Depp hires event planner for Thompson ashes blast
Actor Johnny Depp has hired a Los Angeles event planner to ensure gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson goes out with a bang.
The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory star was a friend of the writer and wants to ensure his ashes are fired high out of a canon in style.
“He was a great pal, one of my best friends,” Depp said in a recent interview.
“We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design. All I’m doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out.”
He described Thompson as a “hero” and said they had become close when he played him in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The 67-year-old journalist was speaking to his wife on the phone when he put down the receiver and shot himself in the head in February.
His ashes will be blasted from a giant canon on August 20 in the grounds of his home in Aspen, Colorado. The canon will be mounted on a 150ft pillar, courtesy of Depp.
The event will be closed to the public but the writer’s widow, Anita Thompson, said a public commemoration would be held later.
