F. Scott Fitzgerald
On the surface of it, it seems strange that F. Scott Fitzgerald died in an apartment off the Sunset Strip. But on Dec. 21, 1940, the shortest day of the year, Scott suffered a fatal heart attack in the apartment of the British gossip columnist, Sheilah Graham, at 1443 N. Hayworth Ave. [map], just south of Sunset Blvd.
What makes it strange is that, in his prime years, Scott and his wife Zelda were such a part of the East Coast literary set and were so closely associated with the Lost Generation of American exiles living in Paris during the 1920s — along with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas — that, had his life played out like the plot of his novels, by rights he should have died in Greenwich Village or a Parisian garret.
But he died in Hollywood, in Miss Graham’s apartment — a fact which proved to be awkward, given the tenor of the times, because Scott and Sheilah had been in love and sharing digs for three years, even though Zelda Fitzgerald was still very much alive, though institutionalized with mental illness — and Zelda and Scott were still very much married.
F. Scott Fitzgerald came to Hollywood for the same reason many of his East Coast literary colleagues did. He was strapped for cash. In fact, his arrival in 1931 was his second run at success in the Movie Colony. He’d brought Zelda with him in 1927 when had been invited out to work on script for Constance Talmadge. United Artists rejected the script, however, and the Fitzgeralds returned east.
It was then that Zelda was diagnosed with schizophrenia and hospitalized in a sanitarium outside Asheville, N.C. Scott returned to Hollywood. In 1937, he moved into Villa #1 at the Garden of Allah Hotel. It was there that he worked on the script for the Rita Hayworth vehicle, “Red-Headed Woman.”
“He is famous even in Hollywood, where his meteoric arrivals and departures are discussed in film circles as avidly as they discuss themselves,” wrote Dorothy Spear in a 1933 issue of the Saturday Evening Post.
In “A Taste of Hemlock,” published in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 19, 1965, Joseph Scott III described the Garden of Allah’s role as the epicenter for the movie colony’s cultural elite:
In the 30s and early 40s the Sunset Strip, between Hollywood and Beverly Hills, was where local society and celebrities mingled to dine and quaff. The Clover Club, Moscow Inn, La Boheme, Trocadero, Mocambo and The Players were among the popular haunts…
If the Strip was a lush country for action, the Garden of Allah was its manor house. Thomas Wolfe, in a letter to Fitzgerald, refused to believe that anyone could live in such a place. But the literati did and made the one-time palatial residence of the Russian actress Nazimova headquarters for a generation.
Fitzgerald stayed at the apartment-hotel during his final Hollywood visit. The Garden’s guest list — which included Earnest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Charles Butterworth and O’Hara — was a reprise, in some ways, of the American exiles in Paris during the 20s.
[Budd] Schulberg, who has returned to work in Hollywood after a 25 year absence, said in an exclusive interview on the silver anniversary of Fitzgerald’s death that “the Garden represented probably the last time in this town where, under one collective roof, at one time or another, the greatest writing talents in America could be assembled.”
… Schwab’s drugstore, a block east, was a sort of supply ship for the Garden’s crew. As one reformed habitue said recently: “It gave one a sense of security to know that you could wake up at the Garden about 10 a.m., phone Schwabs and be certain that a bottle of Jack Daniels would arrive at your villa by the time you hung up.”
In 1937, Fitzgerald met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham. Scott writes that, in the spring of 1938, Graham moved Fitzgerald to a remote beach cottage, at 23811 Malibu Road, near the old Malibu Inn. A few months later, he moved again to a guest house at Belly Acres, the estate of Edward Everett Horton on Amestoy St. in Encino, in the Valley.
But by April 1940, Fitzgerald was living in an apartment at 1403 N. Laurel Ave.[map] in West Hollywood, two blocks east of Schwab’s and the Garden of Allah. Sheliah Graham lived a block away on Hayworth. (Among his neighbors in the apartment building was Lucille Ball, who was then keeping company with, but not yet married to, Desi Arnaz.)
Here’s Joseph Scott’s version of Fitzgerald’s last days and hours:
The author of “The Great Gatby” died, at 44, in his girl friend’s West Hollywood apartment on the Saturday before Christmas, 1940 … The shortest day of the year was, as Sheliah Graham remembered Dec. 21, bright and sunny. Although the forecast was cloudy with rain, the mid-afternoon temperature was 78 degrees.
Fitzgerald might have read in the morning papers that the Stanford football team was excused from Rose Bowl practice to go Christmas shopping. He did, about 3 p.m., pick up the latest issue of The Princeton Alumni Weekly and was compiling opposing player rosters for the 1941 Tiger team when the shade of death folded over him…
He attended his last party on Friday, Dec. 13, at the home of the promising young novelist, Nathaniel West (“The Day of the Locust”). Both West, 36, and his wife were to be killed in an auto accident the day after Fitzgerald’s death…
He’d had a heart attack while shopping at Schwab’s just a month earlier. A story circulated that elided the two attacks into a single fatal incident in the drug store. And there’s an enduring myth that Fitzgerald died in Villa #1 at the Garden of Allah.
