Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise (80 page)

54
ZSF
to Scottie, undated,
CO
183, Box 4, Folder 63,
PUL
.

55
ZSF
to Biggs, 9 May 1942,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 12,
PUL
.

56
Biggs to
ZSF
, 19 May 1942. The Princeton University Library librarians had offered a
preliminary
figure of $1,000 for all Scott’s manuscripts, library files and letters from literary people. The interchange about the sale of Scott’s books and papers dragged on for months as California Counsel advised against it until the estate had been distributed. On 5 Feb. 1943 Biggs wrote that he was about to crate Scott’s library and manuscripts to send to
PUL
, which was not prepared to purchase them at that point but would almost certainly
make Zelda an offer for them; 14 Oct. 1943 Biggs wrote that Princeton would probably pay $2,000. As far as the rest of Scott’s estate was concerned, Zelda wanted the silver sent to her for domestic use and Francis Scott Key’s table (which the Museum would keep in trust for Scottie). She instructed that everything else should be sold or given to the poor.
CO
628, Box 2, Folders 12,13,
PUL
.

57
ZSF
to Biggs, 21 May 1942,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 12,
PUL
.

58
Lanahan,
Scottie
…, p. 150.

59
ZSF
to Anne Ober, postmarked 22 Feb. 1943. Scottie and Jack Lanahan were divorced 20 years later. They had four children, Tim, Eleanor, Jack Jnr and Cecilia. Scottie’s next partner was Clayton Fritchey, after whom she married C. Grove Smith in 1967. They divorced in 1980. Scottie died in Montgomery 15 June 1986. She was buried like her parents in Rockville, Maryland.

60
Zelda told friends that she saw Scottie as the Spirit of Truth. ‘If the dearth of hair-pins, A L Lewis’ fantasies, the eccentricities of H. L. Menken, sugartickets and the presence [of] Satan break your heart or spoil your digestion, call up Scottie.’
ZSF
to Biggs, undated, 1943,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 13,
PUL
.

61
ZSF
to Biggs, 21 May 1943, ibid.

62
Brendan Gill,
A
New
York
Life,
Poseidon Press, New York, 1990, p. 315.

63
Ibid.

64
ZSF
to Scottie Lanahan, 26 Apr. 1946,
CO
183, Box 4, Folder 52,
PUL
. Previous biographers have intimated that Zelda was in hospital when her grandson (always called Tim) was born. This is incorrect. The Zelda-Biggs correspondence shows she was resident in Montgomery.

65
ZSF
to Ludlow Fowler, undated, 1946,
CO
183, Box 5, Folder 4,
PUL
.

66
ZSF
to Biggs, 8 May 1946,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 16,
PUL
. Tim later shot and killed himself on 18 Oct. 1973 at Diamond Head Park, Honolulu.

67
ZSF
to Biggs, 13 July 1946. On 22 July she wrote to Biggs again saying there wasn’t any time because ‘in the hospital, one follows an inexorable schedule calculated to
rehabilitate
the most battered of morales + the weariest of skepticisms’. She hoped to emerge better able to observe her social obligations than before she went in. Ibid.

68
Woodrow W. Burgess, Highland Hospital, to Scottie Lanahan at 310 West 94th Street, New York, 25 July 1946. On 1 August Biggs wrote to Zelda that the California Court would allow him to spend only $250 out of corpus for her benefit every month, so as the Highland charges were about $275 a month he would have to retain her annuity cheque of $50 a month if she stayed longer than four weeks. Zelda never received that letter: the hospital intercepted it as they had been instructed by Scottie not to tell Zelda what the hospital cost her. On 17 August Biggs replied to the hospital saying it was better Zelda knew she was not getting annuity cheques but he had no objection to the hospital
withholding
his letter. Yet again Zelda’s post was being tampered with and censored.
CO
628, Box 3, Folder 7; Box 2, Folder 16,
PUL
.

69
Burgess to Scottie Lanahan, 13 Sep. 1946,
CO
628, Box 3, Folder 7,
PUL
.

70
ZSF
at 58 Grove Street, Asheville, to Biggs, 25 Sep. 1946,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 16,
PUL
.

71
ZSF
to Biggs, 24 Apr. 1947,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 17,
PUL
.

72
Most extant Biggs-Zelda letters are carbons of letters typed by his secretary.

73
ZSF
to Biggs, 25 Nov. 1946,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 16,
PUL
.

74
ZSF
to Biggs, 26 or 27 Jan. 1947,
CO
628, Box 2, Folder 17,
PUL
.

75
ZSF
to Biggs, 28 June 1947, ibid.

76
Earlier biographers date the start inaccurately as 2 Nov. and make it a continuous stay until her death.

77
ZSF
to Rosalind Sayre Smith, quoted in Taylor,
Sometimes
Madness,
p. 356.

78
Mayfield,
Exiles
, p.285.

79
Dr Carroll had retired two years earlier leaving Dr Basil Bennett as medical director. Highland was now operated by Duke University.

