Obituaries for Gregory Hemingway

Gregory Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway's youngest son, dies in jail cell at 69

ASSOCIATED PRESS October 4, 2001

MIAMI - Novelist Ernest Hemingway's troubled youngest son died of natural causes in a jail cell. He was 69.

Gregory Hemingway, a former doctor also known as Gloria Hemingway, was found dead at 5:45 a.m. Monday, said Janelle Hall, a spokeswoman for the county corrections department. He had been arrested last week, at least his third arrest in the county.

He often dressed as a woman, and Hall said jail officials had classified him as a woman and believe he had undergone a sex change operation. He died in the women's section of the jail.

Police said family members, whose names they did not make public, confirmed the deceased was Ernest Hemingway's son.

The elder Hemingway killed himself in 1961. A book Gregory Hemingway wrote about his father, "Papa: A Personal Memoir," was published in 1976. It had a preface by Norman Mailer.

In 1997, Hemingway joined with his brothers, Jack and Patrick, in battling the organizers of the sometimes rowdy Hemingway Days celebration in Key West. They said they wanted a more dignified gathering and royalty payments. The celebration was canceled but then revived. Jack Hemingway, who also wrote a memoir of his father, died last year.

Gregory Hemingway's daughter is Lorian Hemingway, author of such books as "Walk on Water: A Memoir."

But alcohol and other problems stalked his life.

"My mother suffered severe brain damage as a result of a car accident directly related to her addiction," Lorian Hemingway has written. "My father lost his medical license for the same reason." Gregory Hemingway had been arrested last week on Key Biscayne, charged with indecent exposure and resisting arrest without violence after a park ranger reported a pedestrian with no clothes on.

He appeared to be drunk or otherwise impaired, said the arresting officer, Nelia Real. "He had no shoes and he had a dress and high heels in his hands," Real said.

"I feel really bad that that happened. He was a very nice guy."

Homicide detectives ruled the death was due to natural causes. The autopsy report listed hypertension and cardiovascular disease, officials said according to Miami-Dade police spokesman Juan DelCastillo. Miami-Dade court records show that he had been arrested in 1996 on an aggravated assault charge and in 1995 on a charge of battery on an officer. The outcome of those cases was not immediately available.

Hemingway, son of the author and his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, was born in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 12, 1931.

In 1999, Hemingway spoke at the dedication of the Hemingway-Pfeiffer museum in Piggott, Ark., in what had been the Pfeiffer family home. He remarked that his father "is quite fortunate in having just about every place he ever lived in immortalized."

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Ernest Hemingway's Son Gregory Dies

By Terry Spencer

Associated Press Writer



Thursday, Oct. 4, 2001; 5:27 p.m. EDT



MIAMI -- Gregory Hemingway, the youngest son of macho novelist Ernest Hemingway, died a transsexual by the name of Gloria in a cell at a women's jail, authorities said. He was 69.

Hemingway - a former doctor who wrote a well-received book about his father, "Papa: A Personal Memoir" - was found dead Monday of what the medical examiner's office said was high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

He had been arrested last week, at least his third arrest in the county. He was in jail awaiting a court appearance on charges of indecent exposure and resisting arrest without violence.

Janelle Hall, a spokeswoman for the county corrections department, said Hemingway had undergone a sex-change operation. Hall said she did not know when.

Key Biscayne police had arrested Hemingway at a park on Sept. 25 afer finding him putting on his underwear. He was carrying a dress and high-heeled shoes. He appeared intoxicated or mentally impaired, officer Nelia Real said.

"He said his name was Gloria," Real said. "He looked like a man, but his nails were painted and he was wearing jewelry and makeup. ... He was very nice to me. At times he was very coherent, but other times he didn't make any sense."

The son of the author and his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, was born in Kansas City, Mo., and graduated from the University of Miami Medical School. The elder Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.

In Gregory Hemingway's 1976 book, which had a preface by Norman Mailer, the novelist's son wrote: "I never got over a sense of responsibility for my father's death. And the recollection of it sometimes made me act in strange ways."

Hemingway's Florida medical license was revoked in 1988 after Montana authorities would not renew his license to practice in that state. His daughter, Lorian Hemingway, wrote a 1992 memoir, "Walk on Water," in which she said her father lost his medical license because of an addiction.

Hemingway was married four times. His last marriage, in 1992, ended in divorce in 1995.

Hemingway, whose last known address was in Miami's Coconut Grove, had been arrested at least three times in the mid-1990s on charges including battery on a police officer and aggravated assault. The outcome of those cases was not immediately available.

In 1997, Hemingway joined with his brothers, Jack and Patrick, in battling the organizers of the sometimes rowdy Hemingway Days celebration in Key West. They said they wanted a more dignified gathering and royalty payments. The celebration was canceled but then revived. Jack Hemingway, who also wrote a memoir of his father, died last year.

