KEY WEST, Fla. ā On his 68th birthday, a white-bearded Wisconsin man won the Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight of Key Westās annual Hemingway Days celebration that ends Sunday.
Gerrit Marshall, a retired television broadcast engineer from Madison, prevailed Saturday night at Sloppy Joeās Bar, a frequent hangout of Ernest Hemingway when he lived in Key West during the 1930s.
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āThis is the best birthday I have ever had,ā said Marshall, whose birthday falls just one day after the July 21 anniversary of Hemingwayās birth.
On his 11th attempt, Marshall triumphed over nearly 140 other entrants in the contest that featured two preliminary rounds and Saturdayās finals.
Competitors in sportsmanās attire, most emulating the rugged āPapaā persona Hemingway adopted in his later years, paraded onstage at Sloppy Joeās before a judging panel of previous winners.
Marshall said he shares several characteristics besides appearance with Hemingway, and has written both nonfiction and short fiction.
āLike Hemingway, I have a love of the outdoors; I love fishing one heck of a lot,ā he said, citing catches of walleye and northern pike in Wisconsin waters, as well as angling for tarpon in the Florida Keys.
He said, however, that he canāt match the late authorās tally of four marriages.
āI only have one wife, but that doesnāt matter ā thatās all I need,ā said Marshall.
As well as the contest and other festival events, the look-alikes focus on raising scholarship funds for Keys students. Hemingway Look-Alike Society president David Douglas estimated that they amassed close to $125,000 during the 2023 festival.
Hemingway Days salutes the vigorous lifestyle and literary legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author, who wrote enduring classics including āFor Whom the Bell Tollsā and āTo Have and Have Notā while living in Key West from 1931 until late 1939.