80
Mayfield,
Exiles,
p. 285.

81
Early biographers say Zelda’s room was on the third floor. Ted Mitchell who has done excellent scholarly research into Zelda’s death is clear it was the fifth. The author has been to Highland and verified this. Previous biographers have also accepted that insulin patients needed to be locked in. This was questioned at the inquest.

82
Ted Mitchell, ‘I’m Not Afraid to Die’, talk given at Fitzgerald Conference, 24–27 September 1998, and in conversation with the author, 1998 and 1999.

83
Dr Bennett said firmly Zelda had been asphyxiated by noxious fumes before the flames reached her. Bennett to Kendall Taylor, 1963 and 1964; Dr Pine to Koula Hartnett, 1991.

84
Zelda’s death certificate states death by asphyxiation trapped in a burning building.

85
Dentist Dr Eugene Shapiro used X-rays of previous dental work.

86
Rosalind Sayre Smith to Highland Hospital, 14 Mar. 1948.

87
Ted Mitchell suggests that Scottie and the Sayres were too stunned to sue Highland. He confirms that Rosalind told Mrs Sayre that Zelda died in her sleep, which if asphyxiation can be considered sleep is correct. Ted Mitchell to the author, 13 Nov. 1998 and in several subsequent conversations.

88
Or the ashes believed to be hers.

89
Many of Zelda’s friends wrote to Mrs Sayre including H. L. Mencken: ‘I needn’t tell you that all of Zelda’s old Baltimore friends have been greatly shocked by her tragic death. She is
verywell
[
sic
]
remembered here, and very pleasantly. My utmost sympathy to you.’ The obituaries reclaimed her as Scott’s wife or amanuensis.
Time
magazine described her as ‘the brilliant counterpart of the [Fitzgerald] heroines.’ The
Montgomery
Advertiser
pointed out ‘Mrs Fitzgerald had collaborated with her husband on some of his books.’

90
Scottie Lanahan to Mrs Sayre, 19 Mar. 1948.

91
Edward Pattillo, Introduction, ‘Zelda: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald Retrospective’, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1974, p. 10.

92
ZSF
/Sara Haardt interview, Ellerslie, 1928.

93
ZSF
, ‘The Original Follies Girl’,
Collected
Writings,
p. 297.

Princeton University Library, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections:
Zelda Fitzgerald Collection (
CO
183)
F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection (
CO
187)
F. Scott Fitzgerald Additional Papers (
CO
188)
John Biggs Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald Estate papers (
CO
628)
Craig House Collection (
CO
745)
Charles Scribner’s Sons Author Files (
CO
101)

Eleanor Lanahan Art Archive Collection, Vermont

Cecilia Ross Collection, Pennsylvania

Sprague Family Collection, California

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Archives, Montgomery, Alabama

Sara Mayfield Collection, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

H. L. and Sara Haardt Mencken Collection, Julia Rogers Library, Goucher College, Baltimore

Honoria Murphy Donnelly Collection, New York

Fanny Myers Brennan Collection, New York

Lloyd Hackl Collection, Center City, Minnesota

H. L. Mencken Collection, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore

John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts

Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library, Yale University

Zelda
Fitzgerald:
The
Collected
Writings,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, introduction by Mary Gordon, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1991; Abacus, Little, Brown & Co., London, 1993; University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 1997

Save
Me
the
Waltz,
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1932

‘Other Names for Roses’,
Collected
Writings,
1991

‘A Couple of Nuts’,
Scribner’s
Magazine
XCII, Aug. 1932

‘The Continental Angle’,
New
Yorker
VIII, 4 June 1932

‘Miss Ella’,
Scribner’s
Magazine
XC
,
Dec. 1931

‘Poor Working Girl’,
College
Humor
85, Jan. 1931

‘A Millionaire’s Girl’,
Saturday
Evening
Post
CCII, 17 May 1930

‘The Girl with Talent’,
College
Humor
76
,
Apr. 1930

‘The Girl the Prince Liked’,
College
Humor
74, Feb. 1930

‘Southern Girl’,
College
Humor
XVIII, Oct. 1929

‘The Original Follies Girl’,
College
Humor
XVII, July 1929

‘Our Own Movie Queen’,
Chicago
Sunday
Tribune,
7 June 1925

Scandalabra,
Bruccoli Clark, Bloomfield Hills MI and Columbia SC, 1980

‘On F. Scott Fitzgerald’,
Fitzgerald/Hemingway
Annual,
1974

‘Auction – Model 1934’,
Esquire
II, July 1934

‘Show Mr and Mrs F. to Number –’,
Esquire
I–11, May–June 1934

‘Paint and Powder’,
The
Smart
Set
LXXXIV, May 1929 (originally written as ‘Editorial on Youth’ for
Photoplay,
1927, but not published there)

