When the Uncle of your Wife Buys you a House

A Farewell to Arms
Farewell to Arms
Key West
Key West
Hem and Pauline
Pauline and Hem

A few facts about The Hemingway House at 907 Whitehead Street: It’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in Key West

Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived very modestly in Paris. Hadley had a small trust that enabled them as young newly weds to go abroad and for Hemingway to focus on his writing. He did earn money from his journalism but the trust helped significantly.

When Hem met and fell in love with a young and stylish writer for Vogue in Paris, Pauline Pfeiffer, he felt guilt but he also had fewer money worries when he left Hadley for her good friend, Pauline. Pauline was from a wealthy family from St. Louis. Her family made money in Pharmaceuticals and her Uncle Gus funded the purchase of the home in Key West. Hem dedicated A Farewell to Arms to Uncle Gus.

Sara Murphy and Pauline Hemingway
Sara Murphy and Pauline Hemingway

Still, it can rankle to live in a house paid for by your wife’s family and Hemingway wrote in The Snows of Kilimanjaro through the main character, Harry, that the rich had ruined Harry’s fervor for writing bravely and writing all that he needed to.  The parallels are not too subtle as to Hemingway’s own life,. If you visit Key West, there is still a penny cemented into the pool surround. Supposedly Hemingway was irritated with the escalating costs of renovation and the pool in particular.  It was one of the largest in its day.  He told Pauline in a fit of pique that it was taking his last penny, so she threw one into the cement as it was setting. It’s still there. The woman had a sense of humor!

Key West is a lovely home, more elegant than Cuba, but Cuba was wilder, rougher, and I think more to Hemingway’s taste.

Paula McLain on THE PARIS WIFE

Paula McLain The Paris Wife author
Paula McLain
The Paris Wife author

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Paris of Hemingway
Paris of Hemingway

I came across this footage and liked it.  You might enjoy seeing Ms. McLain talk about her research and how she went about making fiction of non-fiction.  I enjoyed it even though I want to be her.

Wife # 5? Adriana Ivancich

This is an update from a post i wrote a few years ago. I thought since i dealt with the wives recently, I’d give  Adriana her place. Thank you all readers. I appreciate it so much that you come here to learn more about Hem and to comment. I learn too from all of you. Best, Christine

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is adriana-on-boat.jpg

Adriana look alike

Hem was infatuated with Adriana. She seems to have been fond of him but did not return love. In fact, at times, it seems that his interest embarrassed her and she turned from it. It was an open secret that he modeled Renata in Across the River and into the Woods after Adriana. 

Hem and Adriana met when she was an ingénue of nineteen and he an icon of forty-nine. She was lovely in an old world Venetian way, not a modern girl look. From an aristocratic family in Italy that was no longer wealthy, Adriana met Hem through her brother who hooked up with Hem at a bar and they struck up a friendshipThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is hem-and-her.jpg

Harry’s Bar

As is to be expected, Mary came to resent Renata.  She and her mother visited them in Cuba and stayed quite a number of months. Mary first tried to be motherly and charming until she saw that Hem’s interest was more than casual. He became abusive to her, as if wanting her to leave.  Mary however was made of stronger stuff. She liked being Mrs. Ernest Hemingway but not just for the reflected glory.  She loved him.  She loved him and their life. She made clear that she wasn’t leaving and he needed to deal with this girlThis image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Adriana.jpg

Hem is reported to have told more than one person that he was too old to divorce again and it would cost him too much. Adriana had no interest in marrying Hem but she seemed to like the attention and adoration.  In 1980, some nineteen years after Hem’s suicide, Adriana wrote a book called The White Tower ostensibly to tell her story of the relationship. She said,

Venice

“I let the scandal freeze into oblivion and my sons grow up but I owe this book to Papa. This was a responsibility I had to face. I am the missing link in his life.” With all due respect to Adriana, I don’t think she was the missing link in his life.  It’s a bit grandiose to think so.

The book did hit the best seller list in Italy with the omnipresent photo of Adriana leaning into Hem’s chest shyly.  At the age of fifty, she claimed,

“What happened when we met is a little more than a romance. I broke down his defenses; he even stopped drinking when I asked him to. I’m proud to remember I led him to write The Old Man and the Sea.”

