Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald (née Sayre; July 24, 1900 – March 10, 1948) was an American socialite and novelist, and the wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose work she strongly influenced.

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 the emblem of the Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated. The immediate success of Scott's first novel This Side of Paradise (1920) brought them into contact with high society, but their marriage was plagued by wild drinking, infidelity and bitter recriminations. Ernest Hemingway, whom Zelda disliked, blamed her for Scott's declining literary output, though she has also been portrayed as the victim of an overbearing husband. After being diagnosed with schizophrenia (but possibly suffering from bipolar disorder), she was increasingly confined to specialist clinics, and the couple were living apart when Scott died suddenly in 1940. Zelda died later in a fire at her hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.