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

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Friday October 5 8:22 AM ET

Gregory Hemingway, Son of Writer, Dies in Miami

By Angus MacSwan

MIAMI (Reuters) - Gregory Hemingway, whose troubled relationship with his late father, writer Ernest Hemingway, led him to a tormented life of drink and depression, has died in Miami, officials said on Thursday.

It was another sad chapter in the story of the literary lion's family.

Hemingway, 69, died of natural causes in a Miami jail after being arrested for indecent exposure.

He was picked up last Wednesday after walking naked down the street in Key Biscayne, a Miami island community, carrying a pair of black high heels and wearing jewelry, police said.

``He had a difficult life. It's not easy to be the son of a great man,'' Scott Donaldson, president of the Hemingway Society, told Reuters.

Gregory, younger brother to Jack and Patrick, struggled to cope with the burden. A transvestite who later had a sex-change operation, he suffered bouts of drinking, depression and drifting, according to acquaintances.

``I don't know how it was done, the destruction,'' he said in a 1987 interview with the Washington Post. ``What is it about a loving, dominating, basically well-intentioned father that makes you end up going nuts?''

At the time of his death, he lived in the Coconut Grove district where he was well-known to its Bohemian crowd. He sometimes went by the name of Gloria and wore women's clothes.

Last Wednesday, he was reported walking naked through Key Biscayne. When an officer arrived, he was sitting on a curb trying to put on a flowered thong, the police report said.

He had a hospital gown wrapped around his shoulder but was exposing a breast and his genitals, it said. When the officer tried to arrest him, he screamed and refused to be handcuffed.

He gave the name Greg Hemingway, then later changed it to Gloria, the report added.

FOUND DEAD IN CELL

Taken to the Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center, he was found dead in his cell early on Monday, spokeswoman Janelle Hall said. The cause of death was hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

He had been due to appear in court later that day on charges of indecent exposure and resisting arrest. He was booked into the women's jail because he had a sex-change operation, Hall added.

Strange and tragic deaths have haunted the Hemingway family.

Ernest, the Nobel Prize-winning author who was almost as famous for his adventurous life as for works like ``The Old Man and the Sea'' and ``The Sun Also Rises,'' shot himself in 1961. Ernest's father, brother and sister also committed suicide.

Actress and model Margaux Hemingway, Jack's daughter, was found dead in Santa Monica in 1996 at the age of 41 after battles with alcohol, drugs and depression.

Gregory was born in Kansas City in 1931. His mother was Hemingway's second wife Pauline. He lived his early years in Key West.

``In many ways he was the most talented as a boy -- he was a wonderful shooter. He won pigeon-shooting competitions down in Cuba,'' Donaldson said.

In the Post interview, Hemingway spoke about the pressures of trying to live up to the expectations of his macho father. He once killed 18 elephants on a safari in Africa.

`Yes, I had the most talent. I was the brightest, I could do so many of the things he loved most,'' he said. He also said his father knew about his cross-dressing.

``I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying not to be a transvestite. It's a combination of things -- first you've got this father who's super-masculine but who's somehow protesting it all the time. He's worried to death about it.''

KNOWN AS GIGI

Known to the family as Gigi, he attended the University of Miami medical school. He later practiced medicine, including a period as a country physician in Montana, but lost his license as he wrestled with alcohol and his personal demons.

He said he had received electric shock treatment many times and had several nervous breakdowns. He sometimes drifted, living in cars, motels or friends' houses.

But family and acquaintances remembered him as a man who could be charming, kind and brilliant on his good days.

``I loved him and he was a good man,'' said his daughter Lorian Hemingway from her home in Seattle.

``He was a man of great compassion and self-searching, and he bore the necessary cross of being human. I believe the thing he wanted most of all was to please others and to be loved,'' said Lorian, whose book ``Walk on Water'' was nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize.

``Everything in his life was troubled. He was troubled by his relationship with his father, with his mother,'' said one acquaintance. ``I would say he was tormented.''

He married four times, the last time in Key West in 1992 in a ceremony in the old Hemingway house. That marriage ended in divorce in 1995, according to the Miami Herald. He is believed to have had six children.

In letters to his father, Gregory called him an ``ailing alcoholic'' and derided ``The Old Man and the Sea'' as ''sentimental slop.''

In Ernest's book ``Islands in the Stream,'' novelist Thomas Hudson's son Andy -- ``the meanest'' -- is based on Gregory.

Gregory wrote about their relationship in a book ``Papa: A Personal Memoir,'' published in 1976, which opened: ``I never got over the sense of responsibility for my father's death and the recollection of it sometimes made me act in strange ways.''

But he also spoke of the good times, like playing war games in the yard of the Key West house.

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