Teo Davis

Timothy Logan Bakewell Davis (born April 18, 1951) was an American writer who worked in Hollywood from the mid-1970s until his death March 1, 2016, in Los Angeles, California. He was perhaps best known for having been been the son of wealthy American expatriates in Spain who lavishly entertained celebrities and the literati, including Ernest Hemingway in 1959 when the famous author struggled for sanity and survival as he was about to turn 60 and headed toward self destruction.

Early Life and Education

The elder of two children, Teo Davis was born in London. His father, William Nathan Davis, of London and Madrid, was “a wealthy patron of the arts from Indianapolis and a graduate of Yale (1929)," according to a Hemingway signed letter to Davis dated March 31, 1942 and listed in a December 2013 Christie’s auction. His mother, Anne Bakewell Davis of Baltimore, was a distant descendant of John James Audubon, the French-born ornithologist, naturalist, and painter.

Davis grew up on the family's historic villa filled with Jackaon Pollock paintings called La Consula in Málaga, the birthplace of artist Pablo Picasso. His younger sister Nena and he lived in a world of famous adults whom their parents often entertained, among them Noel Coward; Laurence Olivier and his wife Vivien Leigh; the powerful English theater critic Kenneth Tynan and his wife, the writer Elaine Dundy; and Orson Wells. In 1959, the guests included Ernest Hemingway and his fourth wife Mary who would make La Consula their home for the summer. There was also a Hemingway posse of matadors, aficionados, pretty young women, and anyone the author invited along.

The Nobel laureate was in Spain to write a series of articles for LIFE magazine about that summer's mano-a-mano bullfighting duel between the world’s two leading matadors at the time, Antonio Ordoñez and his brother-in-law Luis Miguel Dominguín. During that summer, eight-year-old Teo befriended the famed author. The story of their friendship was later told in the book Looking for Hemingway; Spain, The Bullfights and a Final Rite of Passage (Lyons Press, 2016).

Among Teo Davis's few friends at the time was the Tynan's daughter, Tracy Tynan, who years later would renew the friendship in Hollywood where she became a costume designer and writer.

Teo Davis graduated from Eton College in Windsor, England.

Later Years

Teo Davis died March 1, 2016. "Teo had been in frail health due to a destructive lifestyle that led to a failing heart, and diabetes," Nena Davis wrote in an online memorial she set up to remember her brother. "Despite the river of darkness than ran through his life, he was an extraordinary person, much loved, with many friends. May he always be remembered by his friends and family."

Davis's longtime friend Tracy Tynan wrote: "Throughout his life he struggled with substance abuse, but for the last two years he had been sober. Sadly, his addictions had left him with a myriad of health problems and on March 1, his heart gave out. He was a funny, smart, infuriating, unique guy. He will be greatly missed. As his friend, [Walter Hill], put it, ‘I am a better person for having known him."

Personal life

Teo Davis was married to Diana Radway, daughter of the Marchioness of Linlithgow of London and the late John S. Radway of New York. Diana Radway was a graduate of Columbia University. Their engagement was announced in The New York Times.