Alfred Eisenstaedt and the twilight of the idol that was Ernest Hemingway

I am indeed one of those people who are more fascinated with Ernest Hemingway's erratic persona rather than with his straight to your face literary economics. When I read his works in college it was already evident to me that the man himself, who prowled the tropics in search of adventure, was as difficult as his writings were as easy, judging from the terse paragraphs and impatient dialogue running across his pages, symptomatic of the man who if possible prefers to get into the action quicker than his words ever could. Take for example the following sentences from one his best works For Whom the Bell Tolls:

Anselmo lay face down behind the white marking stone. His left arm was doubled under his head and his right arm was stretched straight out. The loop of wire was still around his right fist. Robert Jordan got to his feet, crossed the road, knelt by him and made sure that he was dead. He did not turn him over to see what the piece of steel had done. He was dead and that was all.

Hemingway wanted to get things over so quickly that he even took his own life rather than sit and wait for his evening.

It was indeed an unlikely spectator, the famous photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt who saw the innovative author of The Sun Also Rises at his worst. Eisenstaedt went to Cuba in 1952 to photograph the writer for LIFE's September issue of that year, but instead of seeing a mighty, dazzling and larger-than-life celebrity, what he found was a crazy, berserk, wild and insulting giant who often went blue in the face with sudden, uncontrollable anger and drank alcohol for days on end.

Though Eisenstaedt was only able to take a few photographs due to difficulties getting along with the man, his snapshots were still able to capture a side of the author different from what he experienced - that of Hemingway's younger disposition to cheerfulness in the face of pressure, a bear who wrestled with the beasts of the jungle and enjoyed his dangerous sports as the best rituals of life.

Click here to view Eisenstaedt's rare photos of the author as recently published by LIFE.