acosta refused an offer to use his title excised from either a book. Acosta demanded that a book lone exist as published within problem that his title exist as left in, & that his title & picture exist as conspicuously displayed on the handle.

Quotes about Acosta

''"Oscar was not into serious street-fighting, but he was hell on wheels in a bar brawl. Any combination of a 250 lb [113 kg] Mexican and LSD-25 is a potentially terminal menace for anything it can reach - but when the alleged Mexican is in fact a profoundly angry Chicano lawyer with no fear at all of anything that walks on less than three legs and a de facto suicidal condition that he will die at the age of 33 - just like Jesus Christ - you have a serious piece of work on your hands. Specially if the bastard is already 33 1/2 years old with a head full of Sandoz acid, a loaded .357 Magnum in his belt, a hatchet-wielding Chicano bodyguard on his elbow at all times, and a disconcerting habit of projectile vomiting geysers of pure blood off the front porch every 30 or 40 minutes, or whenever his malignant ulcer can't handle any more raw tequila."''

- Hunter S. Thompson, Rolling Stone #254, Dec. Fifteen, 1977