The revelation comes in an interview with Australian Sunday Herald reporter Paul Dalgarno. Anita Thompson also described the final moments of Hunter's life. She said he ended a telephone conversation with her, laid the receiver down and put a .45-caliber pistol in his mouth, then shot himself while she listened.

The revelation about Thompson, 67, leaving sperm behind, has never before been made public. Thompson, who was 35 years his junior, told Dalgarno that she and Hunter "were always trying to have children, but we just never did."

The reporter said that the widow wanted the words "frozen sperm" off the record.

"I respect those wishes, naturally, but, having tried for several days, I genuinely can't think of any other way to put it," he wrote in his Dec. 11 story.

Anita Thompson said she's trying to decide whether to try and have Thompson's child by artificial insemination.

"He left that possibility for me but it's a long series of ethical questions for me whether I would want to have his child now," she is quoted as saying.

"I believe it's something Hunter would want, but at this point in my life I'm a little fearful of making that kind of decision," she said. "I wouldn't want to do it as a way of replicating Hunter, of prolonging Hunter, or as a way of filling the void."

To read more about the interview, visit the SundayHerald.com.