KEY WEST, Fla. — Wearing a wool fisherman’s sweater in 90-degree heat, a Texas man won an Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest at a festival honoring the late Nobel Prize-winning author.
White-bearded David Douglas, 55, bested 139 other contenders at the “Papa” Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, staged Saturday night at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, the author’s favorite watering hole.
Douglas’ attire emulated Hemingway’s appearance in a 1957 photograph by Yousuf Karsh.
“It’s very possible the sweater did it,” Douglas said of his victory. “It’s about 120 (degrees) inside the sweater, but it’s worth it.”
While living in Key West during the 1930s, Hemingway wrote some of his most famous works: “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “To Have and Have Not” and “Death in the Afternoon.”
