Daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald Dies at 64

Scottie Fitzgerald Smith, the only child of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, died early today at her home after a long battle with cancer. She was 64.

Smith, a child when her father was lionized in the ‘20s as the author of “The Great Gatsby” and “Tender Is the Night,” was also a writer whose career included an early stint with The New Yorker.

Her parents symbolized the dashing international life style of the Jazz Age, but Scottie once said, “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,” she said.

She was born in 1921 in St. Paul, Minn., her father’s home state, graduated from Vassar and traveled widely, settling 13 years ago in Montgomery, the home-town of her mother, Zelda Sayre, whose father was a member of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Fitzgerald died in Hollywood in 1940 while writing “The Last Tycoon.” Zelda, a dancer, painter and writer who published a book, “Save Me the Waltz,” died in a sanitarium fire in North Carolina in 1948. She had been in and out of mental hospitals much of her life.

Smith’s career included writing posts with the Northern Virginia Sun and the Washington Post. An active Democrat, she worked during the mid-1950s as a writer for the Democratic National Committee’s digest.

In 1974 she co-wrote “The Romantic Egoists,” a journal of clippings and photographs from her parents’ lives.

She said in a recent interview 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.

Smith said she moved to Montgomery to help take care of her mother’s older sister. “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 said.

She was married twice. She and C. Grove Smith, her second husband, were divorced in 1980. Survivors include three children from her marriage to Samuel J. Lanahan, which ended in divorce in 1967, and five grandchildren.