Jack Hemingway

As a toddler he accompanied his father to Paris cafes and bookstores, meeting the likes of James Joyce and Ezra Pound. His godmother was Gertrude Stein. As an adult he became a devoted naturalist and outdoorsman. He wrote several books on fly-fishing, a passion he shared with his famous father. As a father himself he saw two of his daughters become well-known actresses. And he experienced great loss when one died of a drug overdose.

As a toddler he accompanied his father to Paris cafes and bookstores, meeting the likes of James Joyce and Ezra Pound. His godmother was Gertrude Stein. As an adult he became a devoted naturalist and outdoorsman. He wrote several books on fly-fishing, a passion he shared with his famous father. As a father himself he saw two of his daughters become well-known actresses. And he experienced great loss when one died of a drug overdose.

We went out to Harry's Bar in Century City the other evening for the judging of the eighth annual Imitation Hemingway Contest, and it was a bacchanal, as usual. One of the judges, Barnaby Conrad, was ill in Santa Barbara, and another, Jack Hemingway, the master's son, was fogged in at the airport in Salt Lake City; so we were reduced to Ray Bradbury, Digby Diehl, Paul Keye and me; plus our first woman--Bernice Kert, author of "The Hemingway Women."

Jack Hemingway was prepared for the worst. Time after time, Ernest Hemingway's eldest son has cringed and fumed at biographies or screen portrayals that he feels have distorted, sensationalized and exploited his father's life and writings, both for commercial payoff or literary blood sport. But now comes "Hemingway," the six-hour docudrama starring Stacy Keach as America's most celebrated writer. The two-part story concludes tonight on KCOP Channel 13.

Jack Hemingway was prepared for the worst. Time after time, Ernest Hemingway's eldest son has cringed and fumed at biographies or screen portrayals that he feels have distorted, sensationalized and exploited his father's life and writings, both for commercial payoff or literary blood sport. But now comes "Hemingway," the six-hour docudrama starring Stacy Keach as America's most celebrated writer. The two-part story concludes tonight on KCOP Channel 13.

An Ernest Hemingway novel dealing with bisexuality and a young writer's difficulty balancing marriage and career will be published in May, the late author's publisher said Tuesday. "The Garden of Eden" has been praised by Hemingway's son, Jack, as containing "as good a writing as my father ever did." Publisher Charles Scribner Jr. said the book "will stand on an equal footing with the other novels he has done."

Mariel Hemingway, makeup-free and in sweats, is gorgeous. That bone structure, her cheetah-like build and flowing hair have been familiar for decades. What's disarming is her forthright approach to a rough family history and her determination to live the happy and healthy life that eluded so many of her relatives. She knows a lot, she says, about what it takes to live a happy life - no matter your cheekbones or pedigree. Perhaps it's because she's seen enough unhappiness to last many lifetimes: for starters, the suicides of her supermodel sister and her legendary grandfather, as well as five other relatives.

Although fish literature rarely hooks non-anglers, knowing the lingo isn't necessary to enjoy these collected stories, columns and poetry. The father-as-fisherman theme ranges from an aloof-but-kind Ernest Hemingway on a Montana river, depicted by his son Jack Hemingway, to the bumbling dad presented by W. Bruce Cameron, knocking his son into the lake and losing a big fish to boot.

Mary Hemingway, a foreign correspondent who became the often embattled wife but "always good friend" of the fabled author, has died, it was learned today. Jack Hemingway, the Nobel laureate's eldest son by an earlier marriage, said the writer's widow was 78 when she died Wednesday at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City. Death was attributed only to "a long illness."

An Ernest Hemingway novel dealing with bisexuality and a young writer's difficulty balancing marriage and career will be published in May, the late author's publisher said Tuesday. "The Garden of Eden" has been praised by Hemingway's son, Jack, as containing "as good a writing as my father ever did." Publisher Charles Scribner Jr. said the book "will stand on an equal footing with the other novels he has done."

We went out to Harry's Bar in Century City the other evening for the judging of the eighth annual Imitation Hemingway Contest, and it was a bacchanal, as usual. One of the judges, Barnaby Conrad, was ill in Santa Barbara, and another, Jack Hemingway, the master's son, was fogged in at the airport in Salt Lake City; so we were reduced to Ray Bradbury, Digby Diehl, Paul Keye and me; plus our first woman--Bernice Kert, author of "The Hemingway Women."

JACK LONDON, HEMINGWAY, AND THE CONSTITUTION: Selected Essays, 1977-1992 by E.L. Doctorow (Random House: $20; 206 pp.). It shouldn't come as a surprise that E.L. Doctorow, writing nonfiction, is at his best discussing novelists like Jack London, Theodore Dreiser, and George Orwell; they, too, were sociopolitical writers, interested in the hypocrisies and duplicities of modern civilization.

The Scene: Monday's "Judgement (sic) Night," as it's lightly called, of the International Imitation Hemingway Competition. The contest is about writing "one really good page of really bad" Ernest Hemingway. It was held in Century City at Harry's Bar & American Grill, a clean, well-lit place that validates for parking. Who Competes: Eric Lax described the ideal competitor as "a guy who bullfights in the shower."