Zelda: A Quickie(?) Bio

Anthony Sayre was a judge of the Alabama Supreme Court and highly respected even at the start of his career. His family background was impressive- his uncle was John Tyler Morgan, who had been a U.S. Senator. His wife's (Minnie Machen) father was Willis B. Machen, also a U.S. Senator. Nicknamed "The Wild Lily of the Cumberland" as a young woman, Minnie had aspired to be an actress and very nearly took a job at the Drew-Barrymore theatre company. Their marriage resulted in six children- Marjorie was born around 1886 and was a sickly child from birth. Their firstborn son, Daniel, was born in 1887 and died at 18 months from spinal meningitis. Rosalind was born in 1889, Clothilde in 1891, and Anthony Jr. was born in 1893. Zelda was the youngest- named after a character in a novel Minnie owned. She was her mother's favorite, was nursed until she was four years old, and was given all the freedom she desired. Zelda was a wild child growing up and did exactly as she pleased, her antics becoming cemented into the memories of everyone who grew up with her. Some of her childhood friends included Tallulah Bankhead (who became an actress), Sara Mayfield (who married one of Zelda's former beaus, John Sellers), Eleanor Browder, and Sara Haardt (who married H.L. Mencken). When she met Scott Fitzgerald, she was the belle of the county- every young man was out courting her and aspiring to win her heart. She kept a scrapbook containing memorabilia of every important event in her life, and she had a box full of the soldiers' insignia pins. Eventually it was Scott who won her, but their engagement was broken in July 1919 because of the fact that Scott had no money to properly support her. He had big dreams of being a great writer but at the time he was struggling. When Scott's novel "This Side of Paradise" was published in 1920, it was a wild bestseller and made Scott an overnight star. He and Zelda married on April 3rd, 1920.

Their first years of marriage stand out in history as the most colorful and decadent years that made The Jazz Age. "This Side of Paradise" was so successful that they spent their money almost as fast as they earned it. Their only daughter was born in 1921. Her name was originally supposed to be Patricia but was shortly christened Frances Scott Fitzgerald. They moved to France and became friends with expatriates Gerald and Sara Murphy, as well as fellow writer Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley. In 1924 the golden couple of the Jazz Age seemed to be at their peak- living like royalty on the French Riviera, Scott was working on "The Great Gatsby," Scottie was growing up, and Zelda enjoyed swimming daily and getting a deep bronze tan. Then they met Edouard Jozan, a dashing French aviator. Zelda became instantly smitten because Jozan represented everything that Scott was not- tall, ruggedly handsome, athletic, courageous and strong. They had an affair but it was never confirmed whether they had sex or not. Scott was furious when he discovered the affair, challenged Jozan to a duel which never happened, and allegedly locked Zelda up in their villa for a month to keep her away from Jozan. Jozan got transferred (he was in the French military, after all) and left Zelda a photo of himself and a letter written in French, which she tore them all up without looking at either of them. This is possibly when her descent into madness began.

One of the most major episodes prior to her breakdown occurred in 1927 when she threw herself down a flight of stairs while she & Scott were dining out with Gerald and Sara Murphy at an inn where Isadora Duncan was also dining. As quoted from Gerald Murphy, who witnessed the event: "Scott didn't know who she (Duncan) was, so I told him. He immediately went to her table and sat at her feet. She ran her fingers through his hair and called him her centurion. But she was an old lady by this time. Her hair was red, no purple really- the color of her dress- and she was quite heavy." Apparently Duncan was in the process of writing her memoirs and she was asking Scott for advice; he was interested so she gave him her hotel and room number. Zelda had been watching them and suddenly got up from the table and threw herself down a nearby flight of stairs. Her knees were bleeding, but not seriously hurt and returned with no explanation as to why she did it. Murphy: "I was sure she was dead. We were all stunned and motionless. I don't remember what Scott did. The first thing I remember thinking was that it had not been ugly. I said that to myself over and over again. I've never been able to forget it."

Zelda had become increasingly jealous of other women who she thought were having affairs with Scott. In the most extreme case was Lois Moran, a rising silent film actress who met Scott when she was 17. Zelda became so resentful over the affair that she threw her platinum and diamond wristwatch (an engagement present from Scott) off from a train while quarreling about Moran. Her eccentric behaviors grew more disturbed, to where close friends noticed that there was something very wrong.

Around this same year Zelda rediscovered her love for the ballet (she'd danced as a child but quit when she was 17), and so in 1925 she signed up for lessons. Her teacher was Lubov Egorova (Princess Nikita Troubetska, who in 1923 had opened her own studio in Paris) and by 1927 the dance had become her major obsession. It took up all of her free time to where she was never home and worked herself to exhaustion. Because she started too late to be a prima ballerina, her efforts were mostly futile and if she kept studying she would only garner supporting roles in ballet because of her age. Still she studied for a few more years and had her first nervous breakdown as a result of the physical and mental stress taking its toll on her. To quote from Zelda Fitzgerald.com: "April 23rd, 1930: Zelda has her first breakdown in Paris. On her way to ballet lessons in a taxi, she changes into her ballet practice clothes. The taxi gets caught up in a traffic jam. Worried that she is going to be late for practice Zelda jumps out of the taxi and runs through the streets of Paris in her ballet clothes to Madame Egorova's practice studio. Scott enters her into Malmaison clinic outside Paris. Zelda discharges herself on May 11."

