The Naked Guy, whose au naturel jaunts through Berkeley spurred a nudity revolt in the early 1990s and earned him national fame, died in a San Jose jail cell, apparently of suicide.
While many chuckled at the exploits of Andrew Martinez, friends and family of the 33-year-old talked Saturday about a troubled man who struggled for years with mental illness.
"He was a person with tremendous gifts and charisma who could have been a great asset to our society, but instead I feel like society -- me included -- failed him," said Martinez's best friend, Bryan Schwartz, a civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C. "It's such a waste."
After his days as the Naked Guy, Martinez spent the next decade bouncing among halfway houses, psychiatric institutions, occasional homelessness and jail, but never getting comprehensive treatment, his family said. His life ended in an apparent suicide Thursday morning.
"It was an endless cycle of trying to get answers but never getting any," said his mother, who requested that her name not be used. "It was endless, endless, endless."
Doctors were never able to give Martinez an exact diagnosis, and he struggled for years with his medication. Some periods he was his familiar, lucid self, but other times his mind "seemed to be commanded by an alien spirit," Schwartz said.
But before his mental illness wreaked havoc on his and his family's lives, Martinez was a bright, charismatic, sweet-natured youth with a promising future.
"He was such an adorable little boy, such a joy," said longtime family friend Lee Ann Fagan, a nurse in Sonoma County. "His entire childhood his future seemed so bright."
A star defensive lineman and straight-A student at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Martinez was a popular -- if nonconformist -- figure on campus.
"Everyone loved him. He was warm, positive, brilliant. He was a math whiz even though he barely studied," Schwartz said. "All the girls were asking him to the prom."
He never adhered to social norms, however, always "staying true to himself," Schwartz said. That originality and self-confidence endeared him to his classmates, largely because he was such a kindhearted person.
He planned to study business at UC Berkeley, but once he enrolled he became more interested in academic subjects like rhetoric and sociology.
Martinez earned the moniker "Naked Guy" in 1992 when he was a sophomore and started attending class in the buff, give or take a book bag and sandals. His nakedness was a form of free speech and a challenge to what he called the sexual repression of Western society, he told reporters.
At 6-foot-2, with an athletic physique and handsome face, he gained instant fame on campus and beyond. He appeared in Playgirl magazine, on national TV talk shows and in dozens of newspapers.
"He wanted us to question the things we take for granted about Western values," Schwartz said. "He wanted to us challenge the norm."
In typical Berkeley fashion, Martinez's nudity soon hatched a political movement. In September 1992, Martinez organized a "nude-in" on campus, in which about two dozen people stripped down to their birthday suits to exert their right to free speech. Martinez became a hero to nudity advocates and garnered a devoted following, including the Berkeley performance troupe X-plicit Players.
But unlike many Berkeley radicals, Martinez was never preachy or hostile. He was good-natured, easygoing and upbeat, and didn't try to force his opinions 0n others, friends said.
Martinez's run-ins with the law began in the fall of 1992, when he was arrested for indecent exposure while jogging naked near southside dormitories at 11 on a Saturday night.
The charges were dropped, but he was arrested again when he showed up at his court date naked.
Three months later, he was expelled from UC Berkeley for violating a campus code of conduct.
Martinez continued with his academic and athletic activities, however, for about two more years. He competed in judo and was writing a book until his mental illness threw his life into disarray.
On Jan. 10, he was arrested after a fight at a halfway house where he was living and charged with two counts of battery and one count of assault with a deadly weapon. He was in maximum-security custody in Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose.
On Wednesday night, a guard checked on him at 11 p.m. and he was fine, but a few minutes later other inmates reported hearing sounds coming from his cell. An officer returned at 11:19 and found Martinez unconscious. He was taken to Valley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead early Thursday.
Martinez had been through horrible times in the past 10 years, but even in the throes of psychosis he retained his charisma and generous spirit, his family said.
"I'd send him stuff in jail and he'd give it all away because he knew that so many people there have nothing -- no one to visit them, send them things, fight for them," his mother said. "He always had friends."
The last time she saw her son was three weeks ago, when she visited him in jail.
"He was sad. He was tired. He said he had had enough," she said. "I alerted everyone, but nothing happened."
"You could see it in his eyes -- the meds were taking a lot out of him," Schwartz said. "It's just such a waste. This never should have happened."
Andrew Martinez, a former student at the University of California at Berkeley who was better known as "The Naked Guy" in the early 1990s, committed suicide on Thursday.  He was 33.

Guards at the Santa Clara County Jail reportedly found Martinez unconscious in a jail cell, with a plastic bag cinched around his neck, at about 11:19 p.m. Wednesday. Martinez was taken to a local hospital where was pronounced dead early Thursday.  He had been incarcerated since January 10 on charges of battery and assault with a deadly weapon.  

Martinez is best known for attending his classes in the nude in the fall of 1992.  He became an instant celebrity, appearing on national television talk shows where he defended his practice as a form of free speech and a challenge to sexual repression in Western society.

Martinez was eventually expelled from UC Berkeley for violating the school's code of conduct, and Berkeley city officials passed a strict anti-nudity ordinance.

Family and acquaintances report that Martinez had been suffering from undetermined mental illness over the past decade for which he never found comprehensive treatment, and had been in and out of halfway houses, psychiatric institutions, and jail.

Said close acquaintance Bryan Schwartz, a civil rights lawyer in Washington, D.C., "He was a person with tremendous gifts and charisma who could have been a great asset to our society, but instead I feel like society -- me included -- failed him.  It's such a waste."