Zelda Fitzgerald (1900 – 1948)

Zelda Fitzgerald was born Zelda Sayre on July 24, 1900, in Montgomery, Alabama.

Known as the ‘first American flapper, Zelda was known for her beauty and personality and made a name for herself as a socialite, novelist, and painter.

In 1918 Zelda met her future husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald when he was stationed outside of Montgomery. He was immediately taken with her, and their passionate and tumultuous relationship began. So did Scott’s liberal borrowing of material from Zelda’s letters and diaries to write his own works.

Fitzgerald finished his first novel, This Side of Paradise by September, and Zelda agreed to marry him once it was published. He urged his editor, Maxwell Perkins, to hurry the release. By March 1920 the two were engaged, although friends and family were not necessarily in favor of the match. This Side of Paradise was published March 26, 1920, and the couple was married on April 3rd at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. With the publication of the novel Zelda and Scott became celebrities, and icons of the Jazz Age.

On October 26, 1921, Zelda gave birth to their first and only child, Francis “Scottie” Fitzgerald. As Zelda emerged from anesthesia Scott recorded her saying of her daughter, “ I hope it's beautiful and a fool—a beautiful little fool,” which he later used in his most famous novel The Great Gatsby.

After the publication of Scott’s second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned the New York Tribune asked Zelda to write a review of her husband’s book. The piece led to other offers from magazines, including the 1922 “Eulogy on the Flapper” for Metropolitan Magazine.

In 1924 the Fitzgeralds, having burned through their money, moved to Paris. Zelda began an affair with a French pilot, Edouard S. Jozan, and asked for a divorce. That year Scott finished The Great Gatsby, in the midst of their marital drama. Zelda attempted to kill herself with sleeping pills.

In Paris the following year her husband became friends with Ernest Hemingway, although Zelda and Ernest openly detested one another.

Zelda began painting and later became obsessed with ballet, dancing up to 8 hours a day. In her late twenties, she declined an invitation to join a dance company, and her husband Scott was dismissive of her goals. Meanwhile, he was wrapped up in writing and alcohol. As the 1920s progressed their relationship was strained and their creativity was hurt by mental and emotional struggles and addictions. Their partying turned very self-destructive toward the end of the 1920s, and in 1930 Zelda was admitted into a sanitarium in France, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In 1932, while admitted to another clinic. Zelda wrote a novel in six weeks and sent it to Scott’s publisher at Scribner’s Maxwell Perkins. When Scott found out he was furious and had her rewrite parts of the novel that were autobiographical, and that he planned on using in Tender is the Night which would be published in 1934.

The first edition of Save Me the Waltz was published October 7th, 1932 in a print run of just 3010 copies. It sold only 1,392 copies, for which she earned $120.73. The poor sales of the novel and her husband's continued criticism crushed her. It was the only work of fiction she would publish.

The painting she pursued was not well received either, and Zelda became more reclusive and mentally unstable. In 1936 she was admitted into Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, a place she would return to one and off for the remainder of her years.

In 1937 her husband moved to Hollywood to work in the film industry, and also began an affair with movie columnist Sheila Graham. Although Scott was bitter toward his wife, blaming her for his recent failures, the couple took a trip to Cuba. It was disastrous, and when they returned to the states Scott went to Hollywood and Zelda to Asheville, and they never saw each other again.

In 1940 her husband died at the age of forty-four. The same year her daughter married. Zelda missed both events.

On March 10th, 1948 a fire broke out at Highland Hospital, where Zelda was being treated, in Asheville, NC. She was locked in a room for electroshock therapy, and unable to get out, perished in the fire, along with eight other patients.


In 1970 Nancy Milford, a graduate student, wrote the first book-length treatment of Zelda’s life, Zelda: A Biography was a best-seller and a finalist for both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize.

Books by Zelda Fitzgerald