Gregory Hemingway

Gregory Hemingway
Hemingway (right) with brother Patrick and father Ernest, in Cuba, 1942
Born	Gregory Hancock Hemingway (1931-11-12)November 12, 1931 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Died	October 1, 2001(2001-10-01) (aged 69) Key Biscayne, Florida, U.S.
Cause of death	Hypertension
Resting place	Ketchum Cemetery Ketchum, Idaho, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Gloria, Vanessa
Alma mater	University of Miami Medical School
Occupation	Physician, writer
Spouse(s)	Shirley Jane Rhodes (m. 1951–c.1956) Alice Thomas (m. 1959–1967) Valerie Danby-Smith (m. 1967–1989) Ida Mae Galliher (m. 1992–1995; 1997–2001)
Children	Lorian (b. 1951) John (b. 1960) Maria (b. 1961) Brendan (b. 1962–adopted stepson) Patrick (b. 1966) Sean (b. 1967) Edward (b. 1968) Vanessa (b. 1970)
Parent(s)	Ernest Hemingway Pauline Pfeiffer
Relatives	Patrick Hemingway (brother) Jack Hemingway (half-brother)
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	U.S. Army
Years of service	1950s

Gregory Hancock Hemingway (November 12, 1931 – October 1, 2001), also known as Gloria Hemingway in later life, was the third and youngest child of author Ernest Hemingway. He became a physician and authored a memoir of life with his father.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri to novelist Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer, he was in childhood called Gigi or Gig and was, according to a close observer, "a tremendous athlete" and a "crack shot." As an adult, he preferred the name Greg. Hemingway attended the Canterbury School, a Catholic prep school in Connecticut, graduating in 1949. He dropped out of St. John's College, Annapolis, after one year and worked for a time as an aircraft mechanic before moving to California in 1951.

He married against his father's wishes and experimented with drugs, which led to his arrest. The incident prompted his father to lash out viciously at Greg's mother, Pauline, in a bitter phone call. Unknown to anyone, Pauline had a rare tumor of the adrenal gland that can cause a deadly surge of adrenaline in times of stress. Within hours of the phone call with Ernest, she had died of shock on a hospital operating table. Ernest blamed his son for Pauline's death, and Greg, who was deeply disturbed by the accusation, never saw his father alive again.

Greg retreated to Africa, where he drank alcohol and shot elephants. He spent the next three years in Africa as an apprentice professional hunter, but failed to obtain a license because of his drinking. He joined and left the U.S. Army in the 1950s, suffered from mental illness, was institutionalized for a time, and received several dozen electric shock treatments. Of another stint shooting elephants he wrote: "I went back to Africa to do more killing. Somehow it was therapeutic." It wasn't until nearly a decade later, in 1960, that he felt strong enough to resume his medical studies and respond to his father's charges. He wrote his father a bitter letter, detailing the medical facts of his mother's death and blaming Ernest for the tragedy. The next year, his father killed himself, and once again Greg wrestled with guilt over the death of a parent.

He obtained a medical degree from the University of Miami Medical School in 1964.

Father and son were estranged for many years, beginning when Gregory was 19. As an attempt at reconciliation, Hemingway sent his father a telegram in October 1954 to congratulate him on being awarded the Nobel Prize and received $5,000 in return. They had intermittent contact thereafter. He wrote a short account of his father's life and their strained relationship, Papa: A Personal Memoir that became a bestseller. When it appeared in 1976, the preface by Norman Mailer said: "There is nothing slavish here....For once, you can read a book about Hemingway and not have to decide whether you like him or not." The New York Times called it "a small miracle" and "artfully elliptical" in presenting "gloriously romantic adventures" with "a thin cutting edge of malice." Hemingway wrote of his own ambitions in the shadow of his father's fame: "What I really wanted to be was a Hemingway hero." Of his father he wrote: "The man I remembered was kind, gentle, elemental in his vastness, tormented beyond endurance, and although we always called him papa, it was out of love, not fear." He quoted his father as telling him: "You make your own luck, Gig." and "You know what makes a good loser? Practice."Time criticized the author's "churlishness" and called his work "a bitter jumble of unsorted resentments and anguished love." His daughter Lorian responded to Papa with a letter to Time that said: "I would also like to know what type of person the author is...I haven't seen him for eight years...I think it sad that I learn more about him by reading articles and gossip columns than from my own communication with him."