Drunken Hall of Fame

When I played baseball in Little Leagues, I admired the great Major League home run hitters like Harmon Killebrew, Johnny Bench, Frank Howard, and of course Babe Ruth. Then I got a little older and became a newspaper writer. At that time I looked with stars in my eyes to the great reporters, guys like Grantland Rice, Walter Winchell, and H.L. Mencken. Now that I am semi-retired, and have become somewhat of a drinker, I now turn my star-struck gaze toward the great drinkers of all time. Guys like Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin, and W.C  Fields.
The Patriotic Act of Drinking: The tax burden in America is heavily slanted against people who use alcohol, gasoline, and tobacco. The person who drives a big Caddy, drinks a fifth of liquor, and chain smokes 3 packs a day may be killing himself - but he is sure helping out the good old USA. The largest drinkers are also our best taxpayers, and worthy of our patriotic devotion. How much real tax do you think is paid by a teetotalling, nonsmoking vegan driving a hybrid car? Hell, that guy not only pays no tax - he still owes us for that student loan! So, without apology, here is our list of people who belong in the Boozers Hall of Fame, in no specific order:
Ernest Hemingway: Probably the greatest drinker of all time, Hemingway learned to drink draft beer and "dago red" at the age of 17 when he was hired as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. Impressed by the hard-drinking veteran reporters, Ernest closed down the bars every night. When World War I started, he was sent to Europe, where he expanded to liqueurs and brandies. After being wounded in Italy, Hemingway started drinking cognac and Asti Spumonte while banging half the nurses in the British hospital. After his recovery, Hemingway spent most of his nights drinking and carousing in Italian cathouses for the remainder of the war.
Later Ernest went to Paris, where he drank absinthe with a pack of writers and artists who had formed a clique there. French wines made Hemingway a "mean drunk", and a lot of people were glad to see him head to Spain, where he partied his way through the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent.
Later, during Prohibition, Hemingway moved to Key West, Florida. Although most places in the U.S. had put a stop to drinking, Key West apparently wasn't aware of Prohibition.  Hemingway bought a dark cave of a bar called Sloppy Joe's, where he served up large quantities of bootleg liquor. He was his own best customer.
When the Federal Agents finally got around to stopping the free-for-all antics in Key West, Hemingway bought a 38 foot cabin cruiser that he named the Pilar. He would load up a few cases of booze, round up a crew of local drunks, and slip out into the Gulf for some serious drinking and marlin fishing. He carried a pair of .50 caliber Thompson machine guns to kill sharks with, and mixed daiquiris in a 10 gallon bucket.
His forays in search of illegal whiskey even brought him into Galveston Bay, where he was an occasional customer of a local moonshiner in Kemah. This moonshiner, nicknamed "Kemah Red", was the son of a Doctor and the brother of the local Constable, and operated with impunity from a rambling seaside shack near where the Kemah Boardwalk is now located.
During World War 2, Hemingway and his boat were granted status as a "Submarine Patrol Boat" and spent several drunken years defending the straits of Cuba from non-existent German U-boats while smuggling Barbados Rum to Havana.
After the war, he settled down to some serious hardcore drinking that lasted until the day he died.
In the midst of this lifelong stupor, Hemingway managed to write some of the most brilliant novels ever published. Everyone who ever drank with him, including heavyweight drunks like F. Scott Fitzgerald, said he could hold more alcohol than anyone else they'd ever met.
A typical day for Hemingway started and ended with booze. His personal consumption probably averaged about 1 gallon per day, excluding beer and wine.
Dean Martin: Dino was the drunk guy of the famous Las Vegas "Rat Pack". His publicity people let out the misinformation that Dean really didn't drink all that much. According to them, most of his drinks consisted of apple juice. They said his drunk appearance might be attributed to his days as a boxer, in which he compiled a respectable 11-1 record. They said he was "punch drunk". This was nonsense.
Dean Martin could put away enormous amounts of hard liquor, all day long, and did so for many years.
