MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Scottie Fitzgerald Smith, the only child of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, died of cancer Wednesday at her home here. She was 64.
Mrs. Smith, a child when her father earned literary fame in the 1920s and her parents symbolized the dashing lifestyle of the Jazz Age, was a writer whose career included an early stint with the New Yorker magazine.
Her father, whose novels include one of America's classics, "The Great Gatsby," died in Hollywood in 1940. Her mother, a Montgomery native and the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court justice, died in a sanitarium fire in North Carolina in 1948.
The parents met during World War I while Fitzgerald was serving in the Army at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery County, Ala.
Scottie Fitzgerald was born in 1921 in St. Paul, Minn. Her parents' partying lifestyle was the subject of literary legend, but, she recalled later, "They were always very circumspect around me. I was very unaware of all this drinking that was going on. . . . I was very well taken care of, and I was never neglected.
"I don't consider I had a very difficult childhood at all. In fact, I consider it a rather wonderful childhood."
During her career, she also wrote at various times for the Northern Virginia Sun, the Washington Post, anda digest published by the Democratic National Comm ittee.
In 1974, she moved here to care for an aunt. "I came down, thinking I would just see her to her final rest, and then became hooked and loved it here and have been here ever since," she recalled.
Also in 1974, she co-authored "The Romantic Egoists," a journal of clippings and photographs from her parents' lives.
She said that being the daughter of one of America's most celebrated authors opened many doors for her, but also had its drawbacks.
"I've always said jokingly that it was the best-paid part-time job in the world," she said. "It has been hard work sometimes because it encompassed the whole period when my father got extremely popular."
She was married twice. She and a second husband, C. Grove Smith, were divorced in 1980.
Surviving are a son by her first marriage, Samuel J. Lanahan Jr. of Eugene, Ore.; two daughters by her first marriage, Eleanor Hazard of Burlington, Vt., and Cecilia Ross of Allendale, Pa.; and five grandchildren.
The graveside service will be at 4 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary's Catholic Church yard in Rockville, Md., where her parents are buried.
The obituary was published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 19, 1986.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Scottie Fitzgerald Smith, the only child of author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, died of cancer Wednesday at her home here. She was 64.
Mrs. Smith, a child when her father earned literary fame in the 1920s and her parents symbolized the dashing lifestyle of the Jazz Age, was a writer whose career included an early stint with the New Yorker magazine.
Her father, whose novels include one of America's classics, "The Great Gatsby," died in Hollywood in 1940. Her mother, a Montgomery native and the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court justice, died in a sanitarium fire in North Carolina in 1948.
The parents met during World War I while Fitzgerald was serving in the Army at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery County, Ala.
Scottie Fitzgerald was born in 1921 in St. Paul, Minn. Her parents' partying lifestyle was the subject of literary legend, but, she recalled later, "They were always very circumspect around me. I was very unaware of all this drinking that was going on. . . . I was very well taken care of, and I was never neglected.
"I don't consider I had a very difficult childhood at all. In fact, I consider it a rather wonderful childhood."
During her career, she also wrote at various times for the Northern Virginia Sun, the Washington Post, anda digest published by the Democratic National Comm ittee.
In 1974, she moved here to care for an aunt. "I came down, thinking I would just see her to her final rest, and then became hooked and loved it here and have been here ever since," she recalled.
Also in 1974, she co-authored "The Romantic Egoists," a journal of clippings and photographs from her parents' lives.
She said that being the daughter of one of America's most celebrated authors opened many doors for her, but also had its drawbacks.
"I've always said jokingly that it was the best-paid part-time job in the world," she said. "It has been hard work sometimes because it encompassed the whole period when my father got extremely popular."
She was married twice. She and a second husband, C. Grove Smith, were divorced in 1980.
Surviving are a son by her first marriage, Samuel J. Lanahan Jr. of Eugene, Ore.; two daughters by her first marriage, Eleanor Hazard of Burlington, Vt., and Cecilia Ross of Allendale, Pa.; and five grandchildren.
The graveside service will be at 4 p.m. Saturday at St. Mary's Catholic Church yard in Rockville, Md., where her parents are buried.
The obituary was published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 19, 1986.
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