Mariel Hemingway was born on November 22, 1961, the youngest daughter to Jack Hemingway and Byra Whittlesey, in Mill Valley, California, and raised in Ketchum, Idaho. Mariel was named after a port in Cuba where her father and grandfather, the writer and sportsman Ernest Hemingway, visited when fishing; and Margaux was named after the wine her father was drinking the night she was conceived. Their mother, Byra, was darkly moody and made no secret of her disdain for her husband, while Jack himself was insecure due to the fame of his celebrated father, a man he never really felt he knew, and was an indifferent parent at best.

Before the arrival of Mariel the family welcomed another two children, Muffet and Margaux, both of whom were plagued with the depression that had dogged their grandfather’s life. Tragically Margaux would go on to take her own life in 1996, as did her grandfather before her. Both Margaux and Ernest Hemingway are interned in the cemetery at Ketchum.

As the years passed, Mariel’s family moved to New York and Los Angeles where both Muriel and Margaux found their way into the movies.

Mariel’s first screen appearance was with her sister in 1976 in the less than memorable movie, Lipstick, and although the movie was not considered very good Mariel was nominated as Best Newcomer for the Golden Globes that year.

Getting into the role of Hugh Hefner’s slain Playboy model Dorothy Stratten in 1983, Mariel actually had breast augmentations for the movie Star 80. The implants were later removed in 2001. Mariel herself appeared on the cover and inside Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine in April of 1982.

Playing sometimes controversial roles seems to have been a theme in Mariel’s acting career. Firstly, in 1979 she appeared in romantic comedy by Woody Allen, Manhattan, in which she played Woody’s high school lover. In 1983 she played a bisexual athlete in the movie Personal Best, which was noted for some explicit lesbian love scenes. Along with her roles as a lesbian in the series, Roseanne, with Roseanne Barr, and in Crossing Jordan, with Jill Hennessey, it was widely believed that Mariel was in fact a lesbian in her off-screen life.

These rumors are dispelled by the fact that she has actually been married to writer and director Stephen Crisman since 1984 and together they have two daughters, Dree and Langley.

In 2005 Mariel played the role of Maria Shriver in the made for TV movie See Arnold Run, which recounted the rise of athletic, movie, and political stardom of California’s governor, Arnold Schwarchenegger.

In 2007 Mariel was featured in the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan when she appeared in the docu-movie Nanking, in which she played the missionary Minnie Vautrin, alongside Woody Harrelson’s Bob Wilson. In the movie Mariel is the voice of Vautrin, telling of the atrocities of the rape of Shanghai and Nanking by the Japanese.

Let us know of updates to Muriel Hemingway Biography at editor@yuddy.com