SPAIN: The Bull Bums

Among Anglo-Saxons the passion for bullfights used to be limited largely to such professional tauromaniacs as Novelist Ernest Hemingway, Barnaby (Matador) Conrad and Drama Critic Kenneth Tynan. Next came Actress Ava Gardner, who, like many a lady before her, had trouble choosing between man and beast. But last week Spain was crawling with a new species of Anglo-American characters known, even among themselves, as bull bums. Before a bullfight, these happy eccentrics can usually be found tossing down a fino in the lobby of the leading hotel or paying respects as the matadors nervously squeeze into their tight pants and gilt jackets.

Bullock-Befriending Bard. Bull bums differ considerably from ski bums, tennis bums or beach bums. For one thing, they are only spectators. For another, they are invariably well heeled and can afford the proper clothes, hotels and restaurants as well as the sports cars to make all-night dashes of up to 700 miles from one corrida to the next. The most conspicuous bull bum in Spain last week was U.S. Bachelor Kenneth H. Vanderford, 51, who has seen 94 fights this season and whips from city to city in a red Karmann Ghia.

Vanderford’s main claim to fame is a white beard that combines with a baseball cap and sports shirt to give him a resemblance to that bullock-befriending bard, Ernest “Papa” Hemingway. Vanderford plays his part to the hilt, occasionally signs Hemingway’s name for autograph seekers (growls Papa: “I don’t care if he signs my name as long as he doesn’t sign checks”), and passes out cards bearing his picture, true name and coy inscriptions, reading in Spanish, “Although two drops of water look alike, they are different,” and in English, “Everyone in this ever-loving world looks a little like everyone else.” Vanderford, who is generally called “the phony Hemingway,” retired as an oil-company executive last year, has been in Spain ever since, and says: “I can stay here as long as the stock market doesn’t go to hell.”

Conservative Reluctance. His closest rival is Alice Hall, 57, a retired schoolmarm from Georgia who speaks perfect Spanish with a corn-pone accent. She has been following the bull since the days of Cesar Giron and Litri, has a filing-case memory for every tauromachic fact invented by man or bull. Others in the bull-bum set are Virginia Smith, 28, who spent her Long Island childhood dreaming of castles in Spain, and knew, even before she saw her first bullfight, that she was going to be an aficionado. She has proved it by logging more corrida miles this year than anyone else except Vanderford.

The British contingent is headed by Mrs. Tighe Nickalls, known familiarly as Tiger, a ten-year veteran of traipsing from feria to feria; Colonel Christopher Beckett, who started in the prewar days of Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon, and thinks the art has declined since Manolete’s time because now “the matadors want to live until tomorrow”; and Nora McAlpine, owner of London’s Dorchester Hotel, who this year brought her 16-year-old daughter to the fights.

Hats & Flowers. Other female aficionados are frowned upon by the purists on the grounds that they are more interested in bullfighters than in bulls. One U.S. girl conducted her own tests in her own way to determine which matador was Numero Uno. All true bull bums obey a strict set of self-imposed rules: 1) Never arrive late and never leave until the last bull is dead. 2) Never smoke before the first bull is pic-ed. 3) Never drink before the third bull is killed (six bulls are fought in most corridas). Women fans throw flowers to their favorite matadors during the vuelta; men pass out either cigars or Cordova hats.

Bullfighters are keenly aware of their new and growing non-Spanish following. “I doubt that a major bullfight will ever again be conducted entirely in Spanish,” said Matador Juan Garcia, known as Mondeño, as he rested after a fight in the Salamanca bullring. Like many other matadors, Mondeño is studying English so he can communicate with all his fans.