Born in September in 1896 in St. Paul his parents had medium money his fathers family had money but his father didn’t have much and had an inferiority complex. His family was Irish Catholic, and went to a Catholic school. His mother had some money. He loved football.
In 1913 he went to Princeton and studied dramatics. He received bad grades. He then flunked out his sophomore year but got back in.
A star is born in 1917. Fitzgerald dropped out of college and joined the army . He was on leave for a weekend when he met Zelda. In 1919 he fell in love and they got engaged. He started writing stories in magazines, and in 1920 his first book, ‘This Side of Paradise’, was published. The next month he married Zelda and the money began rolling in.
From 1921 to 1929 was Fitzgeralds “up-time”. His wife and he were making and spending a lot of money and doing a lot of partying. In 1921 his daughter Scottie was born and in 1922 he had two more stories published. In 1925 he had Gatsby published, and in 1927 he attempted Hollywood and failed. Trouble was brewing, he drank a lot and his wife was pretty wild.
From about 1930-1940 were his down years. His wife had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and put into an institution in Switzerland. He split up with his wife in 1934 about the same time when his next novel, ‘Tender Is The Night’ was published. In 1937 he took another shot at Hollywood and found that this time he was successful, he also stopped drinking. In November of 1940 he suffered from a heart attack and then in December he had another from which he died.
After his death his family continued to do well. In 1943 Scottie married and had 4 kids. She received $350,000 for a movie and royalties every time a copy of her father’s books were sold.
In 1947 Zelda had recovered and was doing well but sadly died in a fire.