| 165 Moreover, Hemingway comments on the NBC radio programme “Meet Ernest Hemingway”, broadcast on 19 December 1954, featuring critics and friends of Hemingway like Sidney Franklin (1903 - 1976, US bullfighter), Robert Manning (1919 - 2012), Max Eastman (1883 - 1969, a US socialist writer and friend of Leo Trotzki’s since travelling to the Soviet Union in 1923, but a critic of socialism and communism from 1941), Edward “Ted” Scott (the New Zealand journalist and boxer who challenged Hemingway to a duel with .45 pistols in 1954, after Hemingway’s wife Mary insulted Scott following a dispute about lion steaks. Hemingway refused to accept the challenge, however) and Marlon Brando, who read from “The Old Man and the Sea”. Hemingway writes: “That night they had that NBC broadcast I tuned in around when Franklin was about half through bull shitting. There was a big electrical storm north of us and I could only hear whispers most of the time. [.] You sounded healthy and in good shape. Kamikaze Scott seemed very annoyed that I did not wish to kill him. I can’t write books and kill people and go to jail to help their need for publicity. [.] Max Eastman was sort of comic too. [.] But that poor bastard has to always wake up in the morning remembering what really happened to him. On the other hand maybe he has convinced himself that his lie is true. For your own private information, I never travelled with Franklin’s ‘troupe’. That is all ball room bananas. I did pay for one of his operations though and tried to get him fights in Madrid when no promoter would have him [.] His version like Eastman’s and Scott’s makes them more comfortable. Maybe it is necessary to them. Franklin was a first rate novillero but was never worth a damn as a matador after the first time he was gored seriously. We were good friends for a long time and until I went to Mexico in 1940, I think, and saw with a bunch of fags I could not take and with his stories, that once were true and wonderful, all changed to delusions of grandeur. He’d forgotten the true ones and the ones he invented he published finally”. He invites Manning to return to Cuba: “Be a good boy, Bob, and come down here sometime when I’m through working and you don’t have to write any piece and we will have fun. You were damned good company piece or no piece and I never saw anybody except a fighter pilot learn to fish so fast”. He closes with “Best wishes for a good New Year to you and your wife from Mary and me. Yours always”, signed “Papa” in his own hand in ink. Includes the “Correo Aereo - Air Mail” envelope with typewritten address “Robert Manning, Esq. - Editorial Department - TIME AND LIFE BUILDING-RockefellerCenter” inNewYork, the sender “FincaVigia...” printed in red on the back.Cuban stamps of 12 and 1 cents, postmarked Havana, presumably dated 2 January 1955. RobertManningonlypublished“thepiece”, his interviewwithHemingway, in the August 1965 edition of the magazine “The Atlantic”, holding the position of Executive Director at the time, on pages 101 to 108. After the 1954 interview was published, Manning quoted verbatim from this letter from Hemingway on page 108 in connection with the NBC radio programme of December 1954, for example with regard to his opinions of Sidney Franklin and Max Eastman. Also enclosed is an antiquarian copy of the magazine “The Atlantic”, dated August 1965, in fair condition. Significant letter, written by one of the most important, most successful and best known American writers. The NBC broadcast on 19 December 1954 is available in full, almost 54 minutes long and with all articles, under the following link: https:// archive.org/details/BiographiesInSound/1954-12-19NbcBiographiesInSound01MeetErnestHemingway.mp3. 317442 II - € 4.000 4232
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDA0OTk=