‘Who Can Fall in Love after Thirty?’,
College
Humor
XV, Oct. 1928

‘Looking Back Eight Years’,
College
Humor
XIV, June 1928

‘The Changing Beauty of Park Avenue’,
Harper’s
Bazaar
LXII, Jan. 1928

‘Breakfast’,
Favorite
Recipes
of
Famous
Women,
Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1925

‘Does a Moment of Revolt Come Sometime to Every Married Man?’,
McCall’s
LI, Mar. 1924

‘Eulogy on the Flapper’,
Metropolitan
Magazine
LV, June 1922

‘Friend Husband’s Latest’,
New
York
Tribune,
2
Apr. 1922

Caesar’s
Things

‘Garden of Eden’ (fragment)

‘Here’s the True Story’ (story/letter)

‘Lilian Rich’ (fragment)

‘Nanny, a British Nurse’

‘Autobiographical Sketch’ (written for her psychiatrists), Phipps Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1932

‘Choreography of an Idea’ (also a second version, ‘A Good Idea’)

‘Circus Day’

‘Technically in August’

‘This Time of Year’

‘Travel/Touring/Moving About’

‘Unembellish’

“The World Angered God’

Going, William T.,
Zelda
Sayre
Fitzgerald
and
Sara
Haardt
Mencken,
University of Alabama Press, Alabama, 1975

Hartnett, Koula Svokos,
Zelda
Fitzgerald
and
the
Failure
of
the
American
Dream
for
Women,
Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, 1991

Lanahan, Eleanor,
Zelda,
an
Illustrated
Life:
The
Private
World
of
Zelda
Fitzgerald,
Harry N. Abrams Inc., New York, 1996

McDonough, Kaye,
Zelda:
Frontier L
ife
in
America.
A
Fantasy
in
Three
Parts,
City Lights Books, San Francisco, 1978

Milford, Nancy,
Zelda:
A
Biography,
Harper & Row, New York, Evanston, London, 1970; Bodley Head, London, Sydney, Toronto, 1970; Avon Books, New York, 1971; HarperCollins, New York, 2001

Anderson, W. R., ‘Rivalry and Partnership: The Short Fiction of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’,
Fitzgerald/Hemingway
Annual,
1977

Brinson, Claudia Smith, ‘Zelda more than an appendage of Fitzgerald’,
The
State,
Columbia, South Carolina, 27 Oct. 1991

Brisick, William C., ‘Artistic promise unfulfilled’,
Los
Angeles
Daily
News,
25 Aug. 1991

Bruccoli, Matthew J., ‘Zelda Fitzgerald’s Lost Stories’,
Fitzgerald/Hemingway
Annual,
1979

Bullock, Heidi Kunz, ‘The Art of Zelda Fitzgerald: Alice in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales’, introduction to exhibition brochure, Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, 22 Oct.–23 Dec. 1998

Cary, Meredith,
‘Save
Me
The
Waltz
as a Novel’,
Fitzgerald/Hemingway
Annual,
1977

Cooper, Douglas Marshall, ‘Form and Fiction: The Writing Style of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’, unpublished dissertation, University of Michigan, 1979

——‘Portraits of Zelda’, unpublished MA thesis, Department of English, Wagner College, New York, 1970

Coughlin, Ruth Pollack, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald’s collected writings tell a sad tale of promise unfulfilled’,
Detroit
News,
7
Aug. 1991

Cowley, Malcolm, ‘A Ghost Story of the Jazz Age’,
Saturday
Review
XLVII, 25 Jan. 1964

Curnutt, Kirk, ‘Zelda’s Last Years: Fundamentalism and Madness’, paper given at F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference, Nice, 27 June–4 July 2000

Donaldson, Scott, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald, thoughts gathered’,
USA
Today,
9 Aug. 1991

Fitzgerald Smith, Scottie, ‘The Maryland Ancestors of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’,
Maryland
Historical
Magazine
78:3, fall 1983

Franklin, Rebecca, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald, Tallulah the Most?’,
Birmingham
News,
17 June 1956

Frost, Laura, ‘Zelda, in Her Own Words’,
San
Francisco
Chronicle,
4 Aug. 1991

Going, William T., ‘Two Alabama Writers: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and Sara Haardt Mencken’,
Alabama
Review
XXIII, Jan. 1970

Greenhaw, Wayne, ‘The Spirit Tree’, Montgomery, 1997

——Two reviews of
Collected
Writings,
Alabama
Journal,
5 and 12 Aug. 1991

Hartnett, Koula Svokos, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald and the Failure of the American Dream’, paper presented at Southern Atlantic Modern Language Association Annual Meeting, 1981

