Hemingway and Bacall - a Mystery!

Anonymous: Ernest Hemingway and Lauren Bacall, 1959

I picked up the small photograph in an antiquarian bookshop about 10 years ago. It was loose in a box. It has glue spots on the back with remains of black card from some old album somewhere. I immediately recognized Hemingway and Bacall, but had no idea who the lady on the left was, nor where, or by whom the photograph was made, though it did smell of Spain, somehow. But who is the third person at the table and what is the story here?

Ernest Hemingway: “First edition covers”

Hemingway is not my favourite author, but I really enjoy the way he wrote, with those short and punchy sentences. No embellishment. He stripped away all the fluff, and all that remained is a tight intense story. The writing reflects the man.

I am not here to write about Hemingway and Spain, no, I am here to tell you about the hunt for more information about my little photographic treasure.

Ernest Hemingway: Death in the Afternoon, 1932 (1st edition cover)

I re-read Hemingway’s books set in Spain and tried to figure out how the fancy looking American – I thought she looked like she came from money in America – came to be laughing hard with Lauren Bacall and Ernest Hemingway.

By chance, I found a copy of my photograph at the Kennedy Library, where the Hemingway archive ended up. That gave me Slim, it also gave me a year, 1959, along with a possible location; Pamplona.

Horst P. Horst: “Slim”

Nancy ‘Slim’ Hawks Hayward, seated on the left, was a thrice married American socialite. Born Mary Raye Gross in California in 1917, she was married first to Howard Hawks, the director, then to producer Leland Hayward and finally to an English banker, Kenneth Keith. That would be Baron Keith of Castleacre to you and me. She was a socialite in and around Hollywood, known for her fashion and beauty. She is generally recognized for kicking off Lauren Bacall’s career, having brought her to Howard Hawks’ attention.

Ralph Crane: “Lauren Bacall”

Lauren Bacall had filmed ‘To Have and Have Not’, where she met Humphrey Bogart. By chance, she had played a character named ‘Slim’. She desperately wanted to meet Hemingway. According to her memoirs, she met up with Slim Hayward – full name Nancy ‘Slim’ Hawks Hayward, later Lady Keith of Castleacre – in Madrid, following the end of filming part of her latest movie on location in India.

Lauren Bacall arrived in Madrid, from London, on May 10, 1959. The Efe agency photographed her at the Barajas airport and reported that she would spend a few days in Madrid before going on to film in Granada. Having told her about her desire to meet Hemingway, Slim had telephoned Hemingway from Madrid announcing that they would be joining him.

Anonymous: Modern print from negative that I found in an antique shop in Pamplona

It seems Slim Hayward knew Hemingway from previous visits and the group of friends that got together for Sanfermina in Pamplona (the famous running of the bulls) and other bullfighting festivals across Spain, dating back several years. Hemingway at the time was camping out with his friends Nathan and Annie Davis, at their estate in Malaga, their base for the 1959 bullfighting season.

Anonymous: 1959 Sanfermina poster (Running of the Bulls in Pamplona)

Bacall and Slim went to Malaga to spend a few days with the great writer. After a few days, Bacall went from there to continue filming in Granada and Slim returned to Madrid.

Anonymous: Malaga Airport 1950s (A sleuth named Carlos Herrero recognized the building in the background of the photograph as being the main terminal – now a museum – at Malaga airport.)

We now have the year 1959, and the location at Malaga airport. Lauren Bacall went to her first bullfight in Madrid on May the 10, 1959. She was back in London on June the 17^th, before taking her kid on vacation to France in August. This would suggest that the photograph was made around the 14^th or 15^th of May, 1959, in Malaga, likely on the back end of Slim’s and Bacall’s visit, before their departures for Madrid and Granada respectively.

Hemingway had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. He was what we today would refer to as a ‘rock star’ in 1959. He would fatally shoot himself in Idaho in 1961, bringing to an end a loud and fearless, boisterous, macho life, no doubt a full subscriber to the expression ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ in this case, though it was a two bullets from a shotgun. A neatly tied bow on a life.

Hemingway may well have been the first American wounded in battle during the 1^st World War. He had Hunted big game in Africa. He had lived in Paris during the roaring 20s. He had fallen in love with Spain, while chronicling the Spanish Civil War as a journalist for a Toronto newspaper. He had crashed in two planes. He had covered numerous decisive battles as a war correspondent, duing World War II. He had been decorated twice for valour.

Anonymous: Ernest Hemingway with Ilya Ehrenburg and Gustav Regler during the Spanish Civil War, not dated, circa 1937

Hemingway’s personal life had been a disaster with four marriages and several lovers. He had three children. He had been a terrible father. He had lived hard, loved hard and died the only way that one could imagine. Hemingway’s life was over. His good friend, the bullfighter Juan Belmonte, whom he had known since the 1920s simply said: “well done”, on hearing of his friend’s suicide.

Søren Harbel: Bull-fighter’s training wheels

Lauren Bacall had taken to bullfighting and was seen in the company of Hemingway at several bull rings during the summer of 1959. She followed the great Luis Miguel Dominguín from bullfight to bullfight. She had an affair with him. She returned to her children in London and brought them on vacation to France in August of 1959.

James Burke: Luis Miguel Dominguín

As for the photographer, to be honest, I had hoped it was Humphrey Bogart, but that is obviously not possible, as he had been dead for two years, when the photograph was made. Thus, the photographer remains a mystery. It could have been a friend of Slim’s, or simply someone passing by that the trio asked to take the photograph. The camera would have belonged to one of the three of them. There would have been endless numbers of volunteers, given Hemingway’s status among the people of Spain and the fans of bullfighting.

Anonymous: Ernest Hemingway - frame before or after my image

A print of the photograph made its way to the Kennedy Library with Hemingway’s archive, so it is a photograph that was gifted to Hemingway, or it was perhaps from his camera, though I have no evidence that he owned one. As such, my photograph came either from Slim’s photo album, or Lauren Bacall’s. Another mystery partially solved, but as is always with these things, it is the journey down the rabbit hole that counts. Online I found the photograph above. Clearly, this was made either just before or just after my photograph. It would suggest that Slim might have been the photographer?

From the Hemingway Archive - incorrectly identified as made in Pamplona

Until next time…..