A short life of the author
Aaron Edward Hotchner (28 June 1917 – 15 February 2020) was an American biographer, playwright, memoirist, and journalist who lived to 102 and whose long career intersected with many of the major literary and cultural figures of the twentieth century. He is best known for Papa Hemingway (1966), his intimate, controversial memoir of his fourteen-year friendship with Ernest Hemingway — a book that the Hemingway estate fought to suppress and that remains, despite its contested accuracy, the most vivid firsthand account of Hemingway’s final decade: the drinking, the paranoia, the loss of creative powers, and the suicide.
Life
Hotchner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in poverty during the Depression — an experience he rendered in his memoir King of the Hill (1972), a beautifully written, affectionate account of a resourceful boy’s survival in a residential hotel during the worst years of the Depression. The book was adapted into a 1993 film directed by Steven Soderbergh.
He attended Washington University in St. Louis, earned a law degree, and served in the Air Force during World War II. After the war, he went to New York and became a journalist and freelance writer, contributing to Cosmopolitan and other magazines. In 1948, Cosmopolitan sent him to Cuba to commission a piece from Hemingway, and the two men formed an unlikely friendship — Hotchner, the young, eager journalist, and Hemingway, the aging, increasingly troubled literary giant.
Papa Hemingway (1966)
Hotchner’s memoir covers the years from their first meeting in 1948 to Hemingway’s suicide in 1961. The book depicts Hemingway in his prime — drinking, fishing, hunting, holding court in Cuban bars and at the Ritz in Paris — and in his decline: the paranoid episodes, the belief that he was being followed by the FBI (which, it was later confirmed, was actually true), the electroshock treatments at the Mayo Clinic that erased his memory, and the final morning in Ketchum, Idaho.
The book was explosive. Mary Hemingway, Ernest’s widow, sued to prevent publication, claiming that Hotchner had violated a private trust. The lawsuit failed, and the book became a bestseller. Its accuracy has been debated — some scholars argue that Hotchner embellished or conflated events, and that his own role in Hemingway’s life was smaller than the memoir suggests — but its emotional power and its detailed portrait of a great writer’s disintegration are undeniable.
Hemingway in Love (2015), published when Hotchner was ninety-eight, added previously unpublished material about Hemingway’s romantic life, particularly his first marriage to Hadley Richardson.
Paul Newman and Newman’s Own
Hotchner’s other major claim to fame is his friendship with Paul Newman, which lasted from the 1950s until Newman’s death in 2008. In 1982, the two men co-founded Newman’s Own, a food company (salad dressing, pasta sauce, popcorn, lemonade) that donates 100% of its after-tax profits to charity. As of 2025, Newman’s Own has given away over $600 million. Hotchner’s memoir of the friendship, Paul and Me (2010), is a warm, anecdotal account.
Other Work
Hotchner was also a playwright, adapting Hemingway’s work for television (he adapted several Hemingway stories for CBS in the 1950s and 1960s) and stage. His biography of Doris Day (1976) was widely read. Everyone Comes to Elaine’s (2004) is his account of the famous Upper East Side literary restaurant.
Collecting Hotchner
Papa Hemingway (1966, Random House) in first edition brings $30–$100. King of the Hill (1972) brings $20–$50. Signed copies are available; Hotchner was an active signer well into his nineties.