His love of publicity has come into its own, dressing up and playing the fool, becoming a master of the photo-opportunity, usually with a bottle of champagne and a pretty woman or several.
The indefatigable Werner Herzog has made a brilliant documentary about an American saint and fool Timothy Treadwell, a failed actor and California surfer who fell in love with the grizzly bears in Alaska and who spent a dozen summers with the bears, usually alone and always unarmed.