A. E. Hotchner

Aaron Edward "A. E." Hotchner (born June 28, 1920) is an American editor, novelist, playwright, and biographer.^[5]

Early life[edit]

Hotchner was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Sally (née Rossman), a Sunday school administrator, and Samuel Hotchner, a jeweler.^[4] He attended Soldan High School. In 1940, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with degrees in both history (A.B.) and law (J.D.).^[6] He was admitted to the Missouri State Bar in 1941, and briefly practiced law in St. Louis in 1941–42. After the outbreak of World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a journalist, attaining the rank of major. When the war was over, he decided to forgo law and pursue a career in writing.^[4]

Literary career[edit]

Hotchner has been an editor, biographer, novelist and playwright. In 1948, he met Ernest Hemingway, and the two were close friends until Hemingway's death in 1961. Hotchner wrote Papa Hemingway, his 1966 biography of Hemingway, whose work he had also adapted for plays and television. He wrote many teleplays in the 1950s and 1960s, including adaptations of The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Killers, and The Fifth Column.

The 1993 film, King of the Hill, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is a screen adaptation of Hotchner's 1973 autobiographical novel of the same name. A Depression-era, bildungsroman memoir, it tells the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.

Hotchner’s play, The White House, starred Helen Hayes on Broadway and was staged at the White House in 1996. In 1993, Welcome to the Club, a musical comedy written with composer Cy Coleman, appeared Broadway. In addition, Hotchner wrote A Short Happy Life, he Hemingway Hero, Exactly Like You (written with Coleman), and The World of Nick Adams.

Hotchner's play Sweet Prince was produced off-Broadway in 1982, at the Theater Off-Park, starring Keir Dullea and Ian Abercrombie.^[7]

Personal life and philanthropy[edit]

In 1982, with his friend and neighbor, actor Paul Newman, Hotchner founded Newman's Own, Inc. All profits from this line of food products and other ventures are donated to charities.^[6]

In 1988, Hotchner and Newman co-founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a residential summer camp and year-round center for seriously ill children located in Ashford, Connecticut. The original camp was later expanded to become a number of other Hole in the Wall Camps at other locations in the U.S., Ireland, France, and beyond. By 2016, there were 30 camps and programs serving the needs of over 130,000 children and families around the world, as part of the SeriousFun Children's Network.

Hotchner has been honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.^[8]

Hotchner resides with his wife Virginia Kiser in Westport, Connecticut, where he spends most weekends, and cares for an African gray parrot.^[3]

In popular culture[edit]

In Criminal Minds, Aaron Hotchner of the BAU is named after him.

Partial bibliography[edit]

• The Boyhood Memoirs of A. E. Hotchner: King of the Hill and Looking for Miracles (Missouri History Museum Press, 2007, ISBN 9781883982607)
• The Dangerous American (Random House, 1958)
• Papa Hemingway (Random House, 1966)
• Treasure (Random House, 1970)
• King of the Hill (Harper & Row, 1973, ISBN 0-06-011964-0)
• Looking for Miracles: A Memoir about Loving (Harper & Row, 1975, ISBN 0-06-011965-9)
• Doris Day, Her Own Story (G. K. Hall, 1976, ISBN 0-8161-6391-X)
• Sophia, Living and Loving : Her Own Story (Morrow, 1979, ISBN 0-688-03428-4)
• The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (Putnam, 1981, ISBN 0-399-12651-1)
• Papa Hemingway : The Ecstasy and Sorrow (Morrow, 1983, ISBN 0-688-02041-0)
• Choice People : The Greats, Near-Greats, and Ingrates I Have Known (Morrow, 1984, ISBN 0-688-02215-4)
• Hemingway and His World (Vendome, 1989, ISBN 0-86565-115-9)
• Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties (Simon & Schuster, 1990, ISBN 0-671-69316-6)
• Louisiana Purchase (Carroll & Graf, 1996, ISBN 0-7867-0309-1)
• The Day I Fired Alan Ladd and Other World War II Adventures (U. of Missouri Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8262-1432-0)
• Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good: the Madcap Business Adventure of the Truly Oddest Couple Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner, (Random House, 2003, ISBN 0-385-51159-0).
• Everyone Comes to Elaine's (Harper Entertainment, 2004, ISBN 0-06-053818-X)
• Paul and Me: 53 Years of Adventures and Misadventures with My Pal Paul Newman (Random House Digital, 2010, ISBN 0-385-53234-2)
• O.J. in the Morning, G&T at Night (St. Martin's Press, 2013, ISBN 1-250-02821-3)
• Hemingway in Love (St. Martin's Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-2500-7748-6)

Awards and honors[edit]

• Distinguished Alumni Award, Washington University School of Law, 1992.
• Honorary D.L., Washington University, 1993.

Memberships[edit]

• Authors Guild
• Dramatists Guild
• Writers Guild of America
• PEN
• Missouri Bar Association
• Century Club

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• A.E. Hotchner on IMDb
• "2015 interview on Hemingway in Love: The Unwritable Rant"
• Washington University in St. Louis Magazine biography
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060901172727/http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/exhibits/perform/1920-1940.html Short bio at Washington University
• Bio at St. Louis Walk of Fame
• Short Bio from Bookbrowse
• King of the Hill movie review by Richard Harrington, Washington Post, September 10, 1993
• 'Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds' op-ed by A. E. Hotchner, New York Times, July 1, 2011