Zelda Fitzgerald

## Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

**Zelda Fitzgerald** was an American socialite, novelist and wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she was noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband as "the first American Flapper". She and Scott became emblems of the Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated. The immediate success of Scott's first novel *This Side of Paradise* brought them into contact with high society, but their marriage was plagued by wild drinking, infidelity and bitter recriminations.

## Early Life

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Zelda Sayre was the youngest of six children. A spoiled child, Zelda was doted upon by her mother, Minerva Buckner "Minnie" Machen, but her father, Anthony Dickinson Sayre a justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama and one of Alabama's leading jurists—was a strict and remote man.

Her siblings were Anthony Dickinson Sayre, Jr., Marjorie Sayre (Mrs. Minor Williamson Brinson), Rosalind Sayre (Mrs. Newman Smith) and Clothilde Sayre (Mrs. John Palmer).

As a child, Zelda Sayre was extremely active. She danced, took ballet lessons and enjoyed the outdoors. In 1914, Sayre began attending Sidney Lanier High School, where she graduated in 1918. She was bright, but uninterested in her lessons. Her work in ballet continued into high school, where she had an active social life. She drank, smoked and spent much of her time with boys, and she remained a leader in the local youth social scene. She developed an appetite for attention, actively seeking to flout convention—whether by dancing the Charleston, or by wearing a tight, flesh-colored bathing suit to fuel rumors that she swam nude. Her father's reputation was something of a safety net, preventing her social ruin, but Southern women of the time were expected to be delicate, docile and accommodating. Consequently, Zelda's antics were shocking to many of those around her, and she became—along with her childhood friend and future Hollywood starlet Tallulah Bankhead—a mainstay of Montgomery gossip.

## Marriage

By September, Scott had completed his first novel, *This Side of Paradise*, and the manuscript was quickly accepted for publication. When he heard the novel had been accepted, Scott wrote to his editor Maxwell Perkins, urging an accelerated release: "I have so many things dependent on its success—including of course a girl." In November, he returned to Montgomery, triumphant with the news of his novel. Zelda agreed to marry him once the book was published; he, in turn, promised to bring her to New York with "all the iridescence of the beginning of the world." *This Side of Paradise* was published on March 26, Zelda arrived in New York on March 30, and on April 3, 1920, before a small wedding party in St. Patrick's Cathedral, they married.

Scott and Zelda quickly became celebrities of New York, as much for their wild behavior as for the success of *This Side of Paradise.* They were ordered to leave both the Biltmore Hotel and the Commodore Hotel for their drunkenness. Their social life was fueled with alcohol. Publicly, this meant little more than napping when they arrived at parties, but privately it increasingly led to bitter fights. To their delight, in the pages of the New York newspapers Zelda and Scott had become icons of youth and success.

In 1921, while Scott was working to finish his second novel, *The Beautiful and Damned*, Zelda discovered she's pregnant.

## Throughout the Series Z

### Pilot

The opening shows a fire in a building foreshadowing her death in 1948 at the Highland Hospital. She is also seen diving into a lake naked.

## Relationships

### F. Scott Fitzgerald

Zelda first met the future novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in July 1918, when he had volunteered for the army, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, outside Montgomery. Scott began to call her daily, and came into Montgomery on his free days. He talked of his plans to be famous, and sent her a chapter of a book he was writing. He was so taken by Zelda that he redrafted the character of Rosalind Connage in *This Side of Paradise* to resemble her. He wrote, "all criticism of Rosalind ends in her beauty,"[10] and told Zelda that "the heroine does resemble you in more ways than four." Zelda was more than a mere muse, however—after she showed Scott her personal diary, he used verbatim excerpts from it in his novel. At the conclusion of *This Side of Paradise,* the soliloquy of the protagonist Amory Blaine in the cemetery, is taken directly from her journal.

Scott and Zelda's first encounter was at a country club dance in Montgomery, which Scott later portrayed fictionally by writing it into his novel, *The Great Gatsby*, when he describes Jay Gatsby's first encounter with Daisy Buchanan.  Scott was not the only man courting Zelda, and the competition only drove Scott to want her more. In the ledger that he meticulously maintained throughout his life, Scott noted on September 7, 918, that he had fallen in love. Ultimately, she would do the same.

Their courtship was briefly interrupted in October when he was summoned north. He expected to be sent to France, but was instead assigned to Camp Mills, Long Island. While he was there, the Armistice with Germany was signed. He then returned to the base near Montgomery, and by December they were inseparable. Scott would later describe their behavior as "sexual recklessness". On February 14, 1919, he was discharged from the military and went north to establish himself in New York City.

They wrote frequently, and by March 1920, Scott had sent Zelda his mother's ring, and the two had become engaged Many of Zelda's friends and members of her family were wary of the relationship, as they did not approve of Scott's excessive drinking, and Zelda's Episcopalian family did not like the fact that he was a Catholic.

## Appearances

**Season 1**

* *Pilot*
* *Just Humans*
* *The Right Side of Paradise*
* *You, Me and Us*
* *The It Girl*
* *Lights! Camera! Fitzgerald!*
* *Where There Are Friends, There Are Riches*
* *Playing House*
* *Quicksand*
* *Best of All*

## Name

* Her mother named her after characters in two little-known stories: Jane Howard's "Zelda: A Tale of the Massachusetts Colony" (1866) and Robert Edward Francillon's "Zelda's Fortune" (1874).
* The name *Zelda* is a derivative of the name *Griselda,* which means *gray fighting maid.*

## Trivia

* Scott actually sent Zelda his mother's ring after his book "This side of Paradise" was accepted.

* For her period as the 18-year-old Zelda, 37-year-old Christina Ricci's features were digitally altered to make her look more befitting a teenager.

## Quotes

### Season 1

> It might as well have been about me. It was always about me. Right to the very end. Or maybe it was about us.
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> "I'm doing my Patriotic duty. These boys are facing death in the trenches of France. It is the least I can do."
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> "The Night smelled of khaki and cigarettes. The war was finally here, in all of its disordered grandeur. I felt its urgency."
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