Margaux Hemingway’s End Was An American Tragedy

Before supermodels, there was Margaux Hemingway. With her name, height, and a face like hers, she was destined to be a star. Sadly, her fate was also seemingly sealed for her. Her family not only inherited their famous last name as a granddaughter of the infamously volatile writer Ernest Hemingway, Margaux and her entire family were also plagued by the so-called Hemingway curse that eventually claimed her life. If you want to know what that is, stick around as we delve deeper.

In the world of fashion and entertainment, few names have shone as brightly as Margaux Hemingway’s. Born Margot Louise Hemingway on February 16, 1954, she emerged as a striking and ethereal beauty that captured the hearts and imagination of millions. Yet, behind the glamour and success lay a life marked by turbulent personal battles, addiction, and mental health struggles. Margaux Hemingway’s journey began in Portland, Oregon, where she was born to Jack Hemingway, the eldest son of the legendary American author, and his wife Byra Louise Whittlesey, more known as Puck.

Growing up within the illustrious Hemingway family, Margaux was undoubtedly influenced by the literary legacy that surrounded her. Her grandfather’s unparalleled contribution to American literature was both a source of pride and a heavy weight to bear. As a child, Margaux was a striking beauty, foreshadowing the modeling career that would later thrust her into the limelight. Her towering height, standing at six foot one, and her mesmerizing blue eyes set her apart from her peers. It was clear from a young age that she possessed the raw material for fame and fortune.

A picture-perfect family they seemed, but behind closed doors, it was a different story. In reality, the Hemingways were falling apart at the seams. Her mother supposedly had never fully loved Margaux’s father, a rejection that was dealt with by heavy partying and drinking that the children greatly suffered and were traumatized from. By the late 1960s, they’d had three girls, including Margaux’s older sister, Joan, and her much younger sister, Mariel. But growing the family did nothing but intensify their dysfunction. Another solid example of why you do not stay together for the kids. Would it have changed the course of their so-called fate? Perhaps, but we will never know.

When Margaux’s troubled grandfather Ernest took his own life on the family farm in Idaho in the summer of 1961, this sent shockwaves through the world, but even deeper damage to their family. Before long, Margaux was trying to break free from this hellish home life and found that the best way to do that was to use her good looks to slide her way into the local bar at the tender age of fourteen. But that was just the beginning of her rebellion and attention-seeking ways. According to Margaux’s younger sister, Mariel, Margaux went out at all hours of the day or night, skipping school to go party with her friends, and was already known for downing copious amounts of booze to get her by with whatever she was going through.

Margaux may have looked like she had it all, but several disorders accompanied her intense partying, and before she turned twenty, Margaux was dealing with a host of psychological issues, including depression and bulimia, as well as epilepsy. Yet, no amount of partying would ever help her feel better. She was in her late teens when Margaux decided to embark on a modeling career and pave her own way by moving to New York City, the epicenter of the fashion world. While I’m sure her name helped her get her foot in the door, this nepo baby worked for it after all.

It was her ethereal beauty and charisma that made her an instant standout in the highly competitive industry. By the early 1970s, Margaux Hemingway had ascended to international stardom, becoming one of the world’s most sought-after supermodels. Her face graced the covers of prestigious magazines like Vogue and Elle, and countless others more. She was the epitome of 1970s glamour, and her distinctive look became iconic. The fashion industry, with its exacting standards of beauty, had found its new muse in Margaux.

Unfortunately, she also caught the eye of a predator. The wealthy middle-aged restaurant heir, Errol Wetson, spotted the nineteen-year-old at a hotel and couldn’t tear his eyes away. Wetson and Hemingway’s chance meeting turned into a whirlwind romance, and after four months, Margaux had moved into his Manhattan apartment. Nowadays, that surely won’t fly, but back then, his money made people turn a blind eye. Of course, for Margaux, this wasn’t just a move for love. She hadn’t forgotten her modeling aspirations, and she knew that Wetson would be able to help her.

As an older, wealthier man, Wetson had a lot of power over Hemingway, and she once admitted just how disturbing their relationship got. While Hemingway was looking for gigs, Wetson assumed a position as her manager and started dictating the clothes Hemingway could wear, and took great pains to critique everything that was imperfect about her body, preying on her obvious insecurity to control her. Obviously, her heavy drinking didn’t stop, and in her state of constant hazy hangovers, Hemingway decided the best thing for her to do was to actually marry her controlling lover. And the odd couple tied the knot in 1975.

Big surprise there, it didn’t make anything better. And in just three short years, by 1978, the couple had officially divorced. While her personal life floundered, Hemingway’s career hit an all-time high, but as with everything else, Margaux’s rise to her status came at a price, and a hefty one at that. The fashion industry’s relentless pursuit of perfection took a toll on her self-esteem and mental health. Margaux found herself grappling with the pressures of maintaining an idealized image. Like many in the industry, she faced tremendous pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.

