{"id":448,"date":"2022-06-30T21:55:49","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T21:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-face-of-the-hells-angels-dies-at-83\/"},"modified":"2022-06-30T21:55:49","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T21:55:49","slug":"sonny-barger-face-of-the-hells-angels-dies-at-83","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-face-of-the-hells-angels-dies-at-83\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Barger, Face of the Hells Angels, Dies at 83"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sonny Barger, who as the charismatic face of the Hells Angels grew the hard-charging motorcycle club from its roots in the San Francisco area to a global phenomenon, in the process making it an emblem of West Coast rebellion \u2014 and, federal authorities said, criminal enterprise \u2014 died on Wednesday at his home outside Oakland, Calif.  He was 83.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His former lawyer and business manager, Fritz Clapp, said the cause was liver cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Hells Angels were both a defining part of the postwar counterculture and a sharp deviation from it.  While the beats, hippies, yippies, diggers and other groups skewed far to the left and generally eschewed violence, the Angels reveled in attacking antiwar protesters, warring with rival clubs and targeting enemies for revenge killings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the time  Barger (the name is pronounced with a hard \u201cG\u201d) solidified his position as the de facto leader of the club&#8217;s various chapters, in the mid-1960s, those idiosyncrasies had already made them something of a legend, helped along by a long list of writers who found their story \u2014 and Mr.  Barger&#8217;s allure \u2014 irresistible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn any gathering of Hell&#8217;s Angels,\u201d Hunter S. Thompson wrote in his book \u201cHell&#8217;s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga\u201d (1967), \u201cthere is no doubt who is running the show: Ralph &#8216;Sonny&#8217; Barger, the Maximum leader, a six-foot, 170-pound warehouseman from East Oakland, the coolest head in the lot, and a tough, quick-thinking dealer when any action starts.  By turns he is a fanatic, a philosopher, a brawler, a shrewd compromiser and a final arbitrator.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Barger was always careful to distance himself from much of the club&#8217;s more extreme ventures into criminality, cultivating an image that was at once hard-core and media savvy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He wasn&#8217;t there, for example, in 1965 when a group of Hells Angels in Berkeley, Calif., assaulted marchers who were protesting the Vietnam War, though he verbally attacked the antiwar movement at a news conference soon after \u2014 and volunteered to take a squad of bikers behind North Vietnamese lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was likewise uninvolved in the violence that broke out between Hells Angels and audience members at a free concert at the Altamont Speedway, near San Francisco, on Dec.  6, 1969. The Rolling Stones, who were headlining, had hired Mr.  Barger and the Hells Angels to provide security, but several Angels ended up beating audience members with pool cues and stabbing one person, Meredith Hunter, to death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A few days later  Barger called into a radio station to provide his side of the story.  He said he had been sitting on the edge of the stage drinking beer during the Stones&#8217; set and had not participated in the fighting, but he defended his fellow club members&#8217; action as self-defense against what he characterized as drug-added hippies intent on wrecking their bikes.  (He did, however, later admit to pulling a gun on Keith Richards when the band was late getting started.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One Hells Angel, Alan Passaro, was charged with murder in Mr.  Hunter&#8217;s death.  He was acquitted on grounds of self-defense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Especially after Altamont, Mr.  Barger tried to clean up the Angels&#8217; image, hiring a public relations firm and getting the group involved in charity fund-raisers.  And he insisted that the club \u2014 he bristled when people called the Hells Angels a gang \u2014 was undeserving of people&#8217;s worst impressions, which he said had been cultivated by law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere never was a crime thought up by the Hells Angels,\u201d he told The Phoenix New Times in 1992, soon after his second prison sentence ended.  \u201cIt was thought up by the FBI It was paid for by the FBI And I went to jail for it.  That&#8217;s the way it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In fact, by the time of Altamont, the organization was already descending deeper into criminality, especially drug dealing.  The FBI estimates that by the 1980s, biker gangs controlled a quarter of the heroin business in the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Starting in 1963, Mr.  Barger was arrested almost annually, usually on assault, weapons or drug charges.  And, for a while at least, he always got off.  