Hudgins, Andrew, ‘Zelda Sayre in Montgomery’ (poem),
Southern
Review
20:4, 1984

Kakutani, Michiko, ‘That Other Fitzgerald Could Turn a Word, Too’,
New
York
Times,
20 Aug. 1991

Kramer, Peter D., ‘How Crazy was Zelda?’,
New
York
Times
Magazine,
1 Dec. 1996

Laurence, Charles, ‘My Secret Legacy from Zelda’,
Daily
Telegraph,
20 Aug. 1996

MacDonald, Marianne, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald’s art makes a novel return’,
Independent,
26 July 1996

Magin, Janis L., ‘Montgomery recalls high-living Zelda’,
Atlanta
Journal/Atlanta
Constitution,
6 Nov. 1993

Marvel, Mark, ‘The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald’,
Vogue,
Aug. 1991

Mitchell, Ted, ‘“I’m Not Afraid To Die”: The Death of Zelda Fitzgerald’, paper given at International F. Scott Fitzgerald Conference, Asheville, North Carolina, 24–27 Sept. 1998

Mizener, Arthur, ‘The Good Gone Times’,
New
York
Times
Book
Review,
13 Aug. 1967

O’Brien, Sharon, ‘More Than Just a Crazy Flapper’,
New
York
Times,
1 Sept. 1991

Petry, Alice Hall, ‘Women’s Work: The Case of Zelda Fitzgerald’,
Literature-Interpretation-
Theory,
vol. 1, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers SA, 1989

Ridgeway, Livye Hart, ‘A Profile of Zelda’, Sara Mayfield Collection, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

Rubin, Merle, ‘The Other Fitzgerald’,
Christian
Science
Monitor,
23
Sept. 1991

See, Carolyn, ‘Cautionary Tale From the Other Fitzgerald’,
Los
Angeles
Times,
18 Aug. 1991

Shafer, Carolyn, ‘To Spread a Human Aspiration: The Art of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’, unpublished MA thesis, University of South Carolina, 1994

Tavernier-Courbin, Jacqueline, ‘Art as Woman’s Response and Search: Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz’,
Southern
Literary
Journal
XI.2, spring 1979

Tillotson, Jerry and Robbie, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald Still Lives’,
Feminist
Art
Journal,
spring 1975

Upchurch, Michael, ‘Zelda’s intense, original work surpasses F. Scott’s’,
Atlanta
Journal/Atlanta
Constitution,
25 Aug. 1991

White, Ray Lewis, ‘Zelda Fitzgerald’s
Save
Me
The
Waltz:
A Collection of Reviews from 1932–1933’,
Fitzgerald/Hemingway
Annual,
1979

Yorke, Lane, ‘Zelda: A Worksheet’,
The
Paris
Review,
fall 1983

‘Zelda’s side of paradise’, editorial,
San
Francisco
Examiner,
28 Aug. 1991

‘Asheville Nurse Questioned’,
Raleigh
News
and
Observer,
15 Apr. 1948

‘Asheville Nurse Tells Cops “I Could Have Started Fire”’,
Raleigh
News
and
Observer,
14 Apr. 1948

‘Bodies of Two More Victims of Fire Found’,
Asheville
Citizen,
13 Mar. 1948

‘Central Building Destroyed’,
Asheville
Citizen,
13 Mar. 1948

‘Coroner’s Jury Hears Ten at Fire Inquest’,
Asheville
Citizen,
30 Mar. 1948

‘Doctor To Make Psychiatric Test of Hospital Head’,
Greensboro
Daily
News,
14 Apr. 1948

Erxleben, Al, ‘Fire Caused Confusion’,
Asheville
Citizen,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Fire-Death Record Set by Blaze at Hospital’,
Asheville
Citizen,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Five Bodies Still Sought in Wreckage’,
Asheville
Citizen,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Hospital Staff Members and 2 Youths Praised’,
Asheville
Citizen,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Hospitalized’,
Raleigh
News
and
Observer,
17 Apr. 1948

‘Mental Hospital Nurse Put Under Observation’,
Raleigh
News
and
Observer,
16 Apr. 1948

Miller, I. P., ‘Strange Human Stories Come From Big Fire’,
Asheville
Citizen,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Nurse Testifies She Discovered Hospital Fire’,
Asheville
Citizen,
27 Mar. 1948

‘Psychiatrist Says Nurse Did Not Start Fire’,
Greensboro
Daily
News,
15 Apr. 1948

‘Toll in Fire at Asheville Reaches Nine’,
Greensboro
Daily
News,
12 Mar. 1948

‘Two More Bodies Found in Debris’,
Greensboro
Daily
News,
13 Mar. 1948

F.
Scott
Fitzgerald:
A
Life
in
Letters,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1994; Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995

Correspondence
of
F
.
Scott
Fitzgerald,
ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Margaret M. Duggan, Random House, New York, 1980