F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are two of the
most iconic artists of the roaring '20s. Beneath the glamor, however, the story of
these two novelists is tinged with tragedy. This is the heartbreaking story of F. Scott
and Zelda Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre in 1918,
when he was 22 and she was just 18 years old. He was in the army, and she was the wild child
of a local judge — and it was pretty much love at first sight. They began writing letters to each other immediately,
and the only person who had any doubt that this was the beginning of a great romance
was Zelda's mother, who insisted on giving her daughter newspaper clippings about failed
writers. As Scott settled into New York to write, Zelda
quickly became his main source of inspiration. He explicitly based several of his earliest
characters on Zelda — most notably Rosalind in his first novel, This Side of Paradise,
and Nicole in Tender is the Night. In fact, Zelda and his relationship with her
increasingly became the focus of Scott's writing. Tender is the Night in particular is a fictionalized
account of his marriage to Zelda, their promising beginnings, and their gradual descent into
obscurity. But Zelda wasn't just inspiration for Scott;
she was also a key factor in his success as an author. She used her celebrity status to promote her
husband's work, writing cheeky, humorous reviews, giving interviews, and generally singing his
praises. The world of The Great Gatsby is often regarded
as the epitome of 1920s America — new money hosting huge parties soaked in champagne,
jazz, and high fashion. "Fireworks!" And that's exactly how the Fitzgeralds lived
— for a while, at least. F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, 1920's
This Side of Paradise, was an instant hit. The novel's success allowed him to marry Zelda
and made him a celebrity at the age of 23, and the young couple revelled in their newfound
stardom. They immediately began living beyond their
means, spending all their money on lavish houses and expensive dinners, drinking and
dancing their nights away. Scott's second novel, The Beautiful and the
Damned, was also a bestseller, allowing them to keep up their new lifestyle. Even at the height of their fame and success,
however, the Fitzgerald's struggled with money, always spending it faster than it came in. By 1937, they were flat broke. It's easy to look back on the Fitzgeralds'
marriage and assume they were simply doomed from the start; maybe they were. After all, while they may have been deeply
in love and widely adored when they first married, it didn't take long for the first
cracks to show. By 1924, the relationship was already in decline. It had been two years since Scott's second
novel, and Scott had spent much of the time writing feverishly in order to pay the couple's
enormous bills, and subsequently isolated himself that summer in France in order to
finish writing his third novel. Although Scott's plan eventually produced
one of the greatest novels of the modern age, The Great Gatsby, it also left Zelda lonely
and bored. She soon met and began an affair with a French
man named Edouard Jozan. Then Jozan disappeared, devastating Zelda,
and spurring her to attempt suicide a short while later. It was a strain that changed their marriage
forever. Scott is rumored to have had several affairs
himself too, but only his relationship with Sheilah Graham, during the final years of
his life, is known for a fact. By 1930, Scott was miserably grinding out
work in Hollywood to pay the bills, while Zelda's mental state was fragile at best,
leaving her flitting in and out of hospitals for the rest of her life. Scott was also hospitalized for alcohol-related
problems eight times between 1933 and 1937, and a lifetime of excessive drinking and smoking
took its toll on his heart, eventually leading to his early death. Scott's health issues affected his work — and
he knew it, too, often lamenting that drinking got in the way of good writing. His third novel, The Great Gatsby, was a commercial
and critical failure when it was published in 1925, sending Scott into a tailspin. Just five years after being the toast of the
literary world, he was considered a full-blown has-been. In 1940, a despairing Scott wrote to his wife,
claiming that he was a "forgotten man." Nonetheless, he hoped to plot a comeback with
his fifth novel, The Last Tycoon, which was based on his experiences in Hollywood. But decades of heavy drinking and smoking
had ruined his health, and in October 1940, had a mild heart attack as a result of coronary
artery disease. On December 20, he went out to the movies
and collapsed, experiencing chest pains. The next day he suffered a massive heart attack
and died, aged just 44. As one final insult to his legacy, Scott's
novels had been placed on the Catholic Church's "proscribed list" due to their salacious content
— so permission to bury him in his family's plots was denied. He was laid to rest miles away from the rest
of his family; Zelda would join him eight years later. After suffering her first mental breakdown
in 1930, Zelda Fitzgerald struggled with her mental health for the rest of her life. She spent several stints in sanitariums over
the years, and began to spend more and more time at Highland Hospital in Asheville, North
Carolina. For a while, it seemed like she was on the
verge of finally achieving some kind of peace. In March 1948, Zelda's doctors told her they
considered her stable enough to go home again, but she remained cautious, and chose to stay
a few more months at the hospital. Then, just a few days later, a fire broke
out in the hospital. Because the windows and doors were locked
and chained shut, the patients had no way to escape — and nine of them burned to death,
including Zelda. She was identified only by the glamorous,
iconic red slippers she had always been famous for wearing. If you or anyone you know is having suicidal
thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK
(8255).
