At a café table in Spain at Málaga airport in 1959, Ernest Hemingway, 60, sits between two women who seem to be enjoying the company enormously. Slim Hayward, later known as Slim Keith, 41, is at left in sunglasses. Lauren Bacall, 34, is at right, laughing.
Between them, the white-bearded writer looks a little worn around the edges, but very much part of the afternoon. The bottles, coffee cups and handbag provide the ordinary clutter. The people provide the history.
Hollywood, literature and a long female friendship have squeezed themselves around one small table. Slim supplied the connection. Born Nancy Gross, she acquired Hayward through marriage to theatrical producer Leland Hayward; Keith came later. Years earlier, while married to director Howard Hawks, Slim had spotted Bacall on a Harper’s Bazaar cover and brought her to his attention.
The result was Bacall’s debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in "To Have and Have Not." Her character’s nickname was Slim. A friendship had helped make a movie star. The movie also supplies a pleasing twist to this airport reunion: it was adapted from Hemingway’s novel. His fiction had helped bring Bogart and Bacall together on screen, while the flesh-and-blood Slim helped supply the woman Bacall played.
How close were the two women?
Bacall’s own recollection leaves little doubt. In "By Myself," she praised Slim’s loyalty, humor, curiosity and ability to accept friends without passing judgment.
The actress remembered a woman who spoke her mind but allowed you to make up yours. That is a useful qualification for friendship with movie stars—and probably indispensable for friendship with Hemingway.
Yet the three relationships did not have equal mileage. Slim was an established Hemingway companion, sharing his outdoor pursuits and his social world. Bacall’s introduction came later. Spanish writer Miguel Izu, comparing their memoirs and travel records, places it during her 1959 Spanish location work on "North West Frontier."
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| Note the arches at the Malaga Airport are the same as main photo above. |
Bacall went to Málaga with Slim to meet the author whose work had figured so prominently in her own beginnings. Hemingway was using nearby La Cónsula, the home of Bill and Annie Davis, as his base during the bullfight season. That summer’s rivalry between Antonio Ordóñez and Luis Miguel Dominguín would furnish the material for "The Dangerous Summer.'
The photograph catches the seasoned celebrity in company, with no need to perform a solitary literary pose.
And the naughty question?
There is some smoke around Hemingway and Slim. Vanity Fair’s introduction to her 1990 memoir excerpt included Hemingway among the men who fell for her; a later account in the magazine refers to an alleged fling.
Alleged remains the operative word.
Those accounts do not give us a securely established affair, much less a romantic arrangement involving all three. Little, if any reliable evidence of a Hemingway–Bacall affair or a romance between the two women exists.
A laugh across a café table is a poor substitute for a love letter. There was, however, genuine romantic upheaval nearby. Slim’s marriage to Hayward broke up in 1959, with Pamela Churchill becoming his next wife. Bacall had lost Bogart in 1957.
The women arrived in this Spanish season carrying private histories considerably less carefree than the photograph suggests. That may be what gives the picture its staying power. We cannot hear the joke or identify the drinks with confidence. We can see that the women are laughing, and that Hemingway is there to share the moment.
Fame has taken the afternoon off.
Friendship has kept the table.
Nancy "Slim" Hayward (later Slim Keith), Ernest Hemingway and Lauren Bacall share a café table at Málaga airport, Spain, in 1959. The Málaga identification appears in discussion of Slim’s memoir; related archival photographs are dated circa 1959. Exact day and month unconfirmed. Hemingway died in 1961.
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Source Notes for this article: Photograph identification and visit chronology — Miguel Izu, July 14, 2018 https://mizubel.blogspot.com/2018/07/gente-que-no-vino-sanfermines-lauren.html Related archival photograph — National Archives, DocsTeach https://docsteach.org/document/ernest-hemingway-with-lauren-bacall-in-spain/ Slim’s memoir excerpt — Vanity Fair, June 1990 https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1990/6/forever-slim Bacall’s recollection of Slim, quoted from By Myself — Nick Harvill Libraries https://www.nickharvilllibraries.com/blog/category/slim-keith Alleged fling and Hayward marriage — Vanity Fair, January 2024 https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/who-were-the-swans-a-deep-dive-into-truman-capotes-best-frenemies Hemingway at La Cónsula — Christie’s description of his May 11, 1959 letter https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-1640192
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