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Question 95: Bror Blixen and Francis Macomber?

Q.  There is a dubious record that I would like to understand. Was Bror Blixen the model for the hunter Robert Wilson in Ernest Hemingway's story, "The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber"? Some say he was, and some say he wasn't. What is the truth in this matter?

 A.  The short answer is,  he probably was, at least, in part. Hemingway's physical description of the hunter was that of Philip Percival, his own safari guide in East Africa. But the proclivities of the hunter were those of Bror Blixen, not Percival.  As is common with fictional creations, Robert Wilson was a composite figure, inspired by both men.

The best understanding of the matter appears in Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story by Carlos Baker (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), who interviewed Philip Percival. Percival was a well-known safari hunter in Kenya, and a sometime partner of Bror Blixen in a safari business. Percival made it clear that the hunter described was based on someone other than himself.


According to Baker: "Robert Wilson, white hunter to the Macombers, was based on Philip Percival, with his rubicund face, cool blue eyes, laconic speech habits, and his enviable combination of courage and judgment. Ernest later said that all he contributed to the invention of Wilson was to disguise Philip slightly for family and business reasons, and in order to keep him out of trouble with the Tanganyika Game Department. What he did not disclose was that the Macomber story was a much embroidered and wholly reconstructed version of a tale Philip had told him one night beside their safari campfire. Percival himself thought Ernest's yarn 'devilishly clever.' He had some fear that the people he had described to Ernest, including their white hunter, might recognize themselves in fictional disguise. . . he took some comfort from the fact that Ernest had armed Wilson with a . 505 Gibbs, a rifle never used by the white hunter in question" (pp 284-285).


In Hemingway's story [The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987.]:


"He, Robert Wilson, carried a double size cot on safari to accommodate any windfalls he might receive. He had hunted for a certain clientele, the international, fast, sporting set, where the women did not feel they were getting their money's worth unless they had shared that cot with the white hunter. . . their standards were his standards as long as they were hiring him" (p.21).


Bror Blixen is known to have carried a double size camping cot (Percival did not). Blixen was indeed a friend of Hemingway. He and his third wife, Eva Dixon, visited Hemingway in the Bahamas on his boat off the coast of Bimini in 1934. Bror is also known to have received a manuscript copy of Hemingway's novel, The Green Hills of Africa, and was asked to read it for accuracy.