Across the River has long been considered Hemingway’s worst novel. “Yes, naturally he wrote it for me, thinking of me, but I didn’t like the book and I told him so,” Adriana says. “I always criticized him when I felt something was wrong, and he changed, and something in me changed too. I shall never stop being grateful to Papa for that.”

Thinking about implications

Adriana committed suicide in 1983. Are you seeing a theme here?

 

Mary Welch Wife # 4

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand. Ernest Heminway

Mary Welch was the only one of Hemingway’s wives who was not from the St. Louis area. She was from Minnesota, was a journalist in her own right, had been married twice and was married to Noel Monks when she met Ernest Hemingway in London.  Ernest was still married to Martha but things were not good.  Martha often referred to him as “the pig.”This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 95015827_119487546394698_6668844777615654912_o-1-1024x576.jpg

Mary was not tall, about 5’2, stocky, brown hair, and blue eyes. Her features were sharp and she was smart.  As usual, the relationship started out well and full of laughs and fun.  Hem still could be biting and sarcastically caustic when all was not going well.  Mary took it all.

Hem took her to the finca in Cuba, a bit awkwardly since it had been his place with Martha.  Gigi was cool to her initially. He loved Martha. Patrick also loved Martha and found it hard to adjust to another new love. However, he liked seeing his father have some order in his life and Mary was nice.  Jack, charming and adaptable, found Mary easy company and could fit in well with her without compromising his loyalties to Pauline and Martha as well as to his own mother, Hadley.

Hem with boys and cat

Hem filed for divorce against Martha on grounds of desertion and the divorce went through on December 21, 1945.  The sting of her rejection stayed with him always.  Martha read about the divorce in the newspaper, although she didn’t care. She was anxious for the divorce to begin and be done.  No alimony, no financial orders.This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is bca7a01aa74e2e3d12b457227800923c.jpg

Mary had doubts about marrying Hem.  He was . . . not easy.  And yet . . . he could be wonderful.  Hem, sensing her drift away, sent flowers and love note. They married in Cuba on March 14, 1946.  Fights ensued as did a pregnancy at Mary’s age 38, advanced age for 1946.  She longed for a daughter for Hem. An ectopic pregnancy with crisis and quick, brave action by Hem ended with Mary surviving, and owing that survival to Hem.

Mary in older age

Mary was with him in Ketchum and suffered through Papa’s health declines, his paranoia, his slump and success with The Old Man and the Sea, his rejection, his calling her a scavenger and that she had the face of Torquemada. She suffered through the whole Adriana infatuation. Both however reported an excellent sex life and Hem had earlier complained of Pauline and Martha in that department.

Contentment

At times, Hem’s drinking increased, then he’d stop for a while on doctor’s orders. Mary was bewildered and badly hurt. However, she wanted to continue to be Mrs. Hemingway for mostly good reasons. She loved his children; she loved him; she loved the position; she was dependent on him financially. Still, she was protective to the end of Hem and his legend.

As Papa became more mentally unstable, Mary did her best. At the end, Hemingway was released from the Mayo Clinic against Mary’s wishes.  The day after his release, Hem got up early, got his favorite gun, and shot himself in the head.  Mary reported it as an accident while cleaning a gun.  It clearly wasn’t.  She nurtured the Hemingway legacy as long as she lived and set up the Hemingway collection in the Kennedy Library.  She did her best under trying circumstances with little complaint and with dignity.

Ketchum, Idaho

Did Hemingway Have a Favorite Wife? Hadley

Hem and Hadley near their wedding

Did Hemingway have a favorite wife?  Of course he did despite each wife having suited him at the time he married each.

Hadley near the time of her wedding

Hemingway had four wives:  Hadley Richardson, Pauline Pfeiffer, Martha Gellhorn, and Mary Walsh. Of the four, three were from the St. Louis area.  Only Mary was from elsewhere—Minnesota. Hadley was the great love of his life, in my opinion. Surely in retrospect, based on A Moveable Feast, she was.

The Paris Wife

Hadley and Hem were married on September 3, 1921 in Horton Bay, Michigan, and they spent their honeymoon at the family summer cottage, which featured significantly in Hemingway’s early short stories.  Hemingway’s biographer, Jeffrey Meyers, noted in his biography that, “with Hadley, Hemingway achieved everything he had hoped for with Agnes:  the love of a beautiful woman, a comfortable income, a life inEurope.” (Agnes was Agnes Von Kurowsky, his nurse in Italy who was the prototype for Catherine Barkley, the heroine of A Farewell to Arms). He called her Tatie or Hash.

