If you describe someone's behaviour as maniacal, you mean that it is extreme, violent, or very determined, as if the person were insane. adj. (disapproval) He was almost maniacal in his pursuit of sporting records..., She is hunched forward over the wheel with a maniacal expression.
It was his way of telling his friend he knew he was dying. It was his way of saying good-bye to him. In May of this year Gary Cooper, 60, died of cancer. Hemingway was too ill to attend the funeral, although he was an honorary pallbearer. Less than two months later, 62-year-old Papa, despondent and depressed by Coop's death, shot and killed himself.
Audrey Hepburn read a poem called What is a Gary Cooper?. Cooper didn't look well that night, but most observers thought he looked marvelous anyway. His estate was valued at $9 million at the time of his death in 1961.