Perhaps no other famous drunk can lay as much claim to the term "elegantly wasted" as Dino. No matter how drunk he got, he was suave and classy. His movie roles often portrayed him as a hardcore alkie who is redeemed, as in the classic "Rio Bravo", in which he portrays a drunken marshall opposite John Wayne. When Wayne encounters the drunken marshall, Dean slurs "Whatta YOU lookin at?" Wayne answers, "I'm looking at a... [pause] tin star, with a... [really contemptuous pause] drunk pinned on it." After which, both men wise up and embrace a life of sobriety, decency and flying bullets.
W.C. Fields: Perhaps no drinking man has ever captured the essence of drunkenness that Fields attained. He became the town drunk of an entire nation, with his red bulbous nose, squinted eyes, and ever-present flask of gin.
Although he was usually selected for drunken roles, Fields was a prodigious  drinker in real life as well. He made no apologies for his habits, and bragged openly about his drinking exploits.
Even after entering a Pasadena sanitarium to dry out, Fields drank two bottles of gin - smuggled in by friends - every day. "I only drink to steady my nerves," he once remarked. "Sometimes I'm so steady I don't move for months."
Joe Namath: "Broadway Joe" came up from the hard-drinking mining country in western Pa., and he's always been the kind of drinker who keeps a low profile. Probably Joe learned how to keep it cool while playing football for the legendary Paul "Bear" Bryant at Alabama. Bryant was strict as hell, and Joe had to "fly below the radar" a lot during his wild college days.
A drunken fixture in New York City's finest bars in the 70's, Joe was in the "suave and debonair" category with Dean Martin until last December. That's when he really fucked up on national television. It was the worst pass of the year. During an NFL broadcast, ESPN's host Suzy Kolber asked Joe Namath about the struggling New York Jets, and got an unexpected response. Namath's drunken reply? "I want to kiss you!"
George Jones: Good ole George is a fellow Texan and absolutely one of the two-fisted drinkers of all time. During his marriage to Tammy Wynette (another slammin' boozehound), Tammy thought George was drinking too much. In order to protect him from himself, Tammy hid the keys to all 27 of the family's vehicles so George couldn't make a booze run. George got onto his 7.5 hp lawn tractor and headed to town. Photos ended up in the National Enquirer.
Back in 1979, when George was all tore down on coke and liquor, he experienced some difficulty onstage at a Nashville club. The wobbly country star could open his mouth, but he was unable to sing. He told the audience "My friend Deedoodle the Duck is going to take over this show, because Deedoodle can do what George Jones can't". Jones then sang the entire set in a Donald Duck voice.
Willie Nelson: Have you noticed how many of the greatest drinkers are musicians, or from Texas, or both? Maybe it's some toxin released from loco weed and carried around the state by the west Texas wind.
In his earlier days, before the really primo weed became readily available, Willie was known as one of the state's top drunks. At Gilley's in Pasadena in the early 70s, bartenders were told to limit Nelson's intake prior to his shows. "He was really a very sweet man" one of them said, "but there was just no way to keep him from getting his drinks. If you didn't serve him, he would bring his own".
Willie admits he was somewhat of a drinker back in 'Nam.
When his career failed to take off, young Willie often drowned his sorrows in alcohol. "Once, in Nashville," he recalled, "I got so drunk and discouraged that I laid down in the street in the snow and waited for a car to come along." After waiting for some time, he finally got discouraged again. "Eventually," he explained, "I got up, went back in the bar, and bought another round of drinks!"
President Andrew Johnson: This is the only President who showed up at his own inauguration absolutely falling-down shitfaced drunk. On moonshine, no less. Johnson is also the only ex-slave to ever become President. As a young man he was an indentured slave. He became President after Lincoln was assassinated.
"Doc" Holliday: This western gunfighter who stood with the Earp brothers in the shootout at the OK Corral was a drinker of legendary proportions. Remember, this was in the days of warm home-made beer and rotgut whiskey. Holliday was dying of tuberculosis, when a doctor recommended the climate of the desert southwest. The rest of his career is the stuff of history. He drank all day and all night, as long as he was conscious, by all reports. When the shooting broke out, Holliday would calmly face down anyone. Maybe it was because he was already living on borrowed time. The best representation of Doc Holliday is Val Kilmer's laconic and humorous portrayal in the movie "Tombstone".
