Gellhorn’s Life to be a Movie

In my most recent book – Through the Looking Glass – I put in a fairly lengthy section about Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway’s trip to China. It’s a good story as Gellhorn and Hemingway were recently married, he was a star but didn’t do much reporting and she was, as ever, gung-ho for some action. Hemingway was actually passing back intelligence to Henry Morgenthau at the State Department.

In my telling of their trip to China Hemingway comes over as a bit of a twat (my basic view of him) while Gellhorn is a far more interesting and intelligent character. Intelligent enough anyway that she soon after got rid of Hemgingway.

I read on the internet that the actress Gillian Anderson has acquired the rights to Caroline Moorehead’s bio of Gellhorn, Gellhorn: A Twentieth Centruy Life. I wonder whether Gellhorn’s China sojourn (which the hygiene obesessed Martha described as a ‘particularl loo going horror’) will make it into the movie – I’d expect Spain and Hemingway but China often slips out of Gellhorn bios. Anderson of course is a good actress (when not doing that anti-science X Files nonsense) and does, I suppose, have something of the look and character of Gellhorn and is about the right age (given that 20 year olds get to portray everyone now this is a good thing). I look forward to it – it’s time Martha Gellhorn was remembered better.