Hem, Hadley, Bumby skiing in Europe

While the Hemingways had little money as they headed to Paris, Hadley’s modest trust fund sustained them. They had a small apartment, as well as a rented studio for Hemingway’s work, plus an abundance of expatriot and European friends, most of whom were writers.  Gertrude Stein’s salon was nearby and she was a mentor, although ultimately there was a falling out. 

 

One of the great dramas of their marriage occurred in December, 1922, when Hadley was traveling alone to Geneva to meet Hemingway there (he was covering a peace conference), and Hadley lost a suitcase filled with Hemingway’s manuscripts.  One can only speculate about what impact this ultimately had on his writing.  At the time, he was devastated.  As any writer knows, you can never recreate the first cut. However, scholars opine regularly about whether the loss enabled him to start from scratch and do a better job or whether it was an irreplaceable loss. Clearly, he did okay despite . . .

Pamplona

Still, Hadley was there at the beginning before he was the famous Ernest Hemingway. She was there during the ever-productive Paris years, which proved to be a touchstone gift that kept on giving. She funded his ability to write in Paris, enabling him to eventually at warp speed finish the first draft of The Sun Also Rises in six weeks 

 To Hadley’s dismay and hurt, she never figured significantly as a character in any of Hemingway’s books, which did tend to be based on actual people in his life.  The fictional memoir, The Paris Wife, paints Hadley as wounded that she was written out of The Sun Also Rises while starring Lady Brett Ashley, who’s based whole hog on Lady Duff Twysden.  

Almost married to Hadley

Hadley settled into married life as a wife and mother, but trouble was not far away. She and Hem met the charming Pfeiffer sisters.  Although initially Hemingway thought Jinny was the more attractive, it was the petite Pauline, a writer for Paris Vogue, who ultimately captured his attention.  As Pauline played the role of loyal, jokey pal to both Ernest and Hadley, she set her cap for Hem and he fell hard.

Hem, Hadley, Bumby

Now it was Hadley’s turn to be devastated. Initially, she resisted a divorce but later agreed. Their son, John aka Jack aka Bumby, was about 4 years old at the time. Hadley graciously accepted Hemingway’s offers of the royalties fromThe Sun Also Rises as child support and alimony.  At the time, she had no way of knowing whether those would amount to anything. As of that date, Hemingway’s writings had not created much money at all so for all Hadley knew, this new style of novel might do little in the way of sales.

Of course, the rest was history.  Hadley and Hemingway divorced in January of 1927.  The Sun Also Rises was published shortly before the final formal divorce.  Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer in May of 1927.  When The Sun Also Rises was made into a film, profits from the film also went to Hadley.  

Hadley and Hemingway remained friendly throughout their lives.She and Hem didn’t socialize, but they were in touch regarding their son, Jack, who was known in the family as Bumby).

Hadley stayed on in France until 1934.  Paul Mowrer was a foreign journalist for the Chicago Daily News.  She’d known him since the spring of 1927.  Mowrer was no light weight himself, having received the Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent in 1929.  Hadley and Paul married in London in 1933.  The Mowrers ultimately moved to a suburb of Chicago.

After the divorce from Hemingway, Hadley saw Ernest only once again although they wrote to each other regularly. She and Paul Mowrer ran into him while vacationing inWyoming in Sept 1939.  Hadley died on January 22, 1979 in Lakeland,Florida.  She is the grandmother of Mariel and Margaux Hemingway, who are the children of Jack/Bumby.

Did Hem have a favorite wife? Hell, yes. Her name was Hadley.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/10/hadley-freeman-richardson-ernest-hemingway

 

Myth # 3: Hemingway as Misogynist??

The one thing I know is that a woman should never marry a man who hated his mother. Martha Gellhorn.

