Writer A.E. Hotchner, friend of Hemingway, Newman, dead at 102
A.E. Hotchner, a well-traveled author, playwright and gadabout whose street smarts and famous pals led to a loving, but litigated memoir of Ernest Hemingway, business adventures with Paul Newman and a book about his Depression-era childhood that became a Steven Soderbergh film, died Saturday at age 102.
He died at his home in Westport, Connecticut, according to his son, Timothy Hotchner, who did not immediately know the cause of death.
A.E. Hotchner, known to friends as “Ed” or “Hotch,” was an impish St. Louis native and ex-marbles champ who read, wrote and hustled himself out of poverty and went on to publish more than a dozen books, befriend countless celebrities and see his play, “The White House,” performed at the real White House for President Bill Clinton.
He was a natural fit for Elaine’s, the former Manhattan nightspot for the famous and the famous, and contributed the text for “Everyone Comes to Elaine’s,” an illustrated history. Hotchner’s other works included the novel “The Man Who Lived at the Ritz,” bestselling biographies of Doris Day and Sophia Loren, and a musical, “Let ‘Em Rot!” co-written with Cy Coleman.
In his 90s, he completed an upbeat book of essays on aging, “O.J. in the Morning, G&T at Night.” When he was 100, he wrote the detective novel “The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom.” At 101, he adapted Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” for the stage.
The son of a furrier who went broke during the Depression, Aaron Edward Hotchner was born in 1917 in St. Louis, a city he would recall with deep affection despite times so dire he claimed to have eaten paper to fight hunger. Hotchner wrote about his youth in “King of the Hill,” published in 1972 and adapted 20 years later into a Soderbergh film of the same name.
Clever and determined, Hotchner lucked his way into literary history. Cosmopolitan wanted Hemingway to write an article about “The Future of Literature” and sent Hotchner to Cuba to track him down. So began a friendship that lasted until Hemingway’s suicide, in 1961. From Spain to Idaho, they hunted, drank and attended bullfights. They lived through Hemingway’s inspiring highs and fatal lows, chronicled by Hotchner in “Papa Hemingway,” which came out in 1966 and has been translated into more than 25 languages.
In the 1950s and early ’60s, he adapted several Hemingway stories for television, including “The Battler,” which led to his first meeting with Newman.
James Dean had agreed to star as the titular faded ex-boxer, but Newman took the role after Dean died in a car crash. Newman and Hotchner became friends, pranksters, fishing buddies, neighbors and business partners. When the actor wanted to sell his homemade salad dressing at some local shops, he called on “Hotch” to help out.