Biography of A. E. Hotchner

A. E. Hotchner was born and raised in St. Louis where he received his LL.B., Doctor of Law, at Washington University. After practicing law for two years, Hotchner entered the Air Force, served with the Anti-Submarine Command and emerged four years later a Major.

Mr. Hotchner did not return to his practice in St. Louis, but instead settled in New York City where, as a free-lance writer, he wrote more than 300 articles and short stories for such publications as Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, and The Reader’s Digest. During the golden days of television, when Playhouse 90 flourished, he wrote a series of distinguished plays, including prize-winning adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “The Killers” and “The Fifth Column.” He wrote the screenplay for “Adventures of a Young Man”, which starred Paul Newman.

Hotchner also wrote about his long friendship with Hemingway in Papa Heminggway, a highly acclaimed best-seller that was published in 34 countries in 28 different languages. Mr. Hotchner has also written best-seller biographies of Doris Day and Sophia Loren. Two of Hotchner’s several novels, The Man Who Lived at the Ritz and Looking for Miracles, appeared on television, and his memoir of his St. Louis boyhood, King of the Hill, was produced as a feature film. Hotchner also wrote a handsome photo-text volume, Hemingway and His World, and a book about the Sixties and the Rolling Stones, Blown Away. An historical novel, Louisiana Purchase, was published in 1996. His World War II memoir, The Day I Fired Alan Ladd was publishes in Nov., 2002.

Hotchner has also written for the theatre. His play, The White House, starring Helen Hayes, was performed on Broadway, and in 1996 was performed in the East Room of the White House for President and Mrs. Clinton and an audience of distinguished guests. In 1993, a musical comedy which Hotchner wrote with Cy Coleman, Welcome to the Club, was also performed on Broadway. In addition, Hotchner wrote A Short Happy Life with Rod Steiger, The Hemingway Hero, which starred Gary Merrill, and Sweet Prince, starring Keir Dullea. A new musical he wrote with composer Cy Coleman, Exactly Like You, was performed at New York’s York Theatre in the Spring of 1999.

Along with his writing career, Hotch’s accidental business venture with his long-time friend, Paul Newman (whose first starring role was in “The Battler”, Hotchner’s first television play) has turned into one of the country’s surprising success stories. Their “Newman’s Own” products generate ten million dollars of annual profit, which is entirely contributed to a long list of deserving charities. One of the beneficiaries of the largesse is the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp which they built in Connecticut for children with cancer and other life threatening diseases. Now they are sponsoring eight other such camps in Florida, New York State, Illinois, California, North Carolina,, and internationally in France, Ireland, and Israel. Newman and Hotchner have written a book about their business and camps, entitled Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good (2003). Hotchner’s book about the celebrated New York saloon, Elaine’s (Everyone Comes to Elaine’s) was published in 2004.