Will the real Hemingway please sit down? You’ve almost certainly had too much to drink.
Of all the types of celebrities out there, literary celebrities usually get the short end of the stick. It’s understandable: A grainy, thumb-sized portrait on the back of a book cover isn’t going to provide maximum facial recognition potential. But still, doesn’t your favorite writer deserve to get asked for their autograph at the airport or have a training bra tossed at them once in a while?
To correct this injustice, the next time you see the more famous celebrity counterparts of the authors below, run up to them and mistake them for the writers they resemble — “Channing Tatum? Wait, so you’re not E. E. Cummings risen from the dead? Oh, never mind, then, I don’t want that autograph. Thanks anyway.”
1. Ernest Hemingway and, like, Half of Key West
To be fair, this photo comes from the annual Hemingway look-alike competition held each summer at Sloppy Joe’s (coming up this year July 17 to 19 — get your beards ready!) and random old men in Key West do not celebrities make — but how scary is this? Does the fact that so many turn out for the contest say more about Key West or Hemingway? And do these guys grow out their beards and travel north during Christmas? Write us with answers, if you can muster them.
2. Georges Perec and Elijah Wood
One of them was a nice Jewish boy who loved experimental wordplay; the other starred as a dancing penguin in the movie Happy Feet. Both are good candidates for a dinner date your grandparents would approve of.
3. H. P. Lovecraft and Sober William S. Burroughs
Wasted William S. Burroughs, on the other hand, looks like that uncle your family stopped inviting to Thanksgiving dinner.
4. E. E. Cummings and Channing Tatum
Think Cummings couldn’t have starred in Magic Mike? You obviously haven’t read his erotic poetry.
5. W. B. Yeats and Stephen King
Carrie is sort of like a contemporary version of The Tower … right?
7. Sylvia Plath and Drew Barrymore
If only Plath had been around to slap some sense into Barrymore when she was filming He’s Just Not That into You. And 50 First Dates. And definitely Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Okay, so Plath would have hated every single movie Barrymore has ever starred in. ET, though, she could probably get behind.
7. Amy Tan and Lucille Soong
Soong was, without a doubt, the woman that made the Lindsay Lohan version of Freaky Friday watchable. She actually also starred in the film version of Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club!
Bonus author-celebrity lookalike: Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the old man from Up (if Marquez was wearing his glasses and you we’re squinting just a little bit and pretty high on cough syrup).
Can you think of any other author lookalikes? Let us know in the comments below! Extra points if you can come up with more matches for any of the authors above.
Adina Applebaum is Michigan native studying English and creative writing at Barnard College. Her crowning achievements in life are memorizing all the lyrics on The Slim Shady LP and eating an entire gallon of chocolate-covered raisins during orientation week of college.
(Image credits: Sloppy Joes, Wikimedia, Hemingway Look-Alike Society, Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikimedia, H. P. Lovecraft, Amazon, Amazon, Wikimedia, Wikimedia, Stephen King, Amazon, Wikimedia, Amazon, Amazon)
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