Fun Facts Friday: Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald (24 July, 1900 – 10 March, 1948) was an American author, painter and socialite. Together with her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, they became the symbol for the Roaring 20s.

Books by Zelda Fitzgerald*

  1. Zelda Sayre was born in Montgomery, Alabama as the youngest of six children. She was named after characters in Zelda: A Tale of the Massachusetts Colony, an 1866 story by Jane Howard, and 1874’s Zelda’s Fortune by Robert Edward Francillon.
  2. The Sayyres were a prominent family, her father, Anthony Dickinson Sayre was a justice on Alabama’s Supreme Court, John Tyler Morgan, a great uncle, was a six terms U.S. Senator, and her grandfather, Willis Benson Machen was also a U.S. Senator.
  3. As a child she was very bright and active, but uninterested in school. The only thing keeping her from ruining her status was her father’s reputation. Movie star Tallulah Bankhead was a childhood friend.
  4. Zelda trained long and hard to be a ballerina, she even moved to France and took lessons with Russian ballerina Lubov Egorova.
  5. The young Ms. Sayre met her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, when he volunteered for the army and stationed at Camp Sheridan, right outside Montgomery.
  6. Mr. Fitzgerald was so smitten with Zelda that he reworked a character in This Side of Paradise to be like her.
  7. Fitzgerald copied, verbatim, Zelda’s journal entries into his books.
  8. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but she was probably bipolar. During her time in hospitals she spent her time writing and painting scenes from Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, and locations in New York.
  9. Zelda was killed in Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. A fire started in the kitchen, and Zelda who was scheduled for an electroshock therapy session died sedated in the waiting room.
  10. The video game Legend of Zelda is named after her and the son Witch Woman by The Eagles was inspired by her biography

Books by Zelda Fitzgerald*

Zohar – Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account

Man of la Book

A father, husband, avid reader, blogger, software engineer & wood worker who is known the world over as a man of many interests and to his wife as “an idiot”.

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