It's impossible to talk about the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties without mentioning F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Zelda met the acclaimed writer during World War I when F. Scott was stationed at Montgomery, Alabama. When F. Scott returned from the war, the two began an inseparable romance that led to their marriage in 1920. Zelda was the inspiration for some of F. Scott's most famous works like This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby. However, their fairytale romance fit for a Hollywood movie wasn't always as glamourous and decadent as the Roaring Twenties. Here is the tragic truth about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
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00:00F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are two of the most iconic artists of the roaring 20s.
00:04Beneath the glamour, however, the story of these two novelists is tinged with tragedy.
00:09This is the heartbreaking story of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
00:13F. Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Zare in 1918 when he was 22 and she was just 18 years old.
00:18He was in the army and she was the wild child of a local judge,
00:21and it was pretty much love at first sight. They began writing letters to each other immediately,
00:26and the only person who had any doubt that this was the beginning of a great romance
00:29was Zelda's mother, who insisted on giving her daughter newspaper clippings about failed writers.
00:33As Scott settled into New York to write, Zelda quickly became his main source of inspiration.
00:38He explicitly based several of his earliest characters on Zelda,
00:41most notably Rosalind in his first novel, This Side of Paradise, and Nicole in Tender is the
00:45Night. In fact, Zelda and his relationship with her increasingly became the focus of Scott's
00:49writing. Tender is the Night, in particular, is a fictionalized account of his marriage to Zelda,
00:54their promising beginnings, and their gradual descent into obscurity.
00:57But Zelda wasn't just inspiration for Scott, she was also a key factor in his success as an author.
01:02She used her celebrity status to promote her husband's work,
01:05writing cheeky, humorous reviews, giving interviews, and generally singing his praises.
01:10The world of The Great Gatsby is often regarded as the epitome of 1920s America,
01:14new money hosting huge parties soaked in champagne, jazz, and high fashion.
01:18"...fireworks!"
01:22And that's exactly how the Fitzgeralds lived — for a while, at least.
01:25F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, 1920's This Side of Paradise, was an instant hit.
01:30The novel's success allowed him to marry Zelda and made him a celebrity at the age of 23,
01:34and the young couple reveled in their newfound stardom. They immediately began living beyond
01:38their means, spending all their money on lavish houses and expensive dinners,
01:41drinking and dancing their nights away. Scott's second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned,
01:45was also a bestseller, allowing them to keep up their new lifestyle.
01:49Even at the height of their fame and success, however, the Fitzgeralds struggled with money,
01:52always spending it faster than it came in. By 1937, they were flat broke.
01:58It's easy to look back on the Fitzgeralds' marriage and assume they were simply doomed
02:01from the start. Maybe they were. After all, while they may have been deeply in love and
02:05widely adored when they first married, it didn't take long for the first cracks to show.
02:09By 1924, the relationship was already in decline. It had been two years since Scott's second novel,
02:14and Scott had spent much of the time writing feverishly in order to pay the couple's enormous
02:18bills, and subsequently isolated himself that summer in France in order to finish writing his
02:22third novel. Although Scott's plan eventually produced one of the greatest novels of the modern
02:26age, The Great Gatsby, it also left Zelda lonely and bored. She soon met and began an affair with
02:31a French man named Edouard Houssan. Then Houssan disappeared, devastating Zelda and spurring her
02:36to attempt suicide a short while later. It was a strain that changed their marriage forever.
02:40Scott is rumored to have had several affairs himself, but only his relationship with Sheila
02:44Graham during the final years of his life is known for a fact.
02:48By 1930, Scott was miserably grinding out work in Hollywood to pay the bills,
02:52while Zelda's mental state was fragile at best, leaving her flitting in and out of hospitals for
02:57the rest of her life. Scott was also hospitalized for alcohol-related problems eight times between
03:021933 and 1937, and a lifetime of excessive drinking and smoking took its toll on his heart,
03:08eventually leading to his early death. Scott's health issues affected his work,
03:12and he knew it, too, often lamenting that drinking got in the way of good writing.
03:15His third novel, The Great Gatsby, was a commercial and critical failure when it was
03:19published in 1925, sending Scott into a tailspin. Just five years after being the
03:23toast of the literary world, he was considered a full-blown has-been.
03:28In 1940, a despairing Scott wrote to his wife, claiming that he was a forgotten man. Nonetheless,
03:33he hoped to plot a comeback with his fifth novel, The Last Tycoon, which was based on
03:37his experiences in Hollywood. But decades of heavy drinking and smoking had ruined his health,
03:41and in October 1940, he had a mild heart attack as a result of coronary artery disease.
03:47On December 20th, he went out to the movies and collapsed, experiencing chest pains.
03:51The next day, he suffered a massive heart attack and died, aged just 44.
03:55As one final insult to his legacy, Scott's novels had been placed on the Catholic Church's
04:00prescribed list due to their salacious content, so permission to bury him and his family's plots
04:04was denied. He was laid to rest miles from the rest of his family. Zelda would join him eight
04:09years later. After suffering her first mental breakdown in 1930, Zelda Fitzgerald struggled
04:14with her mental health for the rest of her life. She spent several stints in sanitariums over the
04:18years and began to spend more and more time at Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.
04:23For a while, it seemed like she was on the verge of finally achieving some kind of peace.
04:26In March 1948, Zelda's doctors told her they considered her stable enough to go home again,
04:31but she remained cautious and chose to stay a few more months at the hospital. Then,
04:35just a few days later, a fire broke out in the hospital. Because the windows and doors
04:39were locked and chained shut, the patients had no way to escape, and nine of them burned to death,
04:43including Zelda. She was identified only by the glamorous, iconic red slippers she had
04:48always been famous for wearing. If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
04:52please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK 8255.