In 1972 he was charged with murdering a drug dealer, Servio Winston Agero, but he was acquitted when a key witness proved unreliable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Finally, in 1973, he was sentenced to 10 years to life for possession of narcotics and weapons.  He went to Folsom State Prison, where he continued to run the Hells Angels.  He was released in 1977.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He went to prison again in 1988, convicted of conspiring to attack members of a rival motorcycle group, the Outlaws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the time he left prison, in 1992, he was an elder statesman on the biker scene.  A bout with throat cancer in 1982 had forced doctors to remove his vocal cords, leaving him with a hole in his throat that he had to close to speak, and then only in a hoarse whisper.  People had to bend down to hear him, reinforcing his image as a leather-clad Godfather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And though he played less of a role in the Hells Angels, he continued to offer ample fodder for magazine profiles, this time as an avuncular, time-hardened sage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think doing time is just part of growing up,\u201d he told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. \u201cThere&#8217;s just certain things you&#8217;ve got to do in your life.  You&#8217;ve got to go to school, you&#8217;ve got to go in the Army, you&#8217;ve got to go to jail.  It all helps you to have a well-rounded life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ralph Hubert Barger Jr.  was born in Modesto, Calif., on Oct.  8, 1938. When he was 4 months old, his mother, Kathryn (Ritch) Barger, ran away with a Trailways bus driver, leaving him in the care of a babysitter.  His father moved with Sonny and his sister, Shirley, to Oakland, where he worked as a stevedore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At night, Sonny&#8217;s father would take him along as he spent his earnings in the city&#8217;s waterfront taverns.  Sonny learned to swear from a parrot at one bar, Jungle Jim&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr.  Barger&#8217;s first wife, Elsie Mae (George) Barger, died from a self-induced abortion.  His marriages to Sharon Gruhlke and Noel Black both ended in divorce.  He is survived by his fourth wife, Zorana (Katzakian) Barger, and his sister, Shirley Rogers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was by his own admission a diffident student, getting into fights daily and dropping out after 10th grade.  He enlisted in the Army in 1955, but 14 months later he received an honorable discharge when his superiors learned he had faked his birth certificate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Back in Oakland, he drifted from job to job, living for a time with his father and for another stretch with his sister and her family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over time he fell in with a group of hard-partying, troublemaking Army veterans who shared a passion for motorcycles.  They decided to form their own club, and on April 1, 1957, the Hells Angels were born \u2014 without the possessive apostrophe, because it didn&#8217;t fit on a patch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They soon learned that there were at least two other clubs with the same name.  Mr.  Barger moved quickly to consolidate the groups, then shifted their headquarters to Oakland \u2014 effectively making his chapter first among equals, with himself as the de facto leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At first he made ends meet as a machine operator.  But he soon realized there was profit to be made in the Angels&#8217; notoriety.  By the late 1960s he was making most of his income as a consultant on biker-gang films.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He incorporated the Hells Angels, disbursing 500 shares in the company, which was run by a board of directors stocked with the leaders of the various chapters.  He also trademarked the name, then sued anyone who used it without his permission, including Marvel Comics and the director Roger Corman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He made money off his own name, too, licensing it for use on T-shirts, wine labels and beer bottles.  He hawked Sonny Barger&#8217;s Cajun-Style Salsa.  And he started writing books \u2014 six in all, including two novels and an autobiography, \u201cHell&#8217;s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell&#8217;s Angels Motorcycle Club\u201d (2001), a New York Times best seller.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He stepped back from his leadership role in the Hells Angels in 1998 and moved to Arizona, where he lived outside Phoenix and tended a stable of horses.  (He returned to the Bay Area in 2016.) He took up yoga, stopped using drugs and encouraged children to stay away from cigarettes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He even took a turn through Hollywood, appearing on several seasons of \u201cSons of Anarchy,\u201d a television series about a biker gang.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But he never regretted his life choices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cOne of the things that has always amazed me about reporters during my whole life,\u201d he told The Los Angeles Times, \u201c99 percent of them will say, &#8216;Gee, after talking to you I find that you&#8217;re halfway intelligent.  