He had a fearsome name and an appearance to match.

But Animal, the biker philanthropist of Kings Cross, will be remembered for half a century of small kindnesses. 

Randall "Animal" Nelson died at St Vincent's Hospital on Monday night. 

A champion of drug addicts and the homeless, he had long fought unpopular causes. 

"The man was a kind of earthy saint," Wayside Chapel pastor Graham Long said 

"I think he wanted to look ferocious but he was just marshmallow on legs."

Born in 1938, Animal was raised in Victorian orphanages before he began work as a stockman at age seven. He arrived in Sydney on the back of a bike in 1956.

After several prison stints, he started the Kings Cross Bikers Social and Welfare Club in 1989. The club visited jails, counselled the sick and took drug-addicted bikers into the bush to dry out. 

Each year Animal would roar around Redfern on his bike, doling out presents to children, the Reverend Long said. On Valentine's Day he would convince florists to give him long stem roses, then hand them out at the hospital. 

In 2004 NSW Governor Marie Bashir presented Animal with an OAM for his services to the community. 

Guy Stanford, a former chairman of the Motorcycle Council of NSW, spoke of "a great loss". 

"He looked after the unglamorous, the kind of people who would never get any sympathy through a camera lens," Mr Stanford said. 

"He may not have been a pretty character but he was an absolute gem."

Animal is survived by his nine children.