I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. Ernest Hemingway

Married to a man who hates mother
Married to a man who hates mother

Hemingway Misogynist (Definition) – noun, jargon. A male heterosexual individual whose misogynistic beliefs are seen predominantly when he is in a relationship with a strong, independent female who is, most likely, smarter than him. The Hemingway Misogynist is capable of having powerful lifelong friendship bonds with a few strong, independent women smarter than him, but only if he never enters into a sexual relationship with them. He will often say and believe hateful things about women in general, citing his own female friends as individual exceptions. Don’t sleep with this dude, because he will leave tire marks on your lawn when you publish your dissertation to rave critical reviews. Hemingway misogynists, Hemingway cats. Andrea Grimes

I'm insane due to men
I’m insane due to men

Hmm. May I protest?? Pauline, Martha, and Mary were all smart strong women.  And Hadley was no dope. And he seems to have slept with all of his wives.  Pauline and Mary did tend to defer to Hem but I’d say he liked that both were smart.  Martha did challenge him and he did like his wives to be home with life revolving around him.  However, I never saw him as disliking women.  He just liked his life the way he liked it.

If we look at his literary women, what can we see? Brett, from The Sun Also Rises was smart and strong although troubled. Jake presumably slept with Brett before his injury.  Catherine, from A Farewell to Arms, was a career woman before her time and she drove a good amount of that relationship.  Maria, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, was young but strong. Pilar was a mountain of a woman, brave, and a hero in my book. Not one was a wimp or simpering girly-girl who just wanted to be dominated.  Falling in love is not the same as wanting to be subservient.

Love is the answer (ha !)
Love is the answer (ha !)

Yup, there were many manipulative bitchy women in the short stories and novellas but many of the men were no prizes either. Helen in the Snows of Kilimanjaro and Margo in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber were wealthy, entitled, and limited. Still Harry in The Snows freely admitted his weaknesses and Helen’s efforts to help him as a writer. When honest, he admitted it was he who chose to be seduced by the easy life more than it was Helen forcing his hand.  Margo was not easy in her condescending way but Francis was without backbone until the tragic end.

Catherine and Frederic
Catherine and Frederic

Hemingway was attracted to women with spirit: Marlene Dietrich, Jane Mason, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Adriana.  All had opinions, attitude, and grace. Yes, Hem hated his mother but he didn’t hate women-kind. In fact, there is ample evidence that he enjoyed women quite a bit not just as lovers but as friends and sounding boards. But, hey, who knows? what do you think?

Marlene
Marlene

HMM. Not sure about this but love works in mysterious ways. Some are admittedly a bit cute. Best, Christine

10 Marriage Proposal Ideas For Couples Who Love To Read

By K.W. Colyard20 hours ago

Want to pop the question, but have no idea how to go about it? If your partner is a big ol’ book-lover, consider one of these 10 marriage proposal ideas for readers. Telling someone how ardently you admire and love them has never been easier.

Sure, most people want to believe that good marriage proposals just fall into place — that because the couple are right for one another, the words will come out flawlessly. Even though it often takes just the sight of their partner on one knee to send someone into tears and squeals of joy, you still want to put in the effort to make sure that the biggest day of your life so far a magical one.

To that end, crafting the perfect proposal can be a daunting task. There are so many questions to ask yourself — Should it be private or in public? Do you want to be alone or surrounded by friends and family? Will you be at home or on vacation? — that you may feel a bit overwhelmed.

Not to worry, though. If your partner is a book-lover, I’ve got 10 perfect proposal ideas that are sure to win their heart. Some of them might take a little planning, but I’m sure you’ll get your happily ever after in the end.

Recreate Their Favorite Scene

If the object of your affections has a favorite scene from a book, whether it’s a proposal or not, recreating it is one thoughtful — and fun! — way to ask for their hand. Whether that means donning your best suit and reciting Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth (not the bad parts) (with better results, hopefully), or going whale watching while pretending to be Ahab and Ishmael, feel free to get a little silly and a whole lotta sappy for this one.

Do It in a Writer’s Bedroom

No, don’t actually do it, but definitely consider popping the question in the home of a famous writer of yesteryear. Included among the writers whose homes are available to tour in the U.S. are Ernest Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, Key West, Florida), Emily Dickinson (The Emily Dickinson Museum & Properties, Amherst, Massachusetts), and Zora Neale Hurston (Zora Neale Hurston House, Fort Pierce, Florida).

