135. The Paper Dolls of Zelda Fitzgerald
AMY: Hi, everyone, I’m Amy Helmes, here with another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. Here with me is my co-host Kim Askew, and Kim, question: did you ever play with paper dolls as a kid?
KIM: You know, I did. I remember having like some retro paper dolls and maybe some Holly Hobby paper dolls when I was little,vague memories of that. Did you?
AMY: Yeah, I did. I thought they were fun. Like the cutting,
KIM: Yeah. It's a craft
AMY: Yeah. Um, but interestingly, my Aunt Ruth, who, if you're listening… (Aunt Ruth sometimes listens to this podcast) but when I was very young, she sent me a paper doll book. It was called Chuck and Di have a Baby, and it was Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and it had all their most famous clothes, and it must have been right around the time when she was expecting William.
KIM: Oh my God.
AMY: And there was like a nondescript baby that you could stick in the bassinet. Um, but they had their like Balmoral, Scottish kilt outfits…
KIM: Oh, I can picture this.
AMY: And then more recently when Julia was little, I had got her something called Master Puppet Theater: The World of Shakespeare at Your Fingertips. They weren't quite paper dolls; they looked like playing cards, but they had two holes cut out in the bottom and it would have a figure on it, and your fingers would go through the holes so you could walk the cards around and do a little play, because it had 60 different Shakespeare characters. It came with a theater, like a proscenium theater. I'm gonna look, because it would be great for Cleo now. And it would have different background scenes that you could slide in, like the Forest of Arden or you know, a court scene, and then you would do your little finger puppets. But it was kind of like paper dolls, just because it was these cardboard cards.
KIM: But back to our topic for today, we want to give a shout-out to one of our favorite listeners (and they’re also going to be a future guest later this year.) She gave us the idea for this topic today.
AMY: Rosemary Kelty, you know us so well.
KIM: Yeah, she’s one of our biggest supporters. So we all know who Zelda Fitzgerald is, right? I sort of hate to reference her in relation to her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, because she was a talented and incredibly fascinating person in her own right.
AMY: That’s true. She’s remembered mostly as “the wife and muse of” Scott or she’s known for her schizophrenia and tragic death. I read the biography of Zelda by Nancy Milford a while back and once you read that you can’t help but be taken by Zelda’s effervescence. I always kind of picture her dancing around in pointe shoes and a tutu…
KIM: Drinking champagne…
AMY: Yes, exactly. She was one of the original flappers.
KIM: Mm-hmm. Yep.
AMY: And she was also an artist and novelist. But come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve read her most well-regarded novel, Save Me the Waltz. Have you, Kim?
KIM: No, and it's so weird, but it's like I know of her and I've known of her for what feels like my whole life, and I did not read this and haven't even tried to. I feel like I should.
AMY: Yeah. Maybe it's not great. Anyway, listeners, you gotta, yeah. Who, who's read this book, contact Us and let us know if it's worth reading. Um, So, although her name is well known to most people, maybe we do need to consider her for your future episode. Just the fact that we haven't read this book…
KIM: Let's take a poll in our new Facebook group.
AMY: That's a good idea. Yes. And really, there’s so much to her life story that we couldn’t possibly cover it all in today’s mini, so we’re going to focus on one very small but charming bit: the paper dolls she created for her daughter, Scottie.
KIM: Aww. As we mentioned, Zelda was an accomplished artist, and she began painting these creations in 1926 but continued working on them throughout her life, even up to two years before her death, which was in 1948. Her granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan, saved and collected these paper dolls which were recently compiled into a beautiful, 128-page book. It’s out from Scribner called The Paper Dolls of Zelda Fitzgerald.
