Florida man wins Papa Hemingway look-alike contest

Larry Austin, a white-bearded 64-year-old, Florida insurance agent, won the final round of the "Papa" Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a highlight event of the annual Hemingway Days festival that ended last Sunday.

He bested 122 other look-alike contenders in the competition at Sloppy Joe's Bar, Ernest Hemingway's favourite watering hole when he lived in Key West in the 1930s. The competitions final round was held late Saturday evening, the 108th anniversary of Hemingway's birth.

"When they called my name, I was in shock," said Austin, a 10-year veteran contestant who said his favourite Hemingway novel is "The Old Man and the Sea." Austin said he shares Hemingway's fondness for Key West, cats and having a good time, though he has never attempted any writing, except insurance policies.

Look-alike contenders dressed in sportsman's attire and paraded across the stage at Sloppy Joe's during preliminary rounds on Thursday and Friday before a judging panel of former winners. Twenty-five prospective "Papas" made it to

Entrant Graham Goodfellow travelled all the way from Australia. "If Hemingway were alive today, he'd be in Australia," said Goodfellow, a resident of Shepparton, Victoria, who celebrated his July 21 wedding anniversary by competing in the contest finals.

Other festival events included the Key West Marlin Tournament, authors' readings, a short story competition directed by author and Hemingway granddaughter Lorian Hemingway and an offbeat "Running of the Bulls" featuring manmade bulls.

"I think if he were to walk into Sloppy Joe's to see dozens of men hoping to look like him, he would be honoured." said Lorian Hemingway. "In fact, I think he might even break into tears, because the connection with him here in Key West goes so deep and all the look-alikes love this man."

When Hemingway lived in Key West, at the Spanish colonial house that now is a museum, he penned some of his most famous classics, including "For Whom the Bell Tolls," "Snows of Kilimanjaro," and "To Have and Have Not."