Doc Holliday claimed he almost lost his life a total of nine times. Four attempts were made to hang him and he was shot at in a gunfight or from ambush five times. In May, 1887, Doc went to Glenwood Springs to try the sulfur vapors, as his health was steadily growing worse, but he was too far gone. He spent his last fifty-seven days in bed and was delirious fourteen of them. On November 8, 1887, he awoke clear-eyed and asked for a glass of whiskey. It was given to him and he drank it down with enjoyment. Then he said, "This is funny", and died.
Richard Burton: This accomplished boozer could take the hard stuff in waves. Burton could drink a pub full of coal miners under the table, then recite Hamlet word for word. His marriage to Elizabeth Taylor demonstrated his enormous powers as a consumer of alcohol. They met in 1963 on the set of "Cleopatra". During the sixties Richard was averaging two bottles of vodka a day and Liz was doing her best to keep up with him. The pair had a very volatile relationship and the intensity of their brawling matched that of their drinking.
Charles "Barfly" Bukowski: His is a Cinderella story -- late in life this booze-soaked poet-writer fought his way up from the the tough skid row bars of L.A. to seize international recognition as one of the finest hoochhounds of his generation. He couldn't afford the best drinks to train with, but he did well with what he could beg, borrow and steal.
Humphrey Bogart: The actor's hard-drinking, tough-as-nails screen persona was no facade, if anything it was a pale reflection of the real man. Though a scotch drinker by choice, he could take anything you could dish out -- and give it back in spades. The founder of the Rat Pack, he was capable of drinking till dawn, turning in a professional day of work, then doing an encore at a dozen bars. Bogart in a drunken state would often inadvertently insult someone who would generally return the favor with a punch. Bogey's iron will, caustic wit, and rabid thirst made him a major league boozehound.
William Faulkner: Though slight in build, the southern scribe's capacity for hooch was the stuff of legend. An accomplished master of the month-long bender, his genteel appearance belied his taste for corn liquor and high proof rotgut. The descendent of a very long and illustrious line of drunkards, he was born and bred to the art of getting "likkered up".
Jackie Gleason: As unpredictable as he was formidable, Gleason was akin to a beer truck driven by a hyperactive child. While he possessed an immense amount of drinking power, his steering could be extremely erratic and he tended to take a lot of chances. Gleason was legendary for his dislike of rehearsal, and used to show up for a live taping after a few drinks with only moments to spare, often ad-libbing if he didn't care for the script. Jackie was know to say "I'm no alcoholic. I'm a drunkard. There's a difference. A drunkard doesn't like to go to meetings." In his house in Florida, he designed the barstools which he claimed were impossible to fall out of, no matter how hammered you got.
Babe Ruth: By age seven, he was drinking, chewing tobacco, and had become impossible for his parents to control. He never changed. By the time he was a baseball star, he could eat more, drink more, smoke more, swear more, and enjoy himself more than any contemporary. A legendary gourmand, Babe was fond of drinking a quart mixture of bourbon whiskey and ginger ale at breakfast.
Of all the names listed here, the Babe could certainly drink the most beer. He regularly drank a gallon or more on game days during his years as the greatest slugger of all time.
Nick Nolte: The Down & Out In Beverly Hills star was arrested last September 11 after police spotted him driving recklessly. He was charged with DUI.
Stories of Nolte's drinking are not exaggerated. "I drank for 30 years. I drank a lot. I never denied it or tried to hide my drinking. I'd go to interviews carrying a six-pack of beer to let people know they didn't know something I didn't know."
Although he is currently in rehab and on probation, Nolte has spent the last few decades as one of the most prolific drinkers in history, with occasional "dry" spells.
"I'm not a fan of real life. Real life has got some strange kind of rules to it that are very odd," Nolte said, adding, "my life stems around imagination."
