Timeline
AMERICAN MASTERS F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams
This literary biography explores Fitzgerald's life and literature, from St. Paul, Minnesota to the tip of Long Island to Paris. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams airs Wednesday, August 31 at 9 p.m.(ET) on PBS (check local listings). Here is a timeline of key events in Fitzgerald's life:
September 24, 1896
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in St. Paul, Minnesota to a father with an allegiance to the Old South and a "Black Irish" mother. He is named for a distant relative, the author of the National Anthem.
1911-1917
Fitzgerald attends a Catholic prep school in New Jersey, where he meets Father Sigourney Fay, who encourages his dreams of success. As a member of the Princeton Class of 1917, Fitzgerald neglects his studies in order to write scripts and lyrics for the Princeton Triangle Club musicals and contribute to the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and the Nassau Literary Magazine.
On academic probation and unlikely to graduate, Fitzgerald joins the army in 1917 and is commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry. Convinced he would die in battle, he rapidly writes his first novel, The Romantic Egotist. Charles Scribner's & Sons praises the novel, but ultimately rejects it.
1918-1923
In June 1918, while at Camp Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald falls in love with celebrated belle Zelda Sayre. Scribner's again rejects his novel. In 1919, he goes to New York City to seek his fortune and win Zelda's hand in marriage. But Zelda - unwilling to live on Fitzgerald's small salary - breaks their engagement.
Later that year, Fitzgerald returns to St. Paul to rewrite his novel as This Side of Paradise, which traces the career aspirations and love disappointments of Amory Blaine. This time, the novel is accepted by famed Scribner's editor, Maxwell Perkins.
Working through agent Harold Ober, Fitzgerald begins writing for mass-circulation magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, which earns him a reputation as a "Post writer." Fame comes almost overnight with the publication of This Side of Paradise on March 26, 1920. A week later, he marries Zelda in New York. The celebrated young couple become the "beautiful people" of their day.
In 1921 he writes his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, a devastating portrait of the nouveau riche. The Fitzgeralds settle in St. Paul in time for the birth of their only child, Frances Scott (Scottie) Fitzgerald in October 1921.
Fitzgerald starts drinking heavily, triggering frequent domestic rows. His 1923 political satire, From President to Postman, fails and he writes his way out of debt with short stories.
1924-1931
In 1924, the Fitzgeralds go to France, where he writes The Great Gatsby. Zelda's involvement with a French naval aviator hurts, but doesn't kill, their marriage.
The Great Gatsby is published in April 1925. Though critics rave and a sales of stage and screen rights follow, initial book sales are disappointing. (In 2000, The Great Gatsby would sell 300,000 copies.)
In Paris, Fitzgerald meets Ernest Hemingway - then unknown outside the expatriate literary circle. Fitzgerald admires the writer's personality and genius. The Fitzgeralds remain in France until the end of 1926, traveling between homes in Paris and the Riviera.
Fitzgerald makes little progress on his fourth novel, a study of American expatriates in France. Zelda's unconventional behavior becomes increasingly eccentric.
In the spring of 1927 - after a short, unsuccessful stint of screenwriting in Hollywood - Fitzgerald rents a mansion near Wilmington, Delaware. Fitzgerald continues struggling with his fourth novel while Zelda turns to ballet, hoping to become a professional dancer. In 1929, the Fitzgeralds return to France, where Zelda's intense devotion to dance damaged her health - and their marriage.
Zelda suffers her first breakdown in April 1930. She is treated at Prangins clinic in Switzerland until September 1931, while Fitzgerald lives in Swiss hotels. Work on the novel is again suspended as he writes short stories to pay for her psychiatric treatment.
1931-1937
In the fall of 1931, the Fitzgeralds return to America and rent a house in Montgomery. Zelda suffers a relapse in February 1932 and enters Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She spends the rest of her life as a resident or outpatient of various sanitariums.
In 1932, while a patient at Johns Hopkins, Zelda writes the autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz. Fitzgerald reacts bitterly, thinking she pre-empted material he was using in his novel-in-progress. In 1934, Tender Is the Night is published. Set in France during the 1920s, it examines the deterioration of Dick Diver, a brilliant American psychiatrist, during the course of his marriage to a wealthy mental patient. Fitzgerald's most ambitious novel is also a commercial failure.
In 1936, Fitzgerald writes an essay called The Crack-Up, which could easily describe this period of his life. Ill, drunk, in debt, and unable to write commercially, he lives in hotels near Asheville, North Carolina to be near Zelda, who enters Highland Hospital in 1936. When Scottie is 14, she goes to boarding school. Fitzgerald attempts to supervise Scottie's education and shape her social values by mail.
In the summer of 1937, Fitzgerald goes to Hollywood, earning $1,000 a week working for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But he receives his only screen credit for adapting Three Comrades. He pays off most of his debts, but is unable to save any money. His trips east to visit Zelda are disastrous. While in Hollywood, Fitzgerald falls in love with movie columnist Sheilah Graham.
1938-1940
After MGM drops his option at the end of 1938, Fitzgerald works as a freelance scriptwriter and writes short stories for Esquire. He has written more than half of a working draft of a novel about Hollywood called The Love of the Last Tycoon when he dies of a heart attack in Graham's apartment on December 21, 1940. The novel is later published as The Last Tycoon. Zelda Fitzgerald perishes in a fire in Highland Hospital in 1948.