History Pages his eyes looked wild: « I think my Zelda is ill. Not deliberately ill, she cannot do anything about it.» They ran into her room and saw an empty jar of sleeping pills. The dose was considerable, but not deadly. Not to let Zelda lose herself in a lethal slumber, they walked her up and down the stairs all night. The « distracted farniente » that the Fitz geralds saught on the French Riviera proved anything but. A year after downing the sleeping pills and jealous of Francis’ attention to famed dancer Isadora Duncan, Zelda threw herself headfirst down a staircase. She survived by a miracle. In 1930, after a long struggle in the best Swiss and American clinics, Zelda Fitzgerald finally went mad. Her diagnosis was schizophrenia. The curly haired « fidgety » girl, a talented artist and writer, the muse of one of America’ s greatest novelists lost her balance on the diamond-lined path of luxury. While hospitalized, she wrote novels with fictional, but quite recognizable characters. Her first opus, « Save Me the Waltz » dwells on love, family and creativity. Zelda’ s revelations, snatched from Francis’ own notes, show Fitzgerald feeling cornered. He left Zelda to work on a screenplay in Hollywood, where he died suddenly from a heart attack at age 44. Zelda never finished her second novel. In 1948, she died in a fire at Highland Hospital, outliving her husband by eight years.
Just picture you upon my knee Just tea for two and two for tea And me for you and you for me ….( F. S. Fitzgerald « Tender is the night », part 2, chapter XII).
The great influencers
And what about Gerald and Sara Murphy? In 1934, during the height of the Great Depression, Gerald heavy heartedly took over his father’ s company in America. He was relieved of this burden in 1956, to his greatest relief. He died in 1964 in New York. In his memoirs, he mainly mentions friends, art and relationships from the 1920s and 30s, or the « jazz era » as the Fitz geralds used to call it. Not a word about mo ney, inflatable crocodiles or golden sands. Sara Murphy was a great influence to the Riviera art scene. Friends with Picasso, she is featured in five of his paintings. In the 1930s, she settled in New York to care for her children, losing two of the three to childhood illness. She died in West Virginia in 1974. Their beloved Villa America changed hands a few times after the Murphys departed for the United States. After being sold in 1950 for a mere $ 27,000, it was acquired by the Swiss watch manufacturer, Tissot. They destroyed the home to build a new, modern property, which was then gifted to a Russian owner. Unfortunately, no effort was made to retain the illustrious past of this historic villa or its exotic gardens. Château de la Garoupe, the home of Gerald Murphy’ s good friend Cole Porter, was where the Murphys were first hosted on the Côte d’ Azur and led to their infatuation with the region. This villa was purchased in 1996 by Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch and friend to Boris Yeltzin. In 2013, Mr Berezovsky died of an apparent suicide in the UK, though it was ruled as an open case. In 2017, the French government seized the property over a case of fraud and money laundering. The Murphys inspired many literary characters of the time, including the couple in Hemingway’ s « Garden of Eden », and the 2007 play « Villa America » by Chrispin Whittell. Two biographies of the couple were written, « Living Well is the Best Revenge » by Calvin Tomkins and « Everybody was So Young » by Amanda Vail. In 1982, their only surviving child, Honoria Murphy, wrote:
The Mad Beach Party, La Garoupe Beach 1923
Sara Murphy with her children: sons Baoth, Patrick and daughter Honoria
How do you know where eccentricity ends and gives way to a mental illness?
« Sara & Gerald: Villa America and After.» Ge rald and Sara Murphy certainly left their mark on the Côte d’ Azur. From the tragedies of the real life characters, it is perhaps better to stick with Fitzgerald’ s novel, which is not nearly as sad as his own biography. « Tender is the Night » describes a Riviera bursting with joy, art, enjoyment, azure waters, and is fabulously tender— like a Mediterranean night.
© arjay. typepad. com
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ГДЕ СУТЬ
Hôtel du Cap, Antibes— always arrive in style!
Джеральд Мерфи, прототип доктора Ричарда Дайвера в романе Ф. С. Фицджеральда « Ночь нежна », в интервью газете « Нью-Йоркер » от 28 июля 1962 года вспоминает свои первые впечатления от этой книги и сравнивает их с ощущениями в преклонном возрасте( Джеральд на двадцать четыре года пережил Фрэнсиса, скончавшегося от сердечного приступа в Голливуде в 1940 году в возрасте 44 лет): « Нам с Сарой( жена Джеральда— прим. ред.) было странно читать этот роман. Сара невзлюбила его тогда и не смогла смириться с ним сейчас. Недавно я перечитал его— впервые с тех
Hello Monaco Spring – Summer 2018 / 87