His Fame Arrived Early
Began Writing at the Age of Ten
Scott Fitzgerald, the brilliant young novelist, whose short story, “Head and Shoulders,” under the screen title of “The Chorus Girl's Romance,” will be a forthcoming Metro production, staring Viola Dana, is a young man whom obviously, the gods love. For Mr. Fitzgerald enjoys the unique and enviable distinction of being the youngest successful writing man in America, if not the world, with a novel and numerous short stories to his credit and more in demand.
Mr. Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minn., September 24, 1896. This makes him not quite 25 years old—an extraordinary but incontestable fact. He was educated at the St. Paul Academy in St. Paul, Minn., during his early youth, after which he attended Newman School in Hackensack. N. J., and then entered Princeton University at the age of 17.
He elected literature as a profession at the age of 10, and at once started writing as though each day might be his last, with the result that at 23 the Scribner’s published his first novel, “This Side of Paradise,” and the magazines commenced writing him letters for his work. During the war, he served as a First Lieutenant in the Forty-fifth and Sixty-seventh Infantry and as aide-de-camp to Gen. J. A Ryan. He is a descendant of Francis Scott Key who wrote “The Star Spangled Banner,” and his whole name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. Mr. Fitzgerald was married on April 3, 1920, to Miss Belda Sayre, of Montgomery. Ala., and for the rest his own words can best describe his ingenuous personality:
“I wear brown soft hats in winter,” he confesses. “Panamas in summer, loathe dress suits and never wear one, and prefer people with greenish-gray eyes. And again: “I'd rather watch a good shimmy dance than Ruth St. Denis and Pavlowa combined!”
Could anything be more delightful? And this is the young man who wrote the story of the shimmy dancer who fell in love with the college boy as told in “Head and Shoulders,” which was published in the Saturday Evening Post and which Metro will shortly release under the title of “The Chorus Girl's Romance.”
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's “This Side of Paradise” is in its seventh edition.
1920
Published in unlocated newspaper (1920).