Top 10 Interesting Facts about F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald Photo By United States Government Printing Office – Wikimedia Commons

Top 10 Interesting Facts about F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, was a novelist, essayist, short story writer, and screenwriter from the United States.

Fitzgerald is most remembered for authoring The Great Gatsby (1925), a dispassionate portrayal of the extravagance and corruption that consumed America in the 1920s, before the Great Depression.

Fitzgerald was born to a middle-class Catholic family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. He was named after his distant cousin, Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics for “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Mary “Molly” McQuillan Fitzgerald, his mother, was Irish, while his father, Edward Fitzgerald, was of Irish and English ancestry.

Let’s take a look at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Top 10 Interesting Facts.

1. Fitzgerald attended Princeton but never graduated

Fitzgerald intended to go to college in the East after spending two years in a New Jersey prep school.

Princeton University drew him in with its poised and privileged Ivy demeanour.

He failed the college’s entrance exams twice before meeting with the Admissions Committee on his 17th birthday and talked himself into the school.

He tried out for the football team and wrote for several newspapers while at school, but his grades were so poor that he dropped out in 1917.

Fitzgerald later enlisted in the army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant during World War I.

2. Fitzgerald aspired to be a poet.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Photo By Studio photographer – Wikimedia Commons

Fitzgerald considered a career as a poet at one point in his life.

His early poems were not successful, but, interestingly, neither were the first drafts of his novel, which were later published.

Fitzgerald wrote several poems while at Princeton University, many of which were inspired by John Keats’ poetry.

Encouraged by his classmate John Peale Bishop, he sought to be the American Rupert Brooke, the young British poet who died on his way to the Gallipoli landing in 1915.

He even expressed concern that he would die in battle before he could publish a novel and rushed to have the first drafts of This Side of Paradise completed.

3. His most famous work was deemed a flop upon its initial release.

The Great Gatsby Cover Photo By Francis Cugat – Wikimedia Commons

While The Great Gatsby is now considered Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, it was a flop when it was first published.

In 1929, four years after the novel was released, Fitzgerald received royalties of $5.10 and $0.34 for the American and English editions, respectively, while the novel sold fewer than 25,000 copies throughout his lifetime.

It wasn’t until decades after Fitzgerald’s death that the book was recognized as the American classic that it is.

Every year, approximately 500,000 copies of the book are sold.

4. He worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

Fitzgerald moved to Los Angeles in 1937, after a series of career setbacks and repeated attempts to quit drinking, and took a job as a screenwriter with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

He proposed projects and scripts, but they were always rejected by the studio. Fitzgerald was known for creating long, flowery backstories for his characters that read more like novels than Hollywood films.

He was fired in 1939 and began working as a freelancer because he chose to write whatever he thought was best for the scene rather than what the story required.
Fitzgerald’s sole screenwriting credit is for the 1938 drama Three Comrades.

5. Fitzgerald kept a record of his earnings as well as his personal life.

Fitzgerald obsessively recorded the progression of his life and career in a large, leather-bound business ledger between 1919 and 1937.

He recorded when his works were published, how much he earned, and other details.

One of these notebooks’ most famous sections was titled “Outline Chart of My Life.” It chronicles his activities since birth, month by month.

He kept track of everything, from his first word (“up”) to his height at the age of 13 (5’3″) to the date he fell in love with Zelda (September 7, 1918).

Many years also include a brief summary sentence, such as “A Year of Much Activity but Dangerous,” for the age of 14.

6. F. Scott Fitzgerald rose to prominence with his novel This Side of Paradise.

Fitzgerald had written an unpublished novel titled The Romantic Egotist while still at Princeton.

At the same time, he was courting socialite Zelda Sayre. Sayre informed Fitzgerald that she would not marry him unless the book was published.

He continued to work on and edit his draft, and Scribner’s accepted the revised final novel, retitled This Side of Paradise, for publication.

The novel’s initial printing of 3000 copies sold out in three days, launching not only his writing career but also persuading Sayre to say yes.

Eight days later, they married in a small, rushed ceremony in the Rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

7. F. Scott Fitzgerald has a family connection to the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald Photo By Scribner’s – Wikimedia Commons

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s full name. He was named after the lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the national anthem of the United States, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Francis Scott Key is also a distant relative of F. Scott Fitzgerald, as the apparent second cousin, three times removed.

This connection is through his father’s side of the family, and it is clear that his father was very proud of it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald valued this family connection so much that when he was driven past Key’s monument in Baltimore, he cried out, “don’t let Frank see me drunk.”

8. Fitzgerald relocated a lot throughout his life.

Fitzgerald never bought a home and spent the majority of his life living in leased houses, apartments, and high-class hotels, despite making a lot of money from his early novels as a writer.

New York City, Connecticut, Minnesota, Long Island, Paris, the French Riviera, Rome, Los Angeles, Delaware, Switzerland, Baltimore, and North Carolina were among the many cities he lived in between 1920 and 1940.

His wanderlust sprang from his desire to get away from his hard-partying lifestyle and compose in peace and quiet to write.

9. Fitzgerald’s most recent royalty payment was $13.13.

Fitzgerald’s last royalty cheque was for $13.13, despite his most renowned book selling over 30 million copies currently.

Four months before his death, he received his last royalty check. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, at the age of 44. His frequent drinking is likely to have contributed to his early death.

10. He passed away before completing his final novel.

The Love of the Last Tycoon Photo By Charles Scribner’s Sons – Wikimedia Commons

Fitzgerald began composing “The Love of the Last Tycoon” in 1940, based on his experiences working in Hollywood’s trenches.

In November, he wrote to Zelda, “It will, at any rate, be nothing like anything else as I’m digging it out of myself like uranium.”

Fitzgerald died of a heart attack a month later, at the age of 44, leaving his comeback novel unfinished.

A year later, a revised version of “The Love of the Last Tycoon” was published, and when it was published posthumously in 1941, a critic for The New York Times remarked that “it would have been Fitzgerald’s best work and a very fine one.”