Zelda Fitzgerald – American writer

Zelda Fitzgerald was an American writer, the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was born on July 24, 1900 in Montgomery, Alabama to a wealthy family of one of the leading lawyers in Atlanta. She was a very active child. She loved to dance, attended ballet lessons and often spent her free time outdoors. She was considered one of the most beautiful girls of the city and had a lot of admirers.
Zelda met F. Scott Fitzgerald shortly before the end of the First World War, when he served in the US Army.
In 1920 they got married and moved to New York. There were frequent scandals (including jealousy), a lot of alcohol and bizarre behavior. Scott and Zelda were often the main characters of the gossips. In 1921, Zelda gave birth to their daughter, who was named Francis “Scotty” Fitzgerald in honor of her father.

A few years later, they moved to Italy and then to France. In 1925, Scott Fitzgerald published his famous novel The Great Gatsby and received worldwide recognition. His relationship with Zelda was still strained. He began to use aspects of his personal life as material for his own works.
Zelda wrote articles and short stories for magazines. However she had mental disorder. In August 1925, Zelda became jealous of her husband to the dancer Isadora Duncan and rushed down the stairs. At the age of 27, she suddenly became obsessed with ballet and practiced to the point of exhaustion. In 1930, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Since then most of the time she spent in various clinics. In one of the clinics in Maryland, she wrote the semi-autobiographical novel Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932.

Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald

Soon, Scott returned to the US, where he decided to become a screenwriter in Hollywood. There he met Sheila Graham, with whom he spent the last few years.
In 1936, Zelda was transferred to the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville (North Carolina). Her husband died of a heart attack in 1940.
Zelda wrote her second novel but it remained unfinished.
On March 10, 1948 there was a fire in the Highland Hospital. 9 people died and Zelda Fitzgerald was one of them.
Interest to the Fitzgerald family grew shortly after Zelda’s death: the couple became an object of popular science books and movies. In 1970 Zelda became one of the icons of feminism.
Famous Japanese game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, inspired by the beauty of the sound of her name, named his series of game The Legend of Zelda.
In 2007, the French writer Gilles Leroy was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Song of Alabama, which is a fictional biography of Zelda Fitzgerald.
In Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) the protagonist appeared in Paris of the 1920s and met there well-known people, including Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill).
In 2016 English actress Vanessa Kirby played the role of Zelda in the film Genius.