Ralph Hubert "Sonny" Barger was born on October 8, 1938 in Modesto, California, USA.

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​He is a founding member of the Oakland, CA Chapter of the Hells Angels. Barger and his Hells Angels gained ​notoriety after attending the free Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Raceway in 1969 as "security" who were supposed to keep people off of the (low-built) stage, which, as you may guess, was a handful of work even for the Angels, considering the concert drew a crowd of around 300,000 people!

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​He and his Oakland Chapter played themselves in the movie Hells Angels '69 and in the "Gimme Shelter" documentary about the Altamont concert.

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In 1982, Sonny Barger was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx and his vocal cords were removed. On the way to the operating room, he smoked one last cigarette. After the operation, he had to learn how to talk again.

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In his Autobiography "Hells Angel" he wrote about this: "From the looks of things, I was expected to die within a few weeks. I got really pissed off. Here I am about to die, with little or no time to go out and kill everybody in the world I didn’t like."

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​Sonny Barger has (and still does) act as an advisor for several Biker-related movies and TV series.

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In April 2013, "Dead in 5 Heartbeats" (a Film based on Barger's novel Dead in 5 Heartbeats) will be released in Cinemas across Arizona, where he now lives as a member of the Cave Creek Chapter of the Hells Angels.

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