Sample Biography

Martha Ellis Gellhorn

Introduction

Martha Gellhorn was a famous journalist and a proficient war correspondent of all time, born in the United States. Throughout the great depression and the last century’s conflicts, she had always been present there with her pen and paper. A college dropper and a quick-witted Martha had chosen the field of journalism as a crime reporter, at a very young age, which lasted around 6 decades. After an unfortunate heartbreak, she married Ernest Hemingway and became his third wife. She is not only cited as one of the wives of Hemingway but for his services to the 20th-century journalism era. She was a courageous and peerless woman who followed the war and conflicts whenever and wherever she could witness them, even after having a husband and an adopted child at her home. She reported major wars and conflicts throughout her career and published various books based on her experiences. She was a center of attraction to many gentlemen due to her social conscience and courageous behavior. She loved and lived an aspiring life before she, a woman ahead of her time, attempted suicide to end her own life. A life, which was suffering from ovarian cancer and sightless eyes. Her dedication and conviction towards her work and researches changed the face of journalism forever.

Childhood & Early Life

· Martha was born on November 8, 1908, in St. Louis of United States to the mother Edna, a social reformer, and a doctor, George Gellhorn.

· She was of Jewish origin elder and had two brothers Walter Gellhorn and a younger lad named Alfred Gellhorn. Her brothers were also became famous personalities in renowned Universities of the United States.

· She studied at John Burroughs School in St. Louis and later enrolled in Bryn Mawr College.

· In order to pursue her dream of becoming a successful journalist, she dropped her further education from Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, in 1927, the next year of her enrollment, and enlisted in an American magazine “The New Republic” for her maiden articles.

· Later on, chasing her passion, she moved to Paris in 1930 and joined United Press’ bureau to work and report the ongoing pacifist movements. She wrote her experiences about the exertion in pacifist movements in a book ‘What mad pursuit’.

Career

· After abortive cataract surgery, she made her last foreign assignment on poverty, which was published in the journal ‘Granta’ in the year 1995. At the age of 25, she returned to the US and got immediately hired by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and was told to study the effects of great depression in the United States.

· In 1936, after publishing her first fiction ‘The Trouble I Have Seen’, she met Ernest Hemingway later this year. The two writers traveled the longest route together to cover the Spanish civil war.

· In 1938, she wrote some well-known reports about the rise of Hitler in Germany and Czechoslovakia.

· The outbreak of WW2 did not stop her to cover its major events. She has reported from countries such as Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, and England.

· She was the only woman, the ebullient Martha, to witness the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, after being imitated as a stretcher carrier.

· She was among the first correspondents who reported the scenes of the Dachau concentration camp after it was extricated by US troops in April 1945, during the fall of Berlin and the German surrender in WW2.

· While working with the magazine Atlantic monthly, she reported the Vietnam war and Arab-Israeli conflicts and the famous 6-day war in 1960s-70s.

· Before retiring from her legendary career, she successfully covered the story of US invasion of Panama in 1989.

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Major Works

· Her first fiction ‘The Trouble I Have Seen’ (1936) that was based on the effects of the great depression in America had a huge effect on the ongoing journalism era.

· She had received numerous critical acclaims for her books ‘The Weather in Africa’ and ‘Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir’ (1978), making her the legendary female journalist of the century.

Awards & Achievements

· Due to her courageous steps to cover stories (e.g., first witness of the D-Day), she is famously known as an exceptional war correspondent of all time.

· She was the only woman, among five people, to be honored in the American Journalists stamp series of 2008.

Personal Life & Legacy

· In 1930, while working in France, she had her first affair with French economist Bertrand de Jouvenel at the age of 22. She, unfortunately, faced heartbreak due to some serious circumstances.

· She married Ernest Hemingway in 1940, which lasted 5 years. Meanwhile, she had an affair with Major General James M. Gavin of the United States.

· In 1949, she adopted a child, sandy, from an orphanage of Italy. She was unable to nourish her child because of her professional activities, which imposed bitterness in the mother-child relationship.

· Later in 1954, after few romantic relationships, she married Tom Matthews that made her shifted to London. The couple got divorced in 1963.

· In her honor, “Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism” was introduced in 1999.

· In February 15, 1998, while suffering from ovarian cancer and poor eyesight, she had chosen a disappointing way, suicide, to end her renowned life.

Trivia

In the movie “Hemingway & Gellhorn”, Nicole Kidman played the role of Martha Gellhorn.

Cause of Death: Suicide

Personality: Courageous

Character Traits: Quick-witted, a woman ahead of her time

Challenges Faced: Marriage with Hemingway, Relationship with son