"Macho veneer" is such a good phrase for it. Some of that veneer he cultivated.

But he become so associated with it, after a while people seemed unable to see beyond it. I agree that there's great emotional depth in a lot of what he wrote.

Critics say he lost some of it in his later work, but I haven't read his last books (except for The Old Man and the Sea) and so might not be able to judge that as well as you could.