By RAY KELLY
Two of the 20th century’s greatest talents – each with a life marked by incredible highs and lows – are central characters in A Duel of Bulls: Hemingway and Welles in Love and War.
Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway first met while working on the 1937 documentary The Spanish Earth, which Hemingway co-wrote and Welles narrated. They would cross paths over the years until Hemingway’s death in 1961. Welles would partially base the lead character in The Other Side of the Wind on Hemingway.
A Duel of Bulls begins in 1932 in Spain and then moves across Cuba, London, France, and Germany before pulling into the hills of Idaho where Hemingway’s life would comes to an end. British-born author Pete Carvill looks at their lives and contentious friendship in this historical novel.
The book will be published in the United Kingdom on April 10 by Biteback Publishing. Carvill graciously made time to field a few questions about A Duel of Bulls.
A Duel of Bulls is a departure from your previous book, Death of a Boxer. What drew you to write about Welles and Hemingway?
People keep saying that! But I see myself as a storyteller, and this is a story I thought was telling. I’ve always been interested in the separate lives of Welles and Hemingway, so one day I put the two names into YouTube to see if there was anything going on, and I found the 1973 interview with the BBC’s Michael Parkinson. Once I’d heard that, I went and read a bit more and realised that their lives had all these intersections. And it was then I figured that if I found this fascinating enough, then so would other people. Thankfully, Biteback agreed with me on that!
How did you research the lives and personality of both men?
The trickiest part was in what to leave out. There’s a lot written and produced about both men. But I already knew that they’d met a handful of times over the years – in New York, in Venice, in Paris – and their lives are pretty well documented. So I got every biography, interview, and article that I could, and I went through the relevant sections of their lives, pulling out what I thought would work as a story. But there’s a certain point when you have to leave things out that are also very interested.
One of the things I wanted to explore – and which I may circle back on in the coming years – was the lives of Gerda Taro, Jean Ross, and Martha Gellhorn. Taro was a legendary war photographer who was killed in Spain in 1937. She had been the lover and partner of Andre Friedmann, a fellow war photographer, and they had worked together under the collective name of “Robert Capa.” After her death, Friedmann took on the name as his own and she became somewhat forgotten. Gellhorn was the world’s greatest war reporter and married to Ernest Hemingway.
And then there’s Jean Ross – she was the model for ‘Sally Bowles’ in Goodbye to Berlin and Cabaret, but not many know that she was working as a war reporter during the Spanish Civil War. All three of those women – whose lives were overshadowed by men around them – were in Madrid at the same time. That’s fascinating. I’m hoping to pick up on that again in the future.
How would you characterize the two men, specifically their similarities and differences?
They were very similar, especially in the trajectory of their lives. They had blinding success when they were young that tailed off when they went into middle age. And then, at the end, they had a last burst of creative success. There were elements of self-destruction to them as well: Hemingway repeatedly put himself in danger, while Welles would blow up to more than 300 lbs. during his life. And, ultimately, the pair felt like failures at the end.
In terms of their personalities, both were very intense. Art above everything. But Welles, I feel, recognised the need to pull out of nosedives. I think a night in a bar in Ronda with the pair of them would have been interesting.
Why do you think Welles and Hemingway had such a deep affection for Spain and love of bullfighting?
They lived life on the edge and saw it in the bullfighters and the bulls. And in southern Spain, where they seemed to be most comfortable, that’s a world with lots of fine food, good wine, and sunshine. I spent some time down there when I was writing A Duel of Bulls. Yes, I could get into that life!
Welles discussed Hemingway in interviews and partly based a film character after him. Do we know Hemingway thought of Welles?
I think it largely depends on when you’re talking about Hemingway. Certainly, their first meeting did not end well and Hemingway spoke harshly of Welles afterwards, at least for a decade. It’s tricky to pin down, because Welles told his stories that may not have been true.
I think Welles admired Hemingway, but not his bravado. I believe Hemingway probably admired the artistry of Welles, but not the fact that Welles would probably puncture his ego. They may or may not have been good friends, but A Duel of Bulls is less concerned with that than the weird parallels of their lives.
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(Editor’s note: A Duel of Bulls: Hemingway and Welles in Love and War by Pete Carvill is available from Biteback Publishing at bitebackpublishing.com/books/a-duel-of-bulls or Amazon.co.uk at amazon.co.uk/Duel-Bulls-Hemingway-Welles-Love/dp/1785908960/)
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