Sons of Anarchy actor and founder of Hells Angels, Sonny Barger, has died at the age of 83.

LIVERMORE, California (AP) — Sonny Barger, a leather-clad member of the 1960s counterculture and leader of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, who attended the famous Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, has died. 83 years old.

Barger’s death was announced on his Facebook page Wednesday night.

“If you’re reading this message, you know I’m gone. I requested that this note be published immediately after my death. “I have lived a long and beautiful life full of adventures. And I am honored to be part of a great club.”

“I passed away peacefully after a short battle with cancer,” the post said.

Barger’s former attorney, Fritz Clapp, told The Associated Press that Barger had liver cancer and died Wednesday night at his home in Livermore, California. According to him, Barger wrote a post that was posted on a Facebook page run by his wife, Zoran.

Ralph “Sonny” Barger was one of the founding members of the Hells Angels’ Oakland, California chapter in 1957, and at his most infamous moment was present at the 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, where cyclists were hired as safety personnel to be injured in an accident. concert. Go. with a gun pointed at one of its members.

The media often describes Hells Angels as the dark side of the counterculture of the 1960s; freedom combines crime and violence alongside drugs and rock music.

But Barger, an unofficial spokesperson for the Expendables, downplayed their taboo reputation.

“They say we’re organized crime, but if you take all the Hell’s Angels and eliminate them, you can’t reduce the world’s crime rate by a tenth of a percent,” he said in an interview with Heads magazine in 2000. “We are a drop in the ocean. The police commit more crimes than the Expendables.

Barger’s own arrest records include charges ranging from drunk driving to attempted murder. According to media reports, he served 13 years in various prisons.

He claimed one of his most enjoyable experiences was being acquitted in racketeering cases in 1980, and declared he was wronged in conspiracy cases for violating racketeering law.

But in 1988, a jury found Barger guilty of conspiring to kill members of a rival gang, violating federal firearms and explosives laws. He was sentenced to six years in Phoenix Federal Correctional Institution and was released in 1992.

Barger took advantage of her fame. He has written three books about his life and philosophy, including his best-selling autobiography Hells Angel. A chapter in one of his books is titled: “No one expresses your plight as clearly as a blow to the face.” He also wrote two novels.

He runs the Sonny Barger Productions website and sells clothes.

Dropping out of school at age 16, Barger grew up in Oakland and enlisted in the military in 1955 with a false birth certificate. He was discharged with honorable discharge after the fraud was exposed.

He founded the Hells Angels with his friends and soon learned that there was another Hells Angels club in California. Barger helped unite the clubs.

He was the main character in Hunter Thompson’s 1966 Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Horrible Saga of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.

“He’s smart, cunning, and has some kind of cunning beast. He’s clearly the most proficient in the area,” Thompson wrote.

Regarding the murder of Altamont, Barger said the Expendables were acting in self-defense. The club member accused of the incident was acquitted. The stabbing incident was filmed by a film crew that shot the documentary “Give Me Shelter”.

Barger underwent a laryngectomy in the early 1980s for cancer of the larynx, which he attributed to his long-term habit of smoking three packs a day. After that he inhaled through the plastic valve around his neck and turned off the vent to speak.

“Are you going to live like Sonny Barger? I don’t recommend it,” he wrote in the opening lines of his 2005 book Freedom: A Creed from the Road.