Edgar Allen Poe: He fell in love with a girl named Elmira, and they eventually pledged themselves to each other. Later, she became engaged to another man. After this, Edgar began drinking seriously. He had little resistance to alcohol and easily became violent and irrational when he drank too much - in other words, a lightweight. He soon added the taking of laudanum and opium to his drinking habit. In spite of this, his literary career seemed on the verge of taking off. In 1843 he was invited to give a lecture in Washington, and to be received by the President at the White House. This was perhaps the greatest opportunity of Poe's life to make a good impression and helpful allies. But upon his arrival in D. C., Poe was persuaded to have drinks at a dinner party. This led to heavier drinking. He was soon "all tore up" as he staggered down the street. His lecture was quickly cancelled, and when he did appear at the White House, he was drunk to the gills and made a fool of himself.
Edgar soon became engaged to Sarah Helen Whitman. However, the wedding was called off two days prior because Poe, who had promised to give up alcohol as a condition of marriage, had been spotted drinking.
Poe left Washington to visit friends and relatives and to look after some business, travelling toward New York City via Baltimore and Philadelphia. He never made it past Baltimore. He arrived there drunk and disappeared for a mysterious five days. He was eventually found, in a delirium, and taken to the hospital where he clung to life for a few more days. Edgar Allan Poe died on Sunday October 7, 1849. His last words were: "Lord help my poor soul." In an aptly mysterious postscript to Poe's life, an anonymous visitor has brought three red roses and a bottle of cognac to Poe's grave at Westminster Church in Baltimore on the anniversary of the writer's birthday every year since 1949
Keith Richards: Here is a press clipping that tells you all you need to know about Keith Richards drinking capacity:
"Police say they found the unidentified drinker in an unconscious state, but paramedics found he was stable. They recorded a .72 blood alcohol concentration in a blood test, according to police spokeswoman Eva Zvidre. An average person would vomit at around .18, lose consciousness at .30 and stop breathing at a level of about .40, they said. Emergency Room physician Martin Sics said there is no record of anybody having survived such a dose."
The man was later identified as Keith Richards, hard-drinking guitarist of the Rolling Stones.
Jim Morrison: Every year on the anniversary of Jim Morrison's death an annual party is held at his grave in a posh Paris cemetery.
25 years after his death, when the lease expired on his grave, the cemetery tried to evict him. They were tired of all the beer bottles and condoms they had to clean up over the years, left by Morrison's visitors.
You must be a hellacious partier when you are evicted for partying after having been dead for 25 years!
"I enjoy drinking," he once admitted. "It loosens people up and stimulates conversation. Somehow it's like gambling; you go out for a night of drinking, and you don't know where you'll end up the next morning."
Janis Joplin: Texas musician Janis Joplin's rise was meteoric and she fell prey to the excesses stardom offered. Janis took solace in the bottle and experimented with drugs. The years since her death have seen the tales of Janis' excesses become legendary. She did enjoy Southern Comfort, consuming a quart or more daily. She did enjoy driving around San Francisco in her psychedelic painted Porsche, drunk as a skunk.
Winston Churchill: Churchill drank throughout the day and in large quantities. He wrote in April 1924 "I drink Champagne at all meals and buckets of claret and soda in between." He would take his first whisky and soda soon after breakfast. For the rest of the day the tumbler was rarely empty. After his regular afternoon nap he would have two or three glasses of "iced whisky and soda" before dinner, at which "he always had champagne, followed by several doses of brandy"; this would be followed by several whisky and sodas as the night wore on.
He sometimes was so loaded he had difficulty finishing a speech and had to be led away.
President Roosevelt observed to his Cabinet that "he supposed Churchill was the best man that England had, even if he was drunk half the time."
Sir Winston Churchill clearly had a huge tolerance for alcohol, however, and it was this which allowed him to be the great man that he was.

Father & Son Duo

Hank Williams Sr.: Before he became a star, he had a mild drinking problem, but it had been more or less controlled during his first few years of fame. However, as he began to earn large amounts of money and spend long times away from home, he began to drink frequently. In spite of all of his success, Hank turned completely reckless in 1952, spending nearly all of his waking hours drunk and taking drugs, while he was frequently destroying property and playing with guns. He was fired from the Grand Ole Opry, and busted for DWI that year. Hank Williams died slamming whiskey from the bottle in the back of his Cadillac, on his way to a concert. The last single released in his lifetime was "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive."
