Anthony Bourdain's mother said she had no indication that her son might have been thinking of suicide.

"He is absolutely the last person in the world I would have ever dreamed would do something like this," Gladys Bourdain, who was a longtime editor at The New York Times, said.

Eric Ripert, a celebrity chef and restaurateur who appeared with Bourdain on several of his shows, and found him "unresponsive," in his hotel room, spoke to her shortly after his death.

Gladys said Ripert had told her that "Tony had been in a dark mood these past couple of days, but she had no idea why he might have decided to kill himself. "He had everything," she said. "Success beyond his wildest dreams. Money beyond his wildest dreams."

Bourdain spent more than two decades in professional kitchens, first shucking oysters and washing dishes in a Cape Cod seafood shack and later cooking in high-end Manhattan kitchens, before accepting a friend's offer to fly him to Mexico if he agreed to write a novel.

It was the start of his second act.