HELL'S ANGELS

HELL'S ANGELS. A motorcycle club founded by Arvid Olsen and a group of World War II veterans in San Bernardino, California. Attempting to duplicate the sense of excitement and brotherhood they felt in the military (they had "Hell's Angels" painted on their fighter planes), the group turned to motorcycles and donned the leather jackets, boots, helmets, and goggles that they wore during the war.

The group gained notoriety on 4 July 1947, when it attended an American Motorcycle Association rally in Hollister, California. A riot broke out, and the Hell's Angels ransacked the town, leading to the state police being called in to restore order.

Stanley Kramer immortalized the Hollister incident in The Wild One (1954), starring Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. The movie made the Hell's Angels famous around the world and turned the motorcycle into a symbol of social deviance. Hunter S. Thompson's 1967 book, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, perpetuated the group's outlaw mystique. Hired as bodyguards for a Rolling Stones concert in 1969, they killed a man who pulled a gun, thus symbolizing the violence of the 1960s.

A 1997 court affidavit claimed the motorcycle gang had 1,800 members worldwide, with international headquarters in Oakland, California. A decentralized organization that constantly battles the federal government, branches of Hell's Angels have faced criminal charges from drug trafficking to racketeering.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barger, Ralph "Sonny." Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. New York: Morrow, 2000.

Thompson, Hunter S. Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. New York: Ballantine Books, 1967.