Give Them a Copy of a Childhood Classic… But Change the Ending

In 2013, a man proposed to his future wife by having a custom children’s book made to tell their love story. If you know which book was your partner’s favorite when they were growing up, you can easily change or add in a page or two to connect the story to your own journey as a couple. What if Peter Pan came back to grow old with Wendy? Or if Frog and Toad actually decided to tie the knot? Your imagination is the only limit to what you can do with this idea.

Buy Them a New Book, and Include a Custom Bookmark

As a book-lover, I can tell you that there’s almost nothing I’d rather do than browse a bookstore. Order or make your partner a custom bookmark — such as one of these stamped metal ones — containing your proposal, and slip it into the next book you buy for them.

Commission a Custom Book, Just for Them

Of course, if you don’t feel particularly creative yourself, why not find an artist and writer to create a custom book for you, on commission? It certainly isn’t the cheapest proposal option, but it won’t go over poorly with your book-loving partner, I promise.

Slip a Note Inside Their Favorite Book

Speaking of slipping things into books, why not just sneak a note into the book they’re re-reading for the 1,000th time? Make sure it isn’t a hopelessly unromantic moment in the story — proposing in the middle of Beth March’s death might put a damper on the whole affair — and wait for your partner to discover your addition to their current reading project.

Propose While Watching a Beloved Adaptation

Does your partner have a favorite page-to-screen adaptation? It couldn’t be easier to suggest a movie night, then spring the proposal on them when the time is right. As with the note-in-a-book idea above, be sure you aren’t picking the most unromantic beat of the movie as the soundtrack to your proposal.

Write Your Proposal as a Poem, Even If It’s Cheesy

A good proposal will always express exactly how you feel about a person, no matter how silly you may think you sound. If your partner loves poetry, consider writing them a heartfelt poem to read or recite during the big question. Even if you aren’t a great poet, a cheesy love poem that conveys your feelings is better than a dry and boring profession of love.

Ask Their Favorite Author for a Favor

Sure, this is a shot in the dark, but stranger things have happened than a beloved author writing a sweet message to a fan. Like in 2011, when this gamer persuaded the Portal 2 team to make a custom level for his marriage proposal. It couldn’t hurt to reach out to your partner’s favorite writer and ask for a small note or message to help you pop the question.

Take Them to One of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

This could get expensive, depending on how far you live from the world’s most beautiful libraries, but one look at these gorgeous destinations, and your partner will feel as though you’ve whisked them away to the Beast’s library. Just respect your fellow browsers and don’t be too loud, OK?

Hemingway’s First Love

Hello! This is a sweet first love letter from Hemingway to a woman with no regrets: Read on for the article below. Best, Christine

Hemingway Letters Pining For High School Love Interest Found In Marblehead

Front and rear of an envelope addressed to Frances Coates from Ernest Hemingway in 1918. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)closemore

Ernest Hemingway, the legendary author and tortured Nobel laureate, is known for works like “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Old Man and The Sea.”

His image was that of a bold adventurer and world traveler. He was an avid big game hunter, often posing next to his prey in pictures.

There’s another — and perhaps more relatable — side to the legendary author, though. It’s one of an awkward teenage suitor trying desperately to impress a girl who captured his high school heart.

Her name was Frances Elizabeth Coates. She sang opera and went to the same Oak Park, Illinois high school Hemingway attended. He played cello at the time and was enamored by Coates and her love of art.

Coates’ granddaughter, Betsy Fermano, lives in Marblehead, Mass. She kept Hemingway’s letters to her grandmother since Coates’ death in 1988. She seals the letters in a quart-sized plastic bag and was keeping them in a trunk. She only recently started dropping them off in a vault at a nearby bank when she learned they could be of value. They’re slightly yellowed but in surprisingly good condition for papers that are essentially a century old.

Betsy Fermano opens a plastic bag containing letters from Ernest Hemingway to her grandmother Frances Elizabeth Coates. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Betsy Fermano opens a plastic bag containing letters from Ernest Hemingway to her grandmother Frances Elizabeth Coates. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

“I remember my grandmother telling me about these letters, and she was very embarrassed to talk about her relationship with Ernest Hemingway — or Ernie as she always called him,” says the retired fundraising and development executive. “Because they were really close friends … and I guess Ernie wasn’t with, so I’ve heard, a lot of women, and he was really close to my grandmother, to Frances, and they spent a lot of time together.”