Sheliah Graham was a powerhouse gossip maven in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Her “Hollywood Today” column was carried in 178 papers, at its peak. By comparison, the columns of her better-remembered rivals, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, were only carried in 100 papers and 68 papers, respectively.
She wrote two books about her life with Fitzgerald, Beloved Infidel (with Gerold Frank) in 1958, and The Garden of Allah in 1969. Beloved Infidel starring Gregory Peck as Scott and Deborah Kerr as Sheilah Graham, was filmed in 1959 at around the time the hotel where much of it was set was being demolished.
On the day Scott died, Zelda Fitzgerald was home from the hospital in Alabama. It didn’t last. She was re-instituionalized, and eventually ended up in a sanitarium in the North Carolina mountains. She was killed in a fire there in 1948.
July 22, 2014 at 2:08 am
I walked the grounds of Sheila Graham’s building today and the damage from a fire in her apartment is still severe and has not been repaired. We are further researching its fate- fear the majestic structure will be destroyed.
March 29, 2015 at 1:03 am
Hi,
I read your comment on the article relating the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald and am astounded that the fire damage to Sheilah Graham’s house has not been repaired in all this time between Dec. 21, 1940 and July 22, 2014.
You must be as caught up with the whole scenario of the Fitzgeralds and their famous literary associates. Their story, which is unfolding after both of them are dead creates such a sense of sadness for the wasted potential represented by their lifestyle.
I often wonder if there is a correlation between being a successful writer or movie star that disposes one to even consider suicide.
You sound like one among others who might attempt to have that structure declared a historic site…if so, I wish you well and thank you for the effort you seem to be making toward that eventuality.
May 29, 2022 at 10:18 pm
Artists in general and writers in particular have often been prone to depression. One explanation is that their sensitivity to unpleasant truths about humanity and tendency to internalize the ills of the world leads them to acquiring a tragic sense of life. Irregular lifestyle, full of alcohol and often drugs, doesn’t help either.
February 21, 2016 at 4:29 pm
It was not destroyed. It has been repaired.
October 9, 2019 at 7:45 pm
What apartment number please?
May 19, 2016 at 5:02 pm
“The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” was first published in the June 1922 issue of The Smart Set magazine, and was included in Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Some time before he traveled to Hollywood in 1927.
October 11, 2016 at 4:22 pm
I happened to be watching Beloved Infidel this morning and when it ended, I couldn’t help but think how tragic a moment it must have been for her, to discover Scot’s body,. If the movie was actually a true testament of their love, it’s sad to think of the loss of time they could have shared together. A brief moment in two famous people’s lives who made such a tragic Hollywood love story.
July 5, 2020 at 11:38 pm
I thank you for your lovely rendition of “Beloved Infidel!” I, too, watched it today and was so sad when it was over. Maybe it’s just women who can appreciate a true love story!! I felt it was beautiful…..but the ending made me cry and I’m a grandmother!
January 5, 2017 at 9:21 pm
I just watched the movie beloved Infidel this morning. I thought that how movies have changed through the years. What a love story and such a tragic ending for two talented people so in love…
January 8, 2017 at 2:49 am
It’s so odd that a couple of sources have led me to inquire lately about F. Scott Fitzgerald. I must see the upcoming movie about his wife, Zelda
January 26, 2017 at 6:54 pm
Yes, same here! I have always been fascinated by Zelda’s story. I am looking forward to the new Amazon series about her. I am reading Maureen Corrigan’s book, So We Read On. Loving it! It has led me to research more about Fitzgerald’s time in Hollywood and his relationship with Sheilah Graham.
March 2, 2022 at 7:26 pm
I, too, read “And so we read on” and found it so satisfying. (I was thrilled to discover it!) As a lifelong Fitzgerald fan, the book is a treasure. You may also enjoy the biography of Maxwell Perkins, the famous literary agent at Scribner who handled Scott, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe.
July 13, 2020 at 7:08 am
Zelda was an amazing character!
A Southern Belle, a Flapper, Scott Fitzgerald’s wife and co-author of many of his most beloved works, Zelda was the perfect complement to her hard- working and even – harder partying husband.
Many biographies have been published on the couple , and many others on Zelda and Scott individually.
I’ve read most of them, and own a significant number.
This is a topic which is timeless, and extremely addictive.
Good luck in your journey.
