- Hemingway suffered from bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression, and was treated with electroshock therapy at the Menninger Clinic. The therapy, he claimed, had destroyed his memory--other sources have claimed that the effects of it were what drove him to suicide-- and he told his friend A.E. Hotchner that his memory loss was one of the reasons he no longer wanted to live. The condition was hereditary: Hemingway's father Clarence likely suffered from it, as did at least one of his sisters, Ursula, and his only brother, Leicester, as did one of his sons, Gregory, and his granddaughter Margaux Hemingway. In addition to Ernest, Hemingway's father Clarence, his siblings Ursula and Leicester, and his granddaughter Margaux all committed suicide. His son Gregory died in police custody after being picked up in a stupor shortly after a sex change operation.
- Although it was not used, he proposed the following epitaph for his tombstone: "Pardon me for not getting up".
- His house in Key West, FL--where he wrote a good deal of his works--is a museum in his honor. The cats that live there have six toes on each foot, a condition that can be traced back to Hemingway's own cats.
- Much of his writing reflects his dissatisfaction with modern culture.
- Grandfather of Joan Hemingway and actresses Mariel Hemingway and Margaux Hemingway (also a suicide, in 1996, as was her great-grandfather, Ernest's father).
- Long considered a likely Nobel Laureate for Literature, he was disappointed when in 1950, William Faulkner became the first American writer of their generation to be awarded the Prize. Hemingway's 1949 novel "Across the River and Into the Trees" had been a notable failure, and likely cost him the honor of being the first American to win the prize since Eugene O'Neill did in 1938. Hemingway returned to his original, simple style for "The Old Man and the Sea", his 1952 novella that won him the Pulitzer Prize. After two plane crashes gave him the opportunity to read his own obituary, he finally won the Nobel Prize in 1954, in large part due to the extraordinary success of "Old Man". Hemingway himself was initially involved in the translation of the book into a film (The Old Man and the Sea (1958)), although the extent of his participation after selling his book was to go marlin-fishing off the coast of Peru to try to find a fish worthy enough for the picture. In the end, the producers used a rubber marlin and stock footage of marlin fishing in which Hemingway didn't participate. After seeing the film he expressed his disappointment and said that Spencer Tracy looked less like a Cuban peasant fisherman and more the rich old actor that he was. Tracy received an Oscar nomination for the role.
- When he died in 1961, his estate consisted of $418,933 in various stocks and bonds, $801,766 in real estate and $189,611 in notes, cash and mortgages.
- Journalist Hunter S. Thompson was an admirer of Hemingway and his writing. Thompson wrote an article about Hemingway's later life and death titled, "What Lured Hemingway to Ketcham". The article can be found in Thompson's book, "The Great Shark Hunt".
- He was married four times, and dedicated a book for each wife during the time he was married to them.
- Was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in literature.
- Unlike his contemporaries F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, Hemingway never wrote for the movies, but had no objection to selling his novels and short stories.
- A.E. Hotchner, in his 1966 memoir of his friendship with "Papa Hemingway", reports that Hemingway chose him in the late 1950s as his emissary to Hollywood to sell the Nick Adams stories. Hemingway, hobbled by mental illness and bad health, wanted an unprecedented $1 million for the movie rights to the stories, but Hotchner was only able to get him $100,000. The stories are the basis for Martin Ritt's film Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962), which came out the year after Hemingway's death. Hotchner wrote the screenplay, as he did for The World of Nick Adams (1957).
- One son, Jack Hemingway with first wife; two sons, Patrick and Gregory, with second. Only Patrick survives as of this writing (June 2005).
- The city of Key West, FL, has an Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest every year.
- Hemingway, perhaps the most prominent of the American supporters of the Spanish Republic during its struggle against the fascist rebellion led by Gen. Francisco Franco's Falangists--heavily supported by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler--said that Alvah Bessie's Spanish Civil War novel "Men in Battle" (1939) was one of the best war novels of its time. Hemingway's own Spanish Civil War novel, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1943), won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was a best-seller.
- Direct descendant of writer Geoffrey Chaucer through his father's line.
- It's estimated Hemingway left behind over 8,000 personal and business letters, and plans were announced in May 2002 to attempt to collect and publish most of them in a set that could exceed 10 volumes.
- Pictured on a 25¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued 17 July 1989.
- Hemingway was a lover of cats, specifically polydactyl (cats with more toes than usual). His first polydactyl cat, Snowball, has nearly fifty descendants still living at the Hemingway Home in Key West, Florida.
- Born at 8:0am-CST
- His granddaughter Mariel Hemingway co-starred in Woody Allen's movies Manhattan (1979) and Deconstructing Harry (1997). Allen later included Hemingway in Midnight in Paris (2011) where he was portrayed by Corey Stoll.
- Lampooned by FOX ADHD.
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