Group of Sun Valley Hunting Photographs of Ernest Hemingway, Clark Gable, and Gary Cooper.

A remarkable group of vintage black-and-white photographs, circa the late 1940s, documenting the Hollywood and literary set at play in Sun Valley with the resort's legendary guide Taylor "Bear Tracks" Williams. The group includes a smaller photograph of a laughing Norma Shearer holding a shotgun, inscribed to Williams, two photographs of Ernest Hemingway hunting with Gary Cooper and Williams, a lodge interior showing Hemingway with Cooper and others including the journalist Martha Gellhorn, and about nine further images of the hunting parties and their guides. Some related ephemera is also present, including later notes from Lillian Gish and Bette Davis. Taylor "Bear Tracks" Williams was the legendary chief hunting and fishing guide at Sun Valley, the man who led the stream of Hollywood stars and sportsmen drawn to the Idaho resort in its glamorous early years out into the mountains after game. Among his devoted clients and friends were Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of the keenest hunters in Hollywood, as well as Ernest Hemingway, who made Williams his favorite guide and one of his closest Idaho companions. A Kentuckian by birth, well read, witty, and easygoing, Williams earned the name "Bear Tracks" not for hunting bears but for the shape of his own footprints, and he remained a fixture of Sun Valley life until his death in 1959, remembered as much for his friendships with the famous men he guided as for his skill in the field. In near fine condition. A wonderful archive capturing the camaraderie of Hollywood stars, writers, and guides in Sun Valley's golden years.