AMY: I’d like to read a review of this collection by Paula McLain for The New York Times. She wrote: “The dolls retain an intimacy that’s more piercing somehow for being whimsical: playthings too gorgeous to touch. There are stowaways from classic fairy tales captured rapturously in gouache, with sly revisions (the Big Bad Wolff-Wolff has been granted a party dress) and notably prescient androgyny. Every flounce and shoe buckle of the courtiers, knights and musketeers reveals a studiousness close to reverence for the details of period costumery, just as the exaggerated musculature of the figures shows the painter’s deep knowledge of — and rapt fascination with — the human form.”
KIM: Oh my god, I need it. That sounds amazing!
AMY: Yeah, this book is actually something Zelda had wanted, in her lifetime, to see. She thought it would make a good book. She had approached her husband’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, about releasing something like this. (She’d sent a letter about it, but there’s no record that he ever replied to her.) Zelda did get the paper dolls placed in an exhibit at the Montgomery museum of Fine Arts in her hometown of Montgomery, AL. But now, seventy years after her death, the book version has finally come to fruition. Apparently Lanahan, her granddaughter, had first encountered the paper dolls when she was a kid and was rifling through her mother’s attic. She notes in the book that some of the dolls are actually made using scraps of fabric, crepe paper and foil. (but most are painted with watercolors). There are even some representations of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda and little Scottie. She actually depicted them. But others are fairy tale characters or historical figures from French courts. The one thing I kept thinking is how amazing it is that something so fragile as paper dolls could even have survived all this time.
KIM: Yeah I mean that’s crazy. I mean, that’s so amazing they did. I mean, this sounds like such a great gift idea. I mean, i want to get one for myself, but what a conversation piece to have sitting out on your coffee table. I mean, how beautiful.
AMY: Yeah. And I read that Lanahan, when she decided she wanted to compile all these, you know, she had to actually hunt some of these dolls up in other places, because some had been put up at auction at various points or just ended up scattered to the wind, so to speak. So she did the legwork of trying to find everything that was out there, but she suspects there are still more she doesn’t know about. So up in somebody else's attic, there might be more Zelda Fitzgerald paper dolls.
KIM: That’s a cool thought.
AMY: Yeah. And what’s interesting is that Lanahan herself grew up to be an illustrator of children’s books. So she was either inspired by the artwork of her grandmother that she saw, as a child or she inherited that artistic bent.
KIM: I love that. It’s also reminding me, isn’t there a TV show about Zelda that came out in the last few years?
AMY: Yeah, Amazon did a series called “Z: The Beginning of Everything” based on a novelized book about Zelda’s life by Therese Anne Fowler.
KIM: No relation.
AMY: No relation.Christina Ricci played Zelda…
KIM: Oh, I love Christina Ricci!
AMY: Oh, you hadn’t heard of it? It was only out for one season… and maybe that’s why we never watched it, because it just didn’t have enough longevity.
KIM: I'm gonna check it out. I mean, that's sounds…I think it's worth even watching, just even if there's only one season.
AMY: I know, because I do love that time period.
KIM: Yeah. And I feel like Christina Ricci wouldn't do something that wasn't
at least in its intention or conception, really, really good.
AMY: All right, so listeners, we also need you to weigh in on this is if anybody has watched Z.
KIM: Yeah. Yeah. Head to our Facebook forum and tell us.
AMY: And yeah, so speaking of our Facebook forum, we sort of have a group that we started.
KIM: Thanks to another of our listeners, Julia Valentine. And what a great suggestion, because we already have so much conversation happening on there between ourselves and listeners, and it's been really fun. I'm enjoying it.
AMY: Yeah, we had been looking for a way to interact with listeners more, and sort of keep the discussion alive after the episode ends, and it's been really fun so far. So go to facebook.com/groups/lostladiesoflitforum, or just search up Lost Ladies of Lit on Facebook and you'll find us and we will accept you right away and you'll be able to post and comment and do all the fun things. We'd love to hear more of your thoughts, opinions, questions, and maybe tips on future lost ladies.
KIM: And join us back next week for another full-length episode of Lost Ladies of Lit. Thanks for listening!
AMY: Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.