You could have been anything you wanted to be!&#8217;  They don&#8217;t realize, I am what I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-l0zicj etfikam0\">Daniel Victor contributed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sonny Barger, who as the charismatic face of the Hells Angels grew the hard-charging motorcycle club from its roots in the San Francisco area to a global phenomenon, in the process making it an emblem of West Coast rebellion \u2014 and, federal authorities said, criminal enterprise \u2014 died on Wednesday at his home outside Oakland, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-face-of-the-hells-angels-dies-at-83\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sonny Barger, Face of the Hells Angels, Dies at 83<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":439,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-figurehead-of-hells-angels-dies-at-83\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":0},"title":"Sonny Barger, figurehead of Hells Angels, dies at 83","date":"June 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Sonny Barger, the leather-clad fixture of 1960s counterculture and figurehead of the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle club who was at the notorious Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, has died. He was 83.Barger's death was announced on his Facebook page late Wednesday.\u201cIf you are reading this message,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1096,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/hells-angels-founder-sonny-barger-dead-motorcycle-club-leader-passed-peacefully-from-cancer-at-83\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":1},"title":"Hells Angels founder Sonny Barger dead: Motorcycle club leader &#8216;passed peacefully&#8217; from cancer at 83","date":"July 1, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Hells Angels motorcycle club founder Sonny Barger died Wednesday after a \"brief battle with cancer.\" He was 83.The \"Sons of Anarchy\" actor, who starred as Lenny the Pimp, shared a posthumous Facebook post announcing his death.\"If you are reading this message, you'll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":263,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/see-hells-angels-leader-sonny-barger-through-the-years\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":2},"title":"See Hells Angels leader Sonny Barger through the years","date":"June 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sonny Barger, founder of Hells Angels, has died at 83.The iconic biker's death, reportedly caused by a\u201dbrief battle\u201d with cancer, was announced in a statement on his official Facebook page Thursday morning. \u201cIf you are reading this message, you'll know that I'm gone. I've asked that this note be posted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":107,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-biker-outlaw-and-founder-of-hells-angels-dies-at-83\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":3},"title":"Sonny Barger, biker outlaw and founder of Hells Angels, dies at 83","date":"June 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Placeholder while article actions loadSonny Barger, the bigger-than-life godfather of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, equal parts brawler, bully, braggart, rule breaker and shrewd huckster of his own outlaw mystique, died June 29 at his home in California. He was 83.A statement on his official Facebook page read: \u201cIf you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":189,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/hells-angels-founder-sons-of-anarchy-actor-deadline\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":4},"title":"Hells Angels Founder, &#8216;Sons Of Anarchy&#8217; Actor \u2013 Deadline","date":"June 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sonny Barger, the notorious founding member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, author, ex-convict, occasional Sons of Anarchy actor and one of the bikers who provided the violent, bloody security at the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones Altamont concert, died of cancer yesterday. He was 83. Barger announced his own death\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/TCDSOOF_EC127.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2990,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/sonny-barger-and-hells-angels-how-hollywood-shaped-the-outlaw-ethos\/","url_meta":{"origin":448,"position":5},"title":"Sonny Barger and Hells Angels: How Hollywood Shaped the Outlaw Ethos","date":"July 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"With the death this week of Ralph \u201cSonny\u201d Barger, national president of famed motorcycle club the Hells Angels, a piece of vibrant American pop culture history recedes farther into the past. It's hard to appreciate today, but when Barger founded the Oakland chapter in 1957, the mythology of the outlaw\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Entertainment&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Lazy loaded image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/variety.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-01-at-3.13.33-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/07\/01\/lens\/30xp-barger-04-print1\/30xp-barger-04-facebookJumbo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}