Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist and socialite known as āthe first American Flapperā. She was a huge influence on the work of her husband, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who plagiarised her letters and diary to use in his own work and based many of his literary characters on her and her personal experiences.
Fitzgerald was born in 1900 in Montgomery, Alabama to a prominent Southern family. She took ballet lessons from a young age, although while at Sidney Lanier High School she became far more interested in smoking, alcohol and boys than dance. Fitzgerald enjoyed courting controversy, and would swim in a flesh coloured bathing suit to appear to be swimming nude. Her fatherās social standing kept her reputation from being tarnished, as Southern women at the time were meant to be delicate, docile and accommodating. Fitzgerald was rebelling against this, and believed that women should be more than just somebodyās daughter and then someoneās wife.
At 18, Fitzgerald met her future husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance and the two began a long distance relationship, corresponding by letter. Two years later, after F. Scottās first novel was published the couple married and settled in New York. The Fitzgeraldās became famous, not just for F. Scottās literary success but for their excessive behaviour, reports of which appeared in the pages of New York newspapers. They became a part of what is now known as the āLost Generation,ā along with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Robert McAlmon and others.
In 1921, the Fitzgeralds had a daughter, Frances, or āScottieā. While Zelda was coming around from the anaesthesia her husband recorded her speaking about her daughter, including the words āI hope itās beautiful and a foolāa beautiful little fool.ā which he would later use in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Zelda was used as a muse by her husband, as well as providing him with literary help. In 1922, when he published The Beautiful and the Damned, Zelda was asked by the New York Tribune to review the book. In her review, she revealed that he had stolen portions of her diaries to use in his novel, stating that āplagiarism begins at home.ā It is now suggested that Zelda was collaborating with her husband without her consent, as he was appropriating her personal experiences to enhance his work.
Zelda began writing in her own right, beginning with a piece entitled āEulogy on the Flapperā in Metropolitan Magazine. She wrote several short stories and articles, many of which added her husbandās name to her byline simply to sell magazines. She also collaborated with F. Scott on the unsuccessful play The Vegetable which landing them both in debt. In 1924, the Fitzgeralds moved to Antibes, on the French Riviera. Zelda soon asked for a divorce, and in response was locked in the house the Fitzgeraldās shared until she rescinded her request. Later that year, she overdosed on sleeping pills, although this did not derail her husband from writing The Great Gatsby. He would often ignore her completely while writing, leaving Zelda bored and alone and leading her, at the age of 27 to return to ballet. Zelda became obsessed with the idea of becoming a dancer, although her husband felt it a waste of time. She practised eight hours a day, leaving her physically and mentally exhausted and eventually landing her in a sanatorium in France. She was officially diagnosed as schizophrenic, although it has been suggested that she was simply admitted so that her husband could stifle her creative desires, afraid that she would overshadow him.
The Fitzgeraldās returned to the U.S. in 1931, and a year later Zelda was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she wrote the novel Save me the Waltz, drawing from her own life. Her husband was furious, as he had intended to use the same material in Tender is the Night and forced her to remove anything he had wanted to use. Although well-written and engaging, Save me the Waltz was not received well by critics. Her own husband was hugely critical of what he felt was the failure of her novel and she was devastated. She turned to painting, and in 1934 a show of work was held in New York was described as her ālatest bid for fame.ā
Zelda spent the rest of her life in and out of institutions, including the Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina where she returned to painting. In 1938, she saw her husband for the last time when they travelled to Cuba, ending with F. Scott - an alcoholic - so drunk and exhausted that he was hospitalised. He died in 1940, and after reading his unfinished manuscript for The Love of the Last Tycoon, Zelda returned to writing. She began Caesarās Things, but never finished it. In 1943, she returned to the Highland Hospital, where five years later she died after a fire broke out one night while she was locked in her room. Unable to escape, she and nine other women died.
In 1970, a biography by Nancy Milford entitled Zelda: A Biography brought light to the idea that Zelda was a literary figure in her own right, and her output was ignored due to both a patriarchal society, and a controlling husband. Zelda became an icon of the feminist movement of the 1970ās, and in 1992 she was inducted into the Alabama Womenās Hall of Fame.
Sources here, here and here.
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