March 14, 2017 at 4:53 pm
I am just watching “Beloved Infidel”. We studied “The Great Gatsby” in HS in the 60’s. F. Scott and Zelda have always fascinated me. The movie made of the Great Gatsby in 2013 was FABULOUS. So much glitter and so well drawn. Great acting all the way around. I also read a wonderful biography of F. Scott recently. Can’t remember the title or author. This was the first that I had heard about his affair w/ Sheila. Hard to be married to a mentally ill spouse. Don’t know how people do it without looking out with regret over their own wasted life catering to them.
June 18, 2017 at 12:31 pm
F Scott Fitzgerald wasn’t “cartering” to his mentally ill wife, he was “caring” for her as spouses usually did in those days! Both Sheilah Graham & F Scott Fitzgerald were truly blessed to have the love that they did. It is better to have loved or been loved, than not to have known love at all. F Scott Fitzgerald had two great loves – Zelda & Sheilah.
June 18, 2017 at 12:32 pm
Sorry, I meant “catering”, not cartering!
March 25, 2017 at 3:41 pm
Watching “Beloved Infidel” at the moment and am way too distracted by the 1950s wardrobe, hairstyles, autos, etc. Why not authentic 1930s?
May 2, 2017 at 6:36 am
During the 1940s and early 1950s I lived at 1326 North Hayworth and often went to Schwab’s Drugstore. We moved into the Hayworth house just a year after Scott Fitzgerald’s death. The house in which I lived is no longer there having been replaced by a large apartment house.
September 18, 2017 at 7:14 pm
I find this fascinating! I recently wentt o see the apartment house where Fitzgerald died. Do you mean that you lived in a house near Graham’s apartment? I believe that the apartment building still stands, correct?
June 18, 2017 at 12:34 pm
Agree…Peck and Kerr were outstanding but setting and wardrobe were disappointing….
August 11, 2017 at 6:27 pm
Watching the Beloved Infidel. Ms Graham adored Fitzgerald, but an impossible drunk.
February 15, 2021 at 1:17 am
He was no longer a drunk at the time of his death, which made it all the sadder.
August 13, 2017 at 7:13 pm
What a beautiful love story. I guess I am a romantic and would have loved to have a Scott in my life. When they split up because of his madness and being drunk she was going through torture and knew they would always be connected to the hip. Sometimes Love is Grand – they enjoyed and adored each other come rain or shine. In this story the old saying goes “It can only happen in the movies” – Oh, no – There is a little bit of Scott in real life…..
May 27, 2018 at 7:32 pm
For all of you interest in her, a new book is coming out this week – a novel depicting their relationship called “The Other Side of Paradise” by Sally Koslow. It was well reviewed and though I’ve just started reading it (which is why I found this thread), it’s compelling and exciting.
August 5, 2019 at 5:52 am
The book’s correct title is ‘Another Side of Paradise’, by Sally Koslow.
April 28, 2020 at 8:27 am
BIADINI (SOUTHAMPTON)When Southampton moved to sign Manolo Gabbiadini for a reported fee of 锟?4million in January, the general consensus was that Napoli would have been delighted with the deal.
July 5, 2020 at 11:34 pm
Beloved Infidel was made into a stultifying boring movie in 1959, starring Gregory Peck as Scott and Deborah Kerr as Sheila Graham.
You wrote that about the wonderful story and movie of F. Scott & Sheila Graham. Shame on you!! Who made you a critic of such classics??
Though it is about infidelity, it was beautifully made. Two such distinguished actors as Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr would not have allowed themslves to portray these two individuals had they felt the script was “boring!” And it was NOT boring at all. Her heart was full of her love for F. Scott when she wrote that book. It’s about love, how can that be boring?
August 3, 2020 at 1:34 am
I am now 69 years old and the very first time I saw that I was 16 years old and fell hopelessly in love with Gregory Peck. I’ve always been a great fan of Deborah Kerr as well. I love the movie even back then and it made me immensely interested in the life of F Scott Fitzgerald and his love affair with Sheilah Graham. My impression from reading the book and also from seeing the movie is that Scott loved Sheilah very much and vice a versa and I thought it was a beautiful story , yes a lot of heart ache but I think if Scott had not died so suddenly that their love would have continued for many years. My heart aches for what she must have felt at the end when she lost him so suddenly.
September 4, 2022 at 4:48 pm
Since discovering Fitzgerald through the most wonderful professor of American literature during my freshman year, I have felt cheated by not having discovered him seventeen years prior and have been fascinated and intrigued by and in love with him, Most Surely. I am almost in the phase of calling him “Scott,” as much as I have read of him—And continually thirst for more. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life has enriched my life—my literary world, my imaginary world, my cultural world, my educational world. Since I am not fortunate enough to have met him personally, I have made him come alive in my mind and enjoy my relationship with him more so than with any other author.