An Ernest effort: Hemingway look-alike wins contest on 5th try

Carlie Coley of Alma, Georgia, waves to crowd after winning Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest Saturday night at Sloppy Joe's Bar in Key West, Florida

July 23, 2000
Web posted at: 12:20 p.m. EDT (1620 GMT)

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) -- Carlie Coley's annual safari to Key West in khakis and white beard has ended triumphantly.

The Alma, Georgia, plumbing supply store owner was named the Ernest Hemingway look-alike "for the new millennium" Saturday night in a raucous competition at the Key West bar where local lore says the legendary American author drank.

Coley, who was rooted on by 30 members of his extended family, won the right to preside over the final day Sunday of this tourist island's 20th annual Hemingway Days Festival, a four-day romp honoring Hemingway with arm wrestling, a marlin-fishing tournament, plenty of hard drinking and a short-story writing competition.

VIDEO A look at Hemingway look-alikes in a celebration honoring the late author in Key West, Florida, with a Key lime pie eating contest Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

After being voted the best look-alike by a panel of 12 past winners, an overwhelmed Coley leaned down from the stage at Sloppy Joe's Bar and give his wife, Bennie Nell, a long kiss. Then he was swept outside by a crowd of photographers, reporters, tourists and fellow "Papa" Hemingway look-alikes.

"My knees are still trembling. " he said. "It (has) come my time to be picked. (I) put on a little more weight, don't know whether (it) helped or not," he quipped.

Ernest Hemingway lived on this island in the Florida Keys -- a 110-mile-long chain at the southern tip of Florida -- from 1929 to 1940, penning such classics as "Death in the Afternoon" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." His novel "To Have and Have Not" is set in Key West.

Ernest Hemingway look-alikes run with facsimile bulls Saturday in Key West, Florida

Coley, 61, founded Coley's Electrical and Plumbing Supplies in Alma in 1967. "I wrote a little bit," he said, "but not anything anybody would want to read."

The Key West festival draws thousands to the island during the normally slow summer months. It is as much a tribute to the famed author's passionate lifestyle of hunting, fishing, eating and drinking as to his writing.

Coley beat 28 other look-alikes on a stage surrounded by images of Hemingway fishing, Hemingway on the cover of Life Magazine, Hemingway at his type writer. The losers walked away with twelve-packs of canned beer.

Four-time entrant Jack Krause of St. Louis said he would be back next year to try again. "It's a lot of fun," he said. Krause presented each judge with a white T-shirt inscribed: "If you don't know Ernest, you don't know Jack."

Coley said he'll probably feel a little sad when he realizes that his five-year hunt for the look-alike honor is over. Past winners are not allowed to compete again, but Coley will be a judge in next year's contest.

One thing will not change, he said. "My friends will still be here."

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