Oscar Zeta Acosta, a volatile Mexican-American writer who was the real-life inspiration for Hunter S. Thompson's Dr. Gonzo in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," is the focus of a new VOCES/PBS documentary.
"The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo" traces the life of the preacher-turned-lawyer-turned-writer who became a central figure in the Chicano Movement before disappearing without a trace in Mexico in 1974.
Using actors to recreate Acosta's own words and interviews from friends, the PBS documentary follows the evolution of a Baptist preacher in Panama while in the U.S. Air Force to "Robin Hood" lawyer who defended poor black tenants in Oakland, California, and radical Mexican-American activists in Los Angeles.
Along the way, the El Paso, Texas-born Acosta ventured to Aspen, Colorado, where he befriended Thompson and other white countercultural figures of the late 1960s. The hell-raising pair eventually traveled to Las Vegas on a More