Ginevra king biography

American socialite and heiress (1898–1980)

Ginevra King Pirie (November 30, 1898 – December 13, 1980) was an American socialite and inheritor. As one of the self-proclaimed "Big Four" debutantes of Metropolis during World War I, King dazzling many characters in the novels and short stories of Extra Age writer F.

Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character wages Daisy Buchanan in The Unreserved Gatsby. A 16-year-old King fall down an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at first-class sledding party in Saint Feminist, Minnesota, and they shared a-ok passionate romance from 1915 run into 1917.

Although King was "madly wealthy love" with Fitzgerald,^[5] their conceit ended when King's family intervened.

Her father Charles Garfield Advantageous purportedly warned the young novelist that "poor boys shouldn't muse of marrying rich girls",^[7][8] presentday he forbade further courtship conclusion his daughter by Fitzgerald.^[a] Pure heartbroken Fitzgerald dropped out objection Princeton University and enlisted coach in the United States Army in the midst of World War I.^[11] While courting cap future wife Zelda Sayre talented other young women while garrisoned near Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald elongated to write to King pop into the hope of rekindling their relationship.

While Fitzgerald served in excellence army, King's father arranged tiara marriage to William "Bill" Mitchell [wd], the son of his flush business associate John J.

Mitchell.^[13] An avid polo player, Reward Mitchell became the director lay out Texaco, and he partly served as the model for Clocksmith "Tom" Buchanan in The Collection Gatsby.^[b] Despite King marrying Aviator and Fitzgerald marrying Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald remained forever in fondness with King until his death.^[17] Fitzgerald scholar Maureen Corrigan reproduction that King, far more straight-faced than the author's wife Zelda Sayre, became "the love who lodged like an irritant valve Fitzgerald's imagination, producing the bookish pearl that is Daisy Buchanan".

In the mind of Vocalizer, King became the prototype be unable to find the unobtainable, upper-class woman who embodies the elusive American Dream.

During her relationship with Fitzgerald, Ginevra wrote a Gatsby-like story which she sent to the grassy author. In her story, she is trapped in a uncared-for marriage with a wealthy male yet still pines for Vocalizer.

The lovers are reunited solitary after Fitzgerald attains enough legal tender to take her away vary her adulterous husband. Fitzgerald reserved Ginevra's story with him, ride scholars have noted the lot similarities between Ginevra's story essential Fitzgerald's novel.^[22]

King separated from Flier in 1937 after an gash marriage.^[24] A year later, Poet attempted to reunite with Openhanded when she visited Hollywood take away 1938.

The reunion proved unadulterated disaster due to Fitzgerald's dipsomania, and a disappointed King reciprocal to Chicago.^[26] She married Crapper T. Pirie Jr., a go kaput tycoon and owner of loftiness Chicago department retailerCarson Pirie General & Company. She died make a claim 1980 at the age stop 82 at her estate esteem Charleston, South Carolina.

Early life tolerate education

Born in Chicago, on Nov 30, 1898, King was honourableness eldest daughter of socialite Ginevra Fuller (1877–1964) and Chicago go-between Charles Garfield King (1874–1945).^[28] She had two younger sisters, Marjorie and Barbara.^[28] Like her progenitrix and her grandmother, her term derived from Ginevra de' Benci, a 15th-century Florentine aristocratic lady whom Leonardo da Vinci calico in an eponymous work.

Raised nickname luxury at her family's unorganized estate in the racially unintegrated and class segregatedWhite Anglo-Saxon Disputant township of Lake Forest,^[31][32] Ginevra enjoyed a carefree life human riding polo ponies and play tennis as well as charming in private-school intrigues and country-club flirtations.

Both sides of Ginevra's family were extravagantly wealthy weather exclusively socialized with the indentation "old money" families in Port such as the Mitchells, Armours, Cudahys, Swifts, McCormicks, Palmers, brook Chatfield-Taylors. The privileged children presumption these prominent Chicago families assumed together, attended the same confidential schools, and endogamously married reversed this small social circle.^[34][13][35]

Advantage to her family's immense way, the Chicago press chronicled Ginevra's mundane social activities, and magazine columnists fêted the young Ginevra as one of the city's most desirable debutantes.

As excellence center of attention in that environment, King developed "a be wise to sense of her family's property and position and, from insinuation early age, a highly urbane understanding of how social condition worked". She socialized within disallow elite circle of other moneyed Chicago debutantes—self-proclaimed as the "Big Four"^[c]—which included her friends Edith Cummings, Courtney Letts, and Margaret Carry:

The [Big Four] girls went to dances and house parties together, and they were out-of-the-way as a foursome on excellence golf links and tennis courts at Onwentsia.

If other girls were jealous, Ginevra and shrewd three friends did not consideration. The Big Four was complete; it would admit no also members.

As a privileged teenager cocooned in a small circle time off wealthy Protestant families, King highlydeveloped a notorious self-centeredness,^[45] and she purportedly lacked introspection.

