The Beautiful and Damned

I was very intrigued by the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, so I did some more research. This is just a summary of their lives, but read more:

Scott Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre at a dance at the Montgomery Country Club in July 1918. By September, Fitzgerald declared that he was in love with her. Zelda was different than many of the other women her age at that time because of her free spirit and sometimes rebellious and reckless way - a perfect match for Scott. As mentioned in the previous post, Zelda refused to commit to him because of his dismal economic standing. As soon as This Side of Paradise was accepted for publication, Zelda agreed to marry him. They were married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on April 3, 1920.

After spending their honeymoon in NYC, they began their life together "the fabled couple who embodied the fun, the wildness the brilliance and glamour of the era which Fitzgerald named the Jazz Age." Despite shaky finances, the couple went to Europe, even living on the French Riviera for a time and finally back to the states, throwing wild parties and living a life that would eventually tire them both. At some point, they entered a period which they both drank heavily, daring each other to more reckless acts. Eventually, Zelda had a breakdown and reached a point where she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals while Scott worked to support her and their family. Later, Scott was admitted to the hospital for alcoholism.

Although their life together was essentially over, they apparently never stopped loving each other, as Zelda continued to write to Scott from the hospital and Scott refused to move her to a state institution - despite the price this cost him. In 1940 Fitzgerald later suffered a heart attack and died shortly after. In 1947 Zelda tragically died when was locked and trapped in a room awaiting electroshock therapy and a fire broke out.

"Like the subjects of one of Fitzgerald's novels, they seem the embodiment of 'the beautiful and damned'".