His love of comic-opera uniforms, exotic female bodyguards and Bedouin tents provided a theatrical backdrop for 42 years of bloody repression that, in the end, could not withstand a determined uprising backed by NATO air power.
Chased out of Tripoli by rebel forces, Gaddafi disappeared - some said into the empty desert spaces in the south of his vast country.
In tandem with his eccentricity, Gaddafi had a charisma which initially at least won him support among many ordinary Libyans. His readiness to take on Western powers and Israel, both with rhetoric and action, earned him a certain cachet with some in other Arab states who felt their own leaders were too supine.
While leaders of neighbouring Arab states folded quickly in the face of popular uprisings, Gaddafi put up a bloody fight, taking on NATO as well as local insurgents who quickly seized half the country.
Together: Nurse Galyna was always close by.Gaddafi's female bodyguards seemed to prove that he ran Libya almost on a whim.Eccentric style: Gaddafi was known for his love of over-the-top military-style uniforms, variously seen in different colours and with a vast array of military awards and medals.Synonymous with terrorism: A young Gaddafi, right, is seen in an undated photo with notorious Ugandan leader Idi Amin.Shunned by the West: Links to revolutionaries , such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, made Gaddafi many enemies around the world
For most of his 42-year rule, he held a prominent position in the West's gallery of international rogues, while maintaining tight control at home by eliminating dissidents and refusing to anoint a successor.
Gaddafi effected a successful rapprochement with the West by renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programme in return for an end to sanctions. But he could not avoid the tide of popular revolution sweeping through the Arab world.
n retrospect, his time had come when he turned his guns on protesters and sent his army to cleanse Benghazi, prompting Western powers and NATO to open up a campaign of aerial bombing that allowed rebel forces eventually to oust him.
As his oil-producing North African desert country descended into civil war, Gaddafi's military responded with the deadly force that he had never been afraid to use, despite the showman image that captivated many abroad.
When the insurgency began in mid-February, protesters were gunned down in their hundreds. As his troops advanced on Benghazi he famously warned rebels there would be 'no mercy, no pity' They would be hunted down 'alley by alley, house by house, room by room'.
Those words may have been his undoing. Days later the United Nations passed a resolution clearing the way for a NATO air campaign that knocked out his air force, tanks and heavy guns.
Raids also targeted his own headquarters in Tripoli. One raid killed his youngest son and three grandchildren. It was not the first time that the West had killed a Gaddafi family member.
In televised addresses in response to the rebellion in the east earlier this year, Gaddafi blamed the unrest on rats and mercenaries and said they were brainwashed by Osama bin Laden and under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs used to spike their coffee.
As the weeks passed, there was repeated speculation that Gaddafi has either been killed or wounded in NATO air raids, but he made carefully choreographed television appearances in response to the rumours.
In May, Gaddafi taunted NATO, saying its bombers could not find him, saying: 'I am telling the coward crusaders that I am at a place you cannot reach and kill me.'
One of the world's longest serving national leaders, Gaddafi had no official government function and was known as the 'Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution'.
He strove for influence in Africa, showering his poorer neighbours with the largesse that Libya's vast oil wealth allowed and styling himself the continent's "King of Kings".
His love of grand gestures was on display on foreign visits when he slept in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards.
U.S. diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website shed further light on the Libyan leader's tastes.
One cable posted by The New York Times describes Gaddafi's insistence on staying on the ground floor when he visited New York for a 2009 meeting at the United Nations and his reported refusal or inability to climb more than 35 steps.
Gaddafi was also said to rely heavily on his staff of four Ukrainian nurses, including one woman described as a 'voluptuous blonde'. The cable speculated about a romantic relationship but the nurse, Halyna Kolotnytska, 38, fled Libya after the fighting started.
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