G.L Fuentes (July 11, 1897 – January 13, 2002) was a fisherman and the first mate of the ''Pilar'', the boat belonging to the American writer

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

. Fuentes was born in Arrecife on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. He first went to sea as deck boy with his father at age 10. As a teenager, he worked on cargo ships out of the Canary Islands to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

, and from the Spanish ports of

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

and

Sevilla Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

to South America. He migrated permanently to Cuba when he was 22. He attempted to reclaim his Spanish citizenship in 2001. In 1938, Fuentes replaced the ''Pilar'''s original first mate, Carlos Gutiérrez, after Hemingway's mistress, Jane Mason, hired him to be the first mate of her boat after becoming jealous of Hemingway's relationship with

Martha Gellhorn Martha Ellis Gellhorn (8 November 1908 – 15 February 1998) was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century. Gellhorn reported on virtually every major worl ...

. Fuentes, a lifelong cigar smoker, died from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in Cojimar in 2002. He was often said to be the model for the character Santiago in Hemingway’s ''

The Old Man and the Sea ''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. O ...

'', but he died without having read the book. He was 104 years old.

''The Old Man and the Sea''

Fuentes is credited by some as a model for Hemingway's protagonist Santiago in ''

'', though this is most likely the result of Fuentes' longevity and how he purposefully grew into the incarnation of the role of Santiago for tourists visiting Cojimar. Hemingway himself stated that Santiago was "based on no one in particular". That Fuentes worked closely with and knew Hemingway very well is undeniable. However, if anyone can claim credit for being the inspiration for Santiago, it was Hemingway's original first mate, Carlos Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez had been fishing the Gulf Stream for 40 years and was already an old man when Hemingway first met him. Hemingway would credit the old fisherman with teaching him everything he knew about catching marlin, and credited Gutiérrez with telling him the Cuban tales he used as grist to write ''On The Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter''. Additionally, Hemingway laid out the plot outline for ''''The Old Man And The Sea'''' and how Gutiérrez's assistance proved vital to the story's creation and evolution in a letter written in February 1939 to his editor,

Max Perkins William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins (September 20, 1884 – June 17, 1947) was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe. Early life and e ...

: Fuentes would spend his later years charging tourists $10 or $20 to take his picture and regale them with stories of his domestic partnership with Ernest Hemingway.

References

Sources

* ''Hemingway In Cuba'' by Hilary Hemingway and Carlene Brennan, June 2003 * ''Welcome to Havana, Señor Hemingway'' by Alfredo Jose Estrada, August 2005 * ''How it Was'' by Mary Welsh Hemingway, 1977.

External links

Gregorio Fuentes was Hemingway's Captain

''"A Visit To Hemingway's Cuba And The Search For The Old Man And The Sea"''
by Brian Francis Donohue
Gregorio Fuentes in Cojimar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuentes, Gregorio 1897 births 2002 deaths Cuban centenarians Cuban sailors Spanish centenarians Men centenarians Spanish sailors Deaths from cancer in Cuba People from Arrecife