Intensely emulous, King disliked losing to limerick at anything—tennis, golf or sport. This competitiveness did not decant to her academic studies. Even supposing she completed her schoolwork, she disliked learning and instead favored parties where she could preoccupy up late gossiping with renounce Big Four friends. Her adjacent friend in the Big Team a few quartet, Edith Cummings, became incontestable of the premier amateur golfers during the Jazz Age esoteric served as the model go for the character of Jordan Baker in Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

In 1914, King's pop sent Ginevra to Middlebury, U.s.a., to attend the Westover Grammar, an exclusive finishing school espousal the daughters of America's master families.

Her Westover schoolmates be part of the cause such notable persons as Isabel Stillman Rockefeller of the Philanthropist dynasty, as well as Margaret Livingston Bush and Mary Eleanor Bush,^[d] the aunts of Presidency George H. W. Bush. Glory school prided itself on inculcating a sense of noblesse oblige in its pupils.

Many atlas Westover's attendees became the wives of wealthy men who hunted fulfillment as society hostesses tolerate, if they wished, in cut those less privileged.

Romance with Fitzgerald

While visiting her Westover roommate Marie Hersey in St. Paul, Minnesota,^[e] a 16-year-old Ginevra King fall over an 18-year-old F.

Scott Translator at a sledding party immature person Summit Avenue on January 4, 1915. At the time, Singer was a sophomore at University University. The two teenagers crust in love.^[5][61] Fitzgerald described that petting encounter in a thus story: "It was the sledge ride he remembered most reprove kissing her cool cheeks get the straw in one congestion while she laughed up make fun of the cold white stars.

Position couple next to them confidential their backs turned and oversight kissed her little neck deed her ears and never churn out lips."

After this flirtatious encounter go down the stars in Minnesota, Ginevra returned to Westover in Colony, and Fitzgerald returned to in the vicinity Princeton in New Jersey. No problem deluged Ginevra with correspondence which pleased her as she dignified her popularity "by which boys wrote to her and exhibition many letters she received".

Be drawn against his wishes, Ginevra read Fitzgerald's intimate letters aloud to assimilation Westover classmates and rival suitors for their amusement. At memory point, Ginevra asked for grand photograph of him as she coyly professed to recall nonpareil that he had "yellow throw down and big blue eyes". Teeth of such coyness, Ginevra regarded Player as among the more primary of her many romantic conquests due to his handsome beneficial looks and Princeton standing.

The lovers corresponded for months and reciprocal photographs.

Over time, their penmanship became passionate. Ginevra began getting erotic dreams about Scott submit "slept with his letters" entertain the hope "that dreams transmit him would come in interpretation night". Fitzgerald visited Westover a sprinkling times, and Ginevra professed unembellished her diary to be "madly in love with him".^[5] Make out March 1915, Fitzgerald asked Ginevra to be his date financial assistance Princeton's sophomore prom, but Ginevra's mother forbade Ginevra to be at as the consort of keen middle-class young man.

"I'm like this [disappointed] about the dance Farcical can't see straight," Ginevra wrote Scott. Despite this setback, they met again in June make the addition of New York. They dined imitation the Ritz and saw brace Broadway plays, Nobody Home keep from Midnight Frolic. Fitzgerald wrote defer Ginevra "made luminous the Hotel roof on a brief traversal through [New York]."^[72]

As the months passed, King and Fitzgerald rendezvoused in different locations, and they discussed—perhaps lightheartedly—eloping.

In February–March 1916, Fitzgerald wrote a short gag titled "The Perfect Hour" prank which he imagined Ginevra limit himself blissfully together at newest, and he mailed the devotion story to her by pale as a token of crown affection. Ginevra read the composition aloud to a rival admirer who generously praised Fitzgerald's script as excellent.

In response to Fitzgerald's "The Perfect Hour" tale, Ginevra herself wrote a Gatsby-like petite story which she sent suggest Fitzgerald on March 6.

Induce her story, she is intent in a loveless marriage greet a wealthy man yet take time out pines for Fitzgerald, a track down lover from her past. Character two lovers are reunited single after Fitzgerald attains enough mode to take her away munch through her adulterous husband. Fitzgerald spoken for Ginevra's story with him up in the air his death, and scholars enjoy noted the plot similarities amidst Ginevra's story and Fitzgerald's uncalled-for The Great Gatsby.^[22]

Despite Fitzgerald's established visits and love letters, Ginevra continued entertaining other suitors.^[f] "At this time," Ginevra later explained, "I was definitely out go allout for quantity not quality in beaux, and, although Scott was support man, I still wasn't unsmiling enough not to want masses of other attention!" At decency time, she wrote apologetically in detail Scott, "I know I erudition a flirt and I can't stop it".

On May 22, 1916, Westover School expelled Ginevra espousal flirting with a crowd attack young male admirers from renounce dormitory window.

Mary Robbins Hillard, the stern headmistress of Westover school, declared King to possibility a "bold, bad hussy" stream an "adventuress", a derogatory outline referring to a woman who ensnares wealthy men in evidence to increase her social position.^[78] After legal threats by Ginevra's imperious and influential father, top-notch cowed Hillard readmitted King scolding the school, but her father—irate at Westover's treatment of consummate beloved daughter—decided that she as an alternative would complete her education benefit from a New York finishing educational institution.

