Cuba: A destination for celebrities and iconic tours

Cuba has historically been a magnet for celebrities from around the world. From musicians and actors to political leaders and writers, the island has left an lasting mark on those who have visited.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, found a haven for his creativity in Cuba. His home, Finca Vigía, located on the outskirts of Havana, is now a museum that attracts hundreds of visitors each year.

Hemingway spent more than two decades on the island, where he wrote masterpieces such as The Old Man and the Sea.

Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole, the legendary singer and pianist, also left his mark on Cuba. The singer of “Unforgettable” and “Mona Lisa” came to Havana in 1956, 1957 and 1958 to perform, always under lucrative contracts, at the Tropicana. Previously, when he was approached about the possibility of performing at that famous nightclub, he made a private visit to see for himself the stage that would host him, according to columnist Ciro Bianchi in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

At Tropicana, on March 2, 1956, 37-year-old Nat King Cole was to appear in the cabaret’s “Fantasia Mexicana” show, led by Xiomara Alfaro, which included the D’Aida quartet—Elena Burke, Moraima Secada, Haydée and Omara Portuondo—singers Miguel Ángel Ortiz and Dandy Crawford, and dancers Leonela González and Henry Boyer, among others.

Albert Einstein

The famous scientist Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize laureate in Physics in 1921, attended a reception held for him in the auditorium of the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences in Havana, hosted by that institution and the Cuban Geographical Society. He wrote in the visitor’s book: “The first truly universal society was the society of researchers. May the coming generation establish an economic and political society that will safely avoid catastrophes.”

He entered Cuban waters on Friday, December 19, 1930. The first thing he did was buy a summer hat at the distinguished El Encanto store. In addition to visiting the Secretariat of State, Einstein toured the poorest and most unhealthy neighborhoods of Havana at the time.

Babe Ruth

The famous Major League Baseball player traveled to Cuba from October 30 to November 28, 1920, as part of the New York Giants, to face the Almendares Scorpions and the Havana team.

The games were played at Almendares Park stadium in Havana. Following widespread publicity in the capital’s newspapers and radio stations, the tickets sold out within three days. Babe Ruth participated in all 10 games, collecting 10 hits in 29 at-bats, including a double, a triple, and two home runs, and batting average of .345. According to legend,  he lost all the money Abel Linares paid him, and some extra money the “Bambino” brought betting on horse races at the Oriental Park racetrack and Jai Alai. To avoid leaving empty-handed, he agreed to play two more games in Santiago de Cuba for the sum of $3,000. Before returning to the United States, he returned to the racetrack and lost all his remaining money.

Frank Sinatra

The popular American singer and actor came to Havana twice: in 1946 and 1951. The first visit was related to a conference among mobsters. It is said that he was invited by mobster Lucky Luciano to divert attention as the organization made its future plans.

The second time, the famous artist returned to the island newly married to actress Ava Gardner. It was November 1951. Sinatra kept Gardner, already a Hollywood film icon, locked in his room at the Hotel Nacional the entire time. The owner of the Montmartre cabaret, located on O Street in Vedado, invited the couple and gave them a large wedding cake. They both posed smiling for the photographers’ cameras. They also visited the Tropicana cabaret, where they avoided the prying cameras of journalists.

Gary Cooper

The American actor, best known for his Western films, visited Cuba in the 1930s. He returned in 1949 and visited American writer Ernest Hemingway at the Vigía estate, with whom he was seen more than once enjoying a Daiquiri at the Nobel Prize laureate’s favorite bar: El Floridita.

Cooper received two Oscars, the first for Sergeant York in 1941 and the second for High Noon in 1952.

Johnny Weissmuller

The great American swimming spectacle at the 1924 Paris and 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, and also famous for his film portrayal of Tarzan, traveled to Havana in the 1950s to play a golf tournament with other celebrities. When Weissmuller arrived on the steamer Virginia and disembarked in Havana on the morning of Tuesday, August 25, 1931, he was accompanied by his wife and a swimmer named Harold Slabby Kruger, according to Radio Habana Cuba.

On the same day of his arrival, but in the afternoon, he had lunch as a special guest of the then-recently opened Hotel Nacional, where he put on a show in front of a large audience eager to see the great champion swim a few strokes in Cuban waters.