As a result, Margaux kept struggling with eating disorders, a painful secret that haunted her throughout her life. Her experience shed light on the pervasive issues within the modeling world, where trying to portray perfection often led to unhealthy behaviors and mental health challenges. Despite her success in modeling, Margaux Hemingway harbored aspirations beyond the runway. In 1976, she made her debut in the controversial film Lipstick. The movie delved into themes of sexual assault and violence, with Margaux playing the lead role of Chris McCormick.

Her performance, marked by its intensity and vulnerability, garnered both praise and criticism, which would also lead her to one of her depressive bouts. But more on that later. Taking on such a challenging and emotionally demanding role in her first film was a bold move for Margaux. It revealed her determination to prove herself as more than just a fashion icon and a pretty face. Lipstick served as a turning point in her career, opening the door to the world of acting.

However, things did not go according to plan. While in talks to star in Lipstick, Margaux suggested that her fourteen-year-old sister Mariel play her on-screen sibling. It was a good gesture on her part, one that was not rewarded. Because when Lipstick came out, critics largely tore Margaux’s acting style and performance and compared her to her younger sister, who they said was the new “it” star. Because of their age difference, seven to be exact, Margaux and Mariel were never close. The younger sibling also did not approve of Margaux’s partying ways and was distant.

But what really drove the wedge between them are the similar features that kept getting them compared to each other, so much so that it became a full-on rivalry between the two. Mariel even admitted to hating being mistaken for Margaux, and when her star power took off, Margaux’s response was the definition of self-destruction. Overcome with insecurity about her little sister upstaging her at her own game, Margaux Hemingway descended deeper into substance use. Meanwhile, her relationship with Mariel went from vague childish jealousy to, as Mariel later put it, taking on adult dimensions.

So, while everyone experiences sibling rivalry in one shape or form, this was on another level, and poor Margaux’s solution is to distract herself into another relationship. The elder Hemingway married the Venezuelan director Bernard Foucher, whom she had already been constantly connected with since her first marriage. As with so many things concerning Margaux, the newlyweds had flashy beginnings and moved to Paris to live a glamorous life, because things are much more complicated than it seems, and no running away from it can help her escape what was looming over her head.

Margaux Hemingway’s personal struggles were a reflection of the complexities and challenges faced by those who carry the Hemingway name. As she navigated the demands of fame and the weight of her family’s legacy, she turned to not only alcohol but illegal substances as a coping mechanism once again. Throughout her life, Margaux battled alcoholism and addiction. Her attempts to escape the pressures of her career and the burdens of her family history pushed her into a perilous cycle of these substance abuse. These issues strained her relationships and took a significant toll on her physical and mental health.

In 1984, Margaux Hemingway’s life was dealt a devastating blow when her half-sister, Joan Hemingway, died by suicide. This tragic loss compounded Margaux’s own mental health struggles, deepening the emotional wounds that she carried. It serves as a stark reminder that even those who seemingly have it all can grapple with inner demons and profound sadness. Despite her personal struggles, Margaux still continued to pursue her acting career. She appeared in several films and television shows, including Killer Fish and Double Obsession. While her acting career did not reach the same heights as her modeling success, it demonstrated her resilience and determination to overcome adversity.

In the 1980s, Hemingway tried to take another stab at Hollywood, working on the 1982 comedy They Call Me Bruce, and in the ensemble romantic comedy Over the Brooklyn Bridge. Although it didn’t get the attention she was hoping for, it did seem like things were back on the right path. Sadly, seemingly with a curse chasing her down, Margaux got into a horrific crash on the slopes while skiing in Austria. Her injuries debilitated her for nearly a year, but more than that, her recovery caused her to gain seventy-five pounds, pushing her to almost two hundred.

For someone who struggled with body image issues her entire life, it was enough to send her over the edge, though in later years of her life, Margaux Hemingway became an advocate for mental health awareness, and she used her platform to show the challenges that she and her family had faced. Nothing much could survive in Margaux’s head and heart at this point, and so once more her marriage crumbles. In 1985, she divorced her second husband and struck out into the single life, trying to scrape by on her own. But all this did was push her further into a downward spiral that she will not be able to escape until the very end.

She became so down and mentally crippled that the model was forced to admit something for the very first time in her life: she needed professional help. So in 1987, she checked into the infamous Betty Ford Center. But all seemed like a temporary Band-Aid to a bigger problem. While it seemed to help with her addiction, it still did not address the underlying issues of her mental illnesses. When Margaux Hemingway came out of the center, she definitely looked and acted the part of a changed woman and had her body back, or as society would call it, supposedly healthy.

