Born in Kansas City, Missouri, to novelist Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer, she was called 'Gigi' or 'Gig' in childhood and was, according to a close observer, "a tremendous athlete" and a "crack shot".

[6] She dropped out of St. John's College, Annapolis, after one year[7] and worked for a time as an aircraft mechanic[8] before moving to California in 1951.

According to Hemingway biographer Michael Reynolds the "conversation degenerated into accusations, blame-laying, vituperation, and general misunderstanding."

During the autopsy it was discovered she suffered from a rare tumor that "secretes abnormal amounts of adrenaline causing extremely high blood pressure.

[8] Another result was that Gloria inherited a significant amount of money, which she used in part to retreat to Africa,[9] where she drank alcohol and shot elephants.

She wrote her father a bitter letter, detailing the medical facts of her mother's death and blaming Ernest for the tragedy.

[16] Gloria and her brothers tried to protect their father's name and their inheritance by taking legal action to stop the popular local celebrations called "Hemingway Days" in Key West, Florida.

[8] In 1999, they collaborated in creating a business venture, Hemingway Ltd., to market the family name as "an up-scale lifestyle accessory brand".

[3][18][19] When Gloria was 12 years old, Ernest walked in on her dressed in her stepmother Martha Gellhorn's stockings, a near-daily activity at the time, and went berserk.

"[2] In 1946 Ernest's wife Mary accused the maid of stealing her lingerie, but later discovered the items under 14-year-old Gloria's mattress.

When Ernest rebuked his child for stealing from Mary years later, Gloria responded "The clothes business is something that I have never been able to control, understand basically very little, and I am terribly ashamed of.

While she was sometimes open with the media about her struggles with gender dysphoria and had been seen in women's clothing numerous times, Gloria's public persona generally remained male, as she never gained the acceptance of her family or society, and repeatedly attempted conversion therapy.

[24] In July of that year she attended events marking the centenary of Ernest Hemingway's birth in Oak Park, Illinois.

[27][14] She was increasingly seen in women's attire in public;[14] yet, she also frequented a local tavern dressed as a man, presented as what a patron called "just one of the guys", though they knew about her feminine identity and persona and were not bothered.

[14] On September 24, 2001, Gloria wore a black cocktail dress to a party and used the name Vanessa; she did not become drunk and was regarded as noticeably happy by friends, many who had never been introduced to her as a woman before.

[3][14][5] As an attempt at reconciliation, Gloria sent her father a telegram in October 1954 to congratulate him on being awarded the Nobel Prize and received $5,000 in return.

[8] One such example was a letter from Gloria to Ernest in reply to one which referenced her gender exploration stating "The clothes business is something that I have never been able to control, understand basically very little, and I am terribly ashamed of.

"[20] Gloria wrote a short account of her father's life and their strained relationship, Papa: A Personal Memoir,[28] that became a bestseller.

When it appeared in 1976, Norman Mailer wrote in the preface, "There is nothing slavish here....For once, you can read a book about [Ernest] Hemingway and not have to decide whether you like him or not.

"[8] The New York Times called it "a small miracle" and "artfully elliptical" in presenting "gloriously romantic adventures" with "a thin cutting edge of malice".

"[12] Of her father she wrote: "The man I remembered was kind, gentle, elemental in his vastness, tormented beyond endurance, and although we always called him papa, it was out of love, not fear.

"[30] Time magazine criticized the author's "churlishness" and called her work "a bitter jumble of unsorted resentments and anguished love.

[1] Valerie included this text as the epigraph to her own tribute to Gloria written two years after her death:[33] The smallest boy was fair and was built like a pocket battle-ship.

[4][34] Gloria's fourth marriage, to Ida Mae Galliher, ended in divorce in 1995 after three years, though they continued to live together and remarried in 1997.

[36] Shortly after Gloria died, the LGBT magazine The Advocate published an article discussing the coverage of her death.