Hank Williams Jr.: The T Rex of redneck southern party animals, Mr. "No-Show" has missed a lot of concerts because he was too drunk to stand up. Even when he did make it to a gig, he was likely to be shitfaced drunk onstage and cussing out the audience.
Jim Beam has always been Hank Jr.'s preference, and he has reportedly drank enough of the stuff to float the battleship Texas. Most of his hit songs have been about drinking and partying.

Father & Daughters Trio

President George W. Bush: A Newsweek profile observed that young George "seems to have majored in beer drinking" in college. Whenever he had some free time, Bush was spending it getting drunk and/or laid, when he wasn't busy playing competitive sports, or doing whatever it is they do in those twice-weekly meetings at Skull and Bones
After he just sort of wandered away from military service, Bush's partying lifestyle resumed with a vengeance and it continued to cause him trouble. According to a friend, he and George spent a lot of their free time boozing it up at parties: "We did drink... we drank what people gave us to drink... And if we went to a party and they were serving liquor, then we would drink it, and we would drink it until it was gone."
Sometime around Christmas in 1972, George drove home to Houston drunk with his teenaged brother Marvin and plowed into a neighbor's garbage can. When daddy said he wanted to have a talk, George tried to pick a fight with his old man, challenging him to go a few rounds "man to man" outside in their River Oaks front yard.
Bush continued his life of hard drinking and was finally arrested for drunk driving in October 1976, this time with his teenaged sister Dorothy in the car.
Despite episodes like these, Bush continued abusing alcohol for another decade before finally quitting cold turkey in 1986. Those willing to discuss Dubya's drinking all affirm he was animated and clever when drunk.
GW would never have made our list if he weren't the President, although he was certainly no slouch during his hard-drinking days. Today Bush regrets ever drinking, cannot trust himself with any amount of alcohol, and hoped in vain that his children would avoid it. But don't call him an alcoholic, particularly in front of his kids. Evidently Bush believes that an effective way of discouraging young people from abusing drugs or alcohol is to stonewall whenever the topic comes up. A few years ago he advocated this technique to a Newsweek reporter:
"I wouldn't tell your kids that you smoked pot unless you want 'em to smoke pot. I think it's important for leaders, and parents, not to send mixed signals. I don't want some kid saying, 'Well, Governor Bush tried it.'"
The First Daughters: They often "ditch" their Secret Service escorts, and have both been spotted drinking heavily in bars in Austin, Washington, New York, and plenty of other places. There are hundreds of sightings. Barbara even got caught with a fake Maryland Drivers License, although she never faced any charges. Jenna has been busted for underage drinking twice. If you think they've "calmed down" due to the upcoming election, better think again. Just a week after the Republican Convention ended, Jenna was back at one of her favorite hangouts, drinking shots and beer with about 20 friends at Smith's Point Bar in Georgetown. As the night wore on, the party-loving twin "started to cover her face with her hair," a witness said.
Actor Ashton Kutcher, host of the hit MTV show "Punk'd" claims he smoked weed and drank with both of the Bush twins, before they were of legal drinking age. Kutcher says he thinks the Secret Service has been tapping his phone ever since.
Like their father, the Bushettes would probably not be listed here if not for their fame. On the other hand, both are established drinkers at the young age of 22, and there is plenty of time for them to blosson into serious boozers.
And a cast of
thousands….
There are many others I could mention, given the time and space. Jack Kerouac comes to mind, as well as General Ulysses S. Grant and comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Our staff suggested Orson Welles, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, Sam Houston, Mickey Mantle, O. Henry, and Merle Haggard, all of whom are respected for their copious consumption of good old shall-we-say booze.
If you look at the names mentioned in this article, you will notice that most of them have made their mark in the world. They are great people, and the world is better for their being in it. I guess the moral of the story would be that some of the greatest people in history like to take a drink now and then. In fact, the man of the last century was Winston Churchill, and he is one of the all-time boozers.
I guess that puts common tipplers like you and I into some pretty good company! Another round!   GATOR