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Oscar Zeta Acosta
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- "Oscar Acosta" redirects here. For the Major Leauge Baseball pitching coach, see Oscar Carlos Acosta
Oscar Zeta Acosta (April 8, 1935 – 1974?) was an American attorney, politician and Chicano Movement activist, perhaps best known for his friendship with the American author Hunter S. Thompson, who included him as a character, the Samoan Attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his acclaimed novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
ta was born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in a small San Joaquin Valley rural town named Riverbank near Modesto, California.
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Encyclopedia
- "Oscar Acosta" redirects here. For the Major Leauge Baseball pitching coach, see Oscar Carlos Acosta
Oscar Zeta Acosta (April 8, 1935 – 1974?) was an American attorney, politician and Chicano Movement activist, perhaps best known for his friendship with the American author Hunter S. Thompson, who included him as a character, the Samoan Attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his acclaimed novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Life and career
Acosta was born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in a small San Joaquin Valley rural town named Riverbank near Modesto, California. Acosta's father was drafted during World War II, so he had to take care of the family. At times, Acosta felt like an outsider and he presented his feelings of alienation, mistrust, and dislocation in his works.
After finishing high school, Acosta joined the U.S. Air Force. He then worked his way through college, becoming the first member of his family to do so. He attended night classes at San Francisco Law School and passed the California Bar exam in 1966 on his second try. In 1967, Acosta began working as an antipoverty attorney for the East Oakland Legal Aid Society in Oakland, California.
In 1968 Acosta moved to East Los Angeles and joined the Chicano Movement as an activist attorney, defending chicano's groups and activists such as the S.O.S., Brown Berets member Carlos Filafasofa, and other underserved members of the East L.A. barrio. His controversial defense earned him the ire of the LAPD, who considered the "Brown Pride" movement more dangerous than the Black Panthers. He was often followed and harassed by the LAPD.
In 1970, Acosta ran for sheriff of Los Angeles County against Peter J. Pitchess, and received more than 100,000 votes. During the campaign, he spent a couple of days in jail for contempt of court, and vowed that if he were elected, he would do away with the Sheriff's Department as it was then constituted. Acosta, known for loud ties and a flowered attaché case with a Chicano Power sticker, didn't come close to Sheriff Pitchess' 1,300,000 votes but did beat Everett Holladay, Monterey Park Chief of Police.
His first novel, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, was published in 1972, followed in 1973 by The Revolt of the Cockroach People, a fictionalized version of the 1970 Chicano Moratorium.
In the summer of 1967 Acosta met gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who would in 1971 write an article on Acosta and the injustice in the barrios of East L.A. for Rolling Stone magazine titled "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan." This article also discusses the murder of Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar. When working on the article, Thompson and Acosta decided a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada was in order so that Salazar and the racial injustice of L.A. could be discussed openly. A write-up of the trip has now been immortalized by the book and movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
As Hunter Thompson wrote in "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", the legal department of the publishers of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas stated that they could not publish the book unless clearance were given by Acosta, due to the obvious references to the attorney. When written for permission, Acosta refused - on the grounds that he did not want to be referred to as a "300-pound Samoan". He did, however, understand that having this reference substituted by his name would mean the book could not be published on time, so he promised clearance provided that his name and picture would appear on the dustjacket.
Disappearance
In 1974, Acosta disappeared while traveling in Mexico. His son, Marco Acosta, believes that he was the last person to talk to his father. In May 1974, Acosta telephoned his son, telling him that he was "about to board a boat full of white snow." Marco is later quoted in reference 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."
According to Thompson's obituary of Acosta, entitled "Fear and Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird: The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat", Acosta was a powerful attorney and preacher but suffered from an addiction to amphetamines as well as a predilection for LSD-25. The obituary alternates from vitriolic to touching, but on the whole conveys the sense that Acosta was a man who felt he was doomed to martyrdom and destined to be a messiah, but was brought down by his inability to be either. The article was Thompson's response to rumors that Acosta was alive somewhere around Miami.
In reference to Acosta's death, Thompson allegedly told interviewers, "...and someone onboard shot him two or three times in the stomach, with a .45. Then threw him over the side."
Quotes about Acosta
"Every century a few individuals are born who are destined to lead the weak, to hold unpopular beliefs and, most important who are willing to die for their cause. My father's whole life was given to the fight for "the people,"" (Marco Acosta).
Motion pictures
Acosta has been twice portrayed in major motion pictures:
The 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam loosely depicts Acosta's life and relationship with Hunter S. Thompson. Peter Boyle portrayed Acosta, who is referred to in the film as "Carl Lazlo, Esquire." Bill Murray portrayed Thompson.
The 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an adaptation of Thompson's novel of the same name, which is an account of Thompson and Acosta's trip to Las Vegas in 1971. Benicio del Toro portrays Acosta, referred to in the film and novel as "Dr. Gonzo," while Johnny Depp portrayed Thompson (under the alias of Raoul Duke).
External links
Oscar Zeta Acosta Collection in Chicano Studies available at the University of California at Santa Barbara-this includes letters, files, and videos
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