Elder (A Hemingway Scholar) says the preservation of Hemingway’s letters is remarkable.

“Letters from that era — from 1918, 1919 — outside the family are extremely rare,” he explained. “It’s just his voice. He is just sort of free and flirtatious with her because he’s not writing to family.”

A portion of a letter written by Ernest Hemingway to Frances Coates in 1918. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

A portion of a letter written by Ernest Hemingway to Frances Coates in 1918. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

In the letters, a young Hemingway writes from Milan, Italy during World War I. We asked Fermano to read one of the letters Hemingway wrote from his hospital bed there in 1918 as he recovers from injuries suffered while volunteering as a wartime ambulance driver. He wrote:

“Dear Frances, you see, I can’t break the old habit of writing you whenever I get a million miles away from Oak Park. Milan is so hot that the proverbial hinges of hell would be like the beads of ice on the outside of a glass of Clicquot Club by comparison. However, it has a cathedral and a dead man, Leonardi Da Vinci and some very good-looking girls, and the best beer in the Allied countries.”

Elder said Hemingway seems to be “trying to make [Frances] jealous. He’s trying to say, ‘look at all these beautiful women around me,’ and then he’s bragging about trying beer, which would’ve been sort of the ultimate sign of rebellion, because he grew up in Oak Park, which was a town sort of founded on the temperance movement and was a dry town.”

Was Coates Hemingway’s First True Love?

Photograph of a young Ernest Hemingway and Frances Elizabeth Coates on a canoe trip. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Photograph of a young Ernest Hemingway and Frances Elizabeth Coates on a canoe trip. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

“Given some of the evidence here, I think Frances Coates cared for him, but he was squarely what we call in the ‘Friend Zone,’ so if it was his first love, it was very one-sided,” explains Elder.

It was, it appears, unrequited love, then. In fact, in a letter that Francis Coates wrote to a Hemingway biographer, she described her once close friend as awkward and sensitive.

Coates went on to marry a classmate named John Grace, a future railroad executive. But Elder says apparently Hemingway, who pined over Coates as teenager, never forgot Coates — and maybe never got over her because, in fact, her name appears as a character in some of his now classic novels.

“Hemingway was good at holding grudges, and this is not really a grudge, but she is certainly someone he never forgot,” Elder says.

Hemingway apparently references Frances as a character when he’s talking about her husband, in which he writes in his novel, “To Have and Have Not”:

“He’s probably a little too good for Frances, but it will be years before Frances realizes this. Perhaps she will never realize it with luck. [This type of man] is rarely also tapped for bed. But with a lovely girl like Frances, intention counts as much as performance.”

Woo! Elder says “whether or not that was directed at [Coates], Frances definitely saw herself in that — she wrote about it, calling it a wry scene.”

Coates didn’t forget Hemingway either.

She kept his high school portrait in a gold frame in her drawer, and all of the pictures he sent her in a small envelope. Some of those are now in Marblehead as well.

So, did Francis Coates ever regret letting go of the young writer she called Ernie who later became a larger-than-life author — but who also went on to four marriages and three divorces?

Well, a little scribble on the back of an envelope may help answer that question.

“Oh, this is what she says on this envelope, ‘Ernie’s pictures. And 25 years later, ooh! Am I glad I married John!’ ” Fermano reads, laughing.

A note written by Frances Coates on the back of an envelope containing photographs of Hemingway. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

 

 

Romance: Hemingway and Marlene Dietrich

Hemingway was a romantic.  Sure, he was macho and tough and a man’s man in many ways, but he enjoyed women greatly and always had a close and loving relationship with Marlene Dietrich.  One of Hemingway’s love letters to her is going up for auction.  It is expected it will garner something in the vicinity of $30 – $40,000.

 

This particular letter is dated August 12, 1952 – a year after Dietrich had confessed to keeping the author’s photograph by her bedside.  They met in 1934 and became quite infatuated with each other but never consummated the attraction because, as Hemingway put it, they were “victims of unsynchronized passion.”  He noted that whenever one of them was out of a relationship the other one was in one and the timing never worked out.

marlene

Hemingway writes in the letter to Marlene “I always love you and admire you and I have all sorts of mixed up feelings about you.”  Later in the letter he declares that while “you are beautiful…I am ugly…please know I love you always and I forget you sometimes as I forget my heart beats.  But it beats always.”

