Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald (1900-1948) was an American writer and socialite, and the wife of F Scott Fitzgerald. Her life with Fitzgerald in Jazz Age New York, Paris and the South of France, and her arduous training to become a ballerina in her late 20s, form the basis for her only novel, Save Me The Waltz. Zelda had mental health troubles, excerbated by her precarious sense of identity as the wife of a major artist in a period where women of her background were not expected to express themselves except decoratively. She died in a fire in the asylum where she was living.