Putting on the Ritz - anecdotal stories about Ernest Hemingway and the various Paris, France bars which he made famous during World War II, including the Hotel Ritz bar that he claims he liberated from the Germans

National Review, Nov 7, 1994 by Taki Theodoracopulos

OF ALL the legends surrounding Ernest Hemingway, one of the most colorful concerns his personal liberation of the bar at the Paris Ritz, as the Germans retreated from the city fifty years ago. It was hardly the most daring act during the liberation of the city, but it was one of the most noteworthy. The Ritz, after all, is the Ritz.

Hemingway, who if memory serves was covering the war for Collier's, clambered on the roof of the hotel--he was carrying a Sten gun--fired off a round, and brought down a clothes line. He also took two prisoners, a couple of elderly German ordinances who had been left behind doing the laundry. He then made a sweep through the cellar, picking up a few Mouton Rothschilds on the way, and finally ended up in the bar, on the rue Cambon side, ordering a round of dry Martinis for all present.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Hemingway being Hemingway, he announced that he was "personally liberating the Ritz," and then sat down to do some serious drinking with Colonel David Bruce, later U.S. Ambassador to France.

When Hemingway pushed through those revolving doors into the majestic marble lobby off the most historic and exquisite Parisian square, the hotel's staff had been dutifully bowing and scraping to German biggies, including Goering and Goebbels, for four miserable years. The non-Nazi German generals enjoyed a good reputation with the Ritz staff. After all, unlike the Nazi mob, they were Prussian aristos, and knew their way around the good things in life. I remember Bertin, the barman, telling me this in 1958, when the German occupation was still fresh, and the Germans still very unpopular.

Last August, after two years of renovation, the Hemingway bar, as it's now called, re-opened in time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the city's liberation. The bar, which claims to be the birthplace of the Bloody Mary, is now officially called a literary bar, a title achieved through a liberal scattering of literary paraphernalia. A bronze bust of Hemingway stands on the bar, and photographs of him and other famous writers cover the walls. There is also a bookcase dominating one wall. The Al-Fayeds, the Egyptian owners of the Ritz, claim that genuine writers are permitted to give the bar as their postal address, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Bertin is now serving in that other large bar up above, so when I entered the Hemingway bar recently I did so with some trepidation. I was sure that the place would be full of public-relations hucksters, all talking about Papa and the good old days. Well, I was in for a surprise. The place was full of young, pretty girls and their dates, mostly English and French, but then I remembered it was the weekend of the Arc de Triomph, the greatest horse race of the Paris season. All I know is that Hemingway would have loved it.

Hemingway and Paris are hard to separate, and there are many Parisian watering holes that trade on their association with him. Brasserie Lipp on the Boulevard St.-Germain can perhaps claim second place in Papa's heart. At Chez Lipp Hemingway found the beer "cold and wonderful" and the pommes d'huile "firm and marinated and the olive oil delicious."

Other famous Hemingway haunts are prewar hangouts. Places like the Dome and the Rotonde, as well as the Cafe Select. My favorite, the Ritz bar aside, is La Closerie des Lilas, where a brass plaque marks the corner of the bar where he not only drank, but wrote too. It was in this corner that Hemingway asked Ford Maddox Ford whether Ezra Pound was a gentleman, and the irrascible Ford answered, "Of course not. He's an American."

And there is, of course, Harry's Bar--Sank roo Doughnoo, as it's still advertised for Americans not familiar with the language of Richelieu--where Hemingway once evicted a lion from the premises because the beast, owned by a former boxer, had urinated on his shoes without apologizing. Hemingway claimed the lion went quietly.

For the past forty years Hemingway has come under attack from feminists and other assorted pests, and some modernists even say his problems stemmed from his mother--shades of the Menendez defense. I say horse feathers, because what I'd really like to say is unprintable in this family magazine. The worst insult, however, came recently from a Swiss hotelier. In Gstaad, of all places. When I told him that the Rossli Inn, where Papa always stayed before climbing the Wassengrat on skins and skiing down, should put up a plaque denoting his stay, the Swiss said, "Who is Hemingway"?