Marlene and Hemingway corresponded over several decades.  Marlene Dietrich’s daughter wrote a book noting that after Hemingway’s death, her mother wore widow’s weeds for quite a while and she always believed that had he been with her, instead of his then wife, Mary, he wouldn’t have killed himself.

So, if I had $30,000+ just sitting around, I might enter the fray and bid on this letter, but I fear I’m going to have to let it go to some other fervent Hemingway fan.

I’ve read many of Hemingway’s letters. They are fun and he is quite funny and clever in them.  His humor rarely comes through in his novels.

 

I think the line that I’ve quoted above – I forget you sometimes as I forget my heart beats.  But it beats always – is so him.  It’s very simple and yet it speaks volumes.

Visit To the Hemingway Collection in Boston Part 1

img_0373

 

Kennedy Library, home of the Hemingway Collection, Boston
Kennedy Library, home of the Hemingway Collection, Boston

I was in Boston for a few days and took the opportunity to visit the Hemingway collection at the JFK Library and Museum. It’s about 20 minutes depending on traffic from downtown in a cab but shuttle buses travel out there more inexpensively as well. It is right on the water and very modern as you can see.

The present exhibit at the Hemingway Collection is entitled Hemingway Between the Wars, which covers much if not most of his career. The Old Man and the Sea, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, among others came after World War II, (some posthumously. Hem died in 1961 and A Moveable Feast came out in 1964, edited primarily by Hemingway’s surviving wife, Mary. Garden of Eden  was also posthumously published.) but The Sun Also Rises, Men Without Women, A Farewell to Arms, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and many of the more famous short stories, i.e. The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, Green Hills of Africa, all were done between the wars.

Green hills of Africa
Green hills of Africa

Although Hemingway had his first great romance (with Agnes Von Kurowsky, his attending nurse after Hemingway was injured) during the war–not between the wars, the famous photo of her and Hemingway was in the exhibit. While I knew well that F. Scott Fitzgerald had done some serious editing on The Sun Also Rises and cut out the beginning and told Hemingway to start at a different place—and the rest is history—they had the actual letter Fitzgerald wrote to Hemingway expressing his disappointment at the beginning and making his suggestion to cut in strong terms. Uncharacteristically and probably because he was young and not yet confident, Hemingway did not resist and took Fitzgerald’s advice, much to the improvement of the book.

 1918 Nurse Agnes von Kurowsky and American Red Cross volunteer Ernest Hemingway, Milan, Italy. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
1918 Nurse Agnes von Kurowsky and American Red Cross volunteer Ernest Hemingway, Milan, Italy. Photograph in the Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

Hem and Scott
Hem and Scott

 

There also was a list of titles that Hemingway considered for The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (1936). For those of you not familiar with this story, it is set in Africa and was published in September 1936 in Cosmopolitan Magazine concurrently with The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The story was eventually adapted to the screen as “The Macomber Affair” (1947).

The story deals with a dysfunctional marriage between Francis and Margot who are on a big game safari in Africa with a professional hunter Robert Wilson. On his first time out, Francis had panicked when a wounded lion charged him, which humiliated him in front of his wife who took far too much pleasure in mocking him about his act of cowardice. It is suggested that she sleeps with Robert Wilson. The next day the party hunt buffalo. Two are killed and one is wounded and retreats. It’s generally bad form, not to mention cruel all around, to leave a wounded animal as it is, and Francis and Wilson proceed to track him so that they can put him out of his misery. When they find the buffalo, it charges Francis Macomber. He stands his ground and fires, but his shots are too high. At the last second Macomber kills the buffalo with his last bullet and Margot fires a shot from her gun, which hits Macomber in the skull and kills him. Good times!

Hadley
Hadley

(Sorry, as a divorce lawyer I sometimes have a dark sense of humor on relationships.) Anyway, at the exhibit, there is a list of some of the alternate titles that Hemingway considered such as Marriage is a Dangerous Game, A Marriage has Terminated, The Cult of Violence, Marriage as a Bond.

Happy

HAPPY On the Sea

Fitzgerald's advice typed up so we can read it easily. Actual handwritten letter was in the display.

 

TO BE CONTINUED Next POST!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com