From 1930-1931 Zelda is admitted into the following hospitals: Malmaison (outside of Paris), Valmont (Switzerland), and Les Rives de Prangins (also in Switzerland). In July 1931, Zelda was released from Prangins and in September the Fitzgeralds left Europe and returned to America permanently. They lived in Montgomery to be close to Zelda's family. Scott's father had recently died and Judge Sayre will also pass away on 11/17/1931. Zelda carries on until February 12th, 1932- when she has her second breakdown and she is admitted into Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore. Around this time she started her only novel, entitled "Save Me the Waltz," which would be published in October and was dedicated to one of Zelda's doctors at Phipps, Mildred Squires. This began a big fight with Scott, who was in the process of writing "Tender is the Night" and had been drawing on the same Paris and Riviera experiences that Zelda wanted to use in her novel. Eventually the book was edited and rewritten to Scott's liking and the book was published. On June 26th (which is also my friend Trisha's birthday) she was discharged from Phipps. After showings of her art, the failed production of her play "Scandalabra," the accidental fire at La Paix (a house the Fitzgeralds were renting), and a vacation at Bermuda (which were some of the more major events), Zelda has her third mental breakdown two years after her last one in 1934. She is admitted into Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland, but is transferred a month later to Craig House (located in New York), and back again to Sheppard-Pratt in May. During this time she gets the chance to read Scott's new novel, "Tender is the Night." Again to quote from Zelda Fitzgerald.com: "While in Sheppard-Pratt Hospital Zelda has chance to read the serialized version of Tender Is The Night. It affected her profoundly. Scott mercilessly exposed Zelda in his characterization of Nicole Diver. He drew upon Zelda's most private letters to him, written in the anguish of her early months of her illness in Switzerland. He snipped and pieced them together some of them virtually word for word with very little regard for Zelda's reaction or for the precarious balance of her sanity. Unlike Scott's censoring of Save Me The Waltz, Scott's fictional exploitation of Zelda's mental illness was laid bare for everyone to read."

She stayed at Sheppard-Pratt until April 1936 when she is transferred to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. She would remain there off and on for the rest of her life.

She was eventually diagnosed as schizophrenic. For a number of years she would become covered in ecxema as a partial result from her breakdowns. The doctors administered many different "cures" which would bring the excema under control but not entirely cure her. For several years she became fanatically religious- she read the Bible incessantly, lost a lot of weight and tried many times to "save" her friends and family from a hell-bound fate. She painted because she found it therapeutic and soothing, and her art would be shown at museums and sold to friends who liked them. She also wrote a number of short stories and articles, most of which were published in the early and mid 1930s.

Scott moved to Hollywood in the mid 1930s to become a screenwriter, a career move which was mostly disastrous and he made barely enough to send Scottie to Vassar and to pay for Zelda's hospitalizations. There he met Sheilah Graham- with whom he began a stormy affair until his death in 1940. He died in Graham's apartment- Zelda was unable to attend the funeral or see him buried. During his last few years he was drinking too much and wouldn't stop even though countless doctors told him he was going to die if he didn't stop. He was working on his novel "The Love of the Last Tycoon," which was about love and power in Hollywood. It was released posthumously in 1941, and edited by his old friend Edmund Wilson. Scottie would marry Jack Lanahan in 1943- again Zelda was unable to sttend. She would function on her own and check herself into Highland when needed. On March 10th, 1948 a fire broke out in Highland (not caused by Zelda but bad wiring) and killed nine patients including Zelda, whose body was identified by a charred slipper underneath it.

Scott's books would become major classics, especially "The Great Gatsby", even more so than when they were first released. Most of his books have been made into movies- "The Great Gatsby" in 1926, 1949, 1974, and 2001; "Tender is the Night" in 1962 and 1985; and "The Last Tycoon" in 1976 starring Robert DeNiro (as Monroe Stahr).

Zelda's paintings (which she did many while hospitalized) have a permanent home in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and you can buy her writings at Amazon.com or Powells, as they are not easily found in a normal bookstore. Her works is slowly being appreciated- art and writings alike. There are only a handful of websites dedicated solely to Zelda- but with a bit of luck and interest in people like you, more people will begin to appreciate Zelda as the person she was and the gifts she left behind.

References:
"Zelda" by Nancy Milford
"Sometimes Madness is Wisdom" by Kendall Taylor
"Scott Fitzgerald" by Jeffery Meyers
www.zeldafitzgerald.com
www.imdb.com (for the dates to the movies about Scott's books)

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