Hemingway was so sure that now that she had done all this work on herself, her second comeback would be a snap. But deep down, she put too much unrealistic pressure on herself, and so when this didn’t come to fruition, her depression came barreling right back. Worst part is not having a support system. In fact, she never had a good relationship with her parents. You’d think a mother would stand by her daughter through thick and thin, but that was not the case.

Ever since Margaux had started booking regular acting gigs, she had visited her home less and less, and the pair were almost completely estranged after Margaux’s rehab stint. And it would be another tragedy that would bring them back together. Hemingway’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, and the matriarch had to undergo a battery of tests and treatments. And in 1988, at almost the last moment possible, the mother and daughter finally reconciled. Puck passed shortly after, and Margaux was down one more loved one.

In the wake of her mother’s passing, Hemingway nabbed a part in the French film Love in C Minor. But it was barely making any noise, and no one in Hollywood was calling. So Margaux thought she would take the matter into her own hands and get the attention she so craved, even in negative light. So in the spring of 1990, she posed in her birthday suit for Hugh Hefner from the Playboy. From communicating with seagulls, whispers spread fast that she was off her rocker. Yet not one soul thought to seek her some help, and waved off Hemingway’s oddities with affection. That was a fatal mistake.

Margaux had also just moved to a small apartment in Santa Monica, California, and the small, tight-knit community of friendly and caring neighbors could have been just the thing Hemingway needed to get her life back on track. Once again, the curse would not let her have her peace. Within days of Hemingway moving into her new place, her neighbors began noticing disturbing signs. When one neighbor talked to Hemingway just outside her apartment, they said they noticed she was troubled and looking very haggard. And no one was quite sure how to take this, and only one of her old friends saw it for what it was.

Margaux’s longtime friend Judy Stabile had witnessed a strange series of mood changes, and so she tries to check in on her daily. But tragically, in the last week of June, Hemingway stopped returning her calls entirely, pushing Stabile to make a visit to her in person. Regretfully, it was a bit too late. When Judy pulled up to Margaux’s apartment that fateful day, she could see the model’s car in the driveway, but no one was answering the door. She had a sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong, so in desperation, she grabbed a nearby ladder and looked in through the bedroom window of the house, where she could see her friend Margaux lying motionless on her bed.

Reportedly, still in her nightgown and with her arms folded as if she could wake up at any moment. Only she wouldn’t and couldn’t. Although she phoned emergency services right away, there was nothing they could do to bring back her dear friend, as it became evidently clear that she passed away through the night. Although the autopsy results on Margaux’s body were initially inconclusive, after the toxicology report came in, it showed that Hemingway had overdosed on phenobarbital. The Hemingway curse caught up to her after all. After sinking into another depression, she had ended her own life.

At first, Margaux’s sister Mariel was in complete denial and refused to believe that her sister had taken her own life. And when the news of her passing broke to her father and her stepmother Angela, they apparently received it with cold stoicism and didn’t really say much. Whether they knew the curse was real or not, or maybe it was because of Margaux’s history that they knew it was sadly bound to happen. The news of Margaux Hemingway’s reported suicide made waves and was heavily reported on, and breathed life into the curse once more.

The Hemingway curse, often cited as an example of a familial pattern of suffering and tragedy, has garnered significant attention over the years. While it is crucial to approach such claims with caution, there are undeniable patterns of mental health struggles within the Hemingway family, and this raises questions about the role of genetics, environment, and the interplay between the two in shaping the destinies of family members. Although her grandfather Ernest had the most infamous passing when she was just a child, an incredible amount of Margaux’s relatives perished the same way as the years passed by, a total of seven including Margaux herself. Whether there really is a curse or it’s something ingrained in their DNA, you decide.

Margaux Hemingway’s life was a poignant tale of beauty, fame, and tragedy. Her rise to international stardom in the world of fashion and modeling showcased her talent and charisma. Yet her personal struggles with addiction, depression, and the weight of her family’s name cast a shadow over her remarkable journey. In remembering Margaux Hemingway, we were confronted with the fragile nature of human existence, and the importance of empathy and understanding in the face of mental health challenges.

While the Hemingway curse remains a subject of debate, Margaux’s story emphasizes the need for open conversations about mental health and the significance of breaking the silence that often shrouds these issues. Margaux’s legacy is not defined solely by tragedy, but her resilience, determination, and advocacy in the face of adversity. Her life serves as a lesson that even in the face of the most daunting challenges, one can find the strength to make a lasting impact and raise awareness about issues that affect us all. If you are interested in the lives of the rich and famous, stay tuned.