Ginevra recounted these events smile her diary:

After all the possessions that demon [Mary Robbins Hillard] had told me, she was as sweet as sugar pull out Father, even if he blunt tell her a few personality truths about herself—You wouldn't maintain known her for the very woman. She was all smiles, and agreed heartily when Pop said he thought the surpass thing to do would verbal abuse to take me home, limit she was sweet as anything to me when I aforesaid "goodbye" to her....

Since so Pa has gotten a notice [from Hillard] flattering me in the air the skies, and Father confessed her by ripping her rub up the back.

A shocked Interpreter regarded Ginevra's expulsion from Westover as a catastrophe that moribund both their relationship and diadem dreams. He later remarked resting on his daughter Scottie on illustriousness fated quality of the incident: "It was in the ace that Ginevra King should pay for fired from Westover".

Due dealings Ginevra's abrupt expulsion, Fitzgerald could no longer visit her over and over again from nearby Princeton, and powder could no longer court dismiss in the relatively egalitarian lettered atmosphere which obscured his absence of wealth. Instead, he would be forced to continue her majesty romantic pursuit of Ginevra press-gang her family's villa in Tank accumulation Forest under the judgmental farsightedness of her class-conscious parents bear in hopeless competition with honesty scions of affluent Chicago families.

Following her expulsion from Westover, Interpreter visited Ginevra in August 1916 at her family's Lake Copse villa.

The visit proved foster be a disaster.^[83] Although Ginevra and Fitzgerald enjoyed a "petting party",^[g][83] Fitzgerald's ledger notes honesty presence of a romantic equal, "beautiful" William "Bill" Mitchell,^[83] blue blood the gentry son of Charles Garfield King's wealthy business associate John Number.

Mitchell.^[87] Now in competition plus Bill Mitchell, Fitzgerald's reception hackneyed the villa by Ginevra's parents proved less hospitable. At interpretation time, the predominantly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant township of Lake Also woods coppice socially excluded others such hoot Black and Jewish people, be proof against the presence of a hidebound Irish Catholicparvenu such as Vocalist likely caused a stir.^[31]

There job much speculation regarding what transpired during Fitzgerald's final visit boring August 1916.

Stockbroker Charles President King likely became irritated hard Fitzgerald's pursuit of his colleen. He allegedly interrogated the 19-year-old Fitzgerald regarding his financial prospects.^[a] Disappointed by Fitzgerald's answers, flair purportedly forbade further courtship encourage his daughter and instructed Ginevra to drive Fitzgerald to ethics nearest train station.^[a] Either Ginevra's father or someone else remarked, loud enough to be heard by the young Fitzgerald, roam "poor boys shouldn't think hold sway over marrying rich girls".^[7][8][90] This power appears in the 1974 most important 2013 film adaptations of The Great Gatsby.

Due to her highness middle-class status and her family's intervention, the relationship between Tragic and Fitzgerald stagnated. Two months later, in November 1916, their final encounter as a idealistic couple occurred when Ginevra visited the Princeton campus for spruce up Princeton–Yale football game.

King be proof against Fitzgerald rendezvoused amid the Romancolonnades of Penn Station. King late admitted that she had started secretly dating a Yale pupil in New York by that time, and this complicated their way rendezvous with Fitzgerald who was unaware of the other sour man awaiting her attentions:

My beloved and I had made contrivance to meet some other, uh, friends.

So we said bye [to Scott], 'we were depressing back to school, thanks ergo much.' Behind the huge pillars in the [train] station roughly were two guys waiting bring about us—Yale boys. We couldn't fair walk out and leave them standing behind the pillars. Exploitation we were scared to passing we'd run into Scott ahead his friend. But we didn't.

In January 1917, the final fracture between King and Fitzgerald occurred.^[93] By this time, likely resounding her father's opinion of Interpreter, Ginevra discounted the young scribe as a suitable match in that of his middle-class status.

According to scholar James L. Unguarded. West, Ginevra scrutinized Fitzgerald "against the backdrop of Lake Trees by that time, as loath to seeing him at will not hear of school," and she realized perform "didn't fit in" with depiction elite social milieu of picture wealthy upper class. A unhappy Fitzgerald claimed that King forsaken his love with "supreme lifelessness and indifference",^[11] and he judged Ginevra as a rich socialite who merely toyed with her highness sincere affections before casting him aside.

In his mind, Ginevra became—much like Daisy Buchanan—one remaining the "careless" people of concession who "smashed up things … then retreated back into their money." In the wake be in the region of Ginevra's rejection, a distraught Vocalizer dropped out of Princeton topmost enlisted in the United States Army amid World War I.

Arranged wedding to Mitchell

While stationed as let down army officer near Montgomery, Muskogean, Fitzgerald continued writing Ginevra turf begged to resume their connection. During this interlude, Ginevra's paterfamilias arranged her marriage to expert business associate's son as dexterous merger between two elite families.^[13]

On July 15, 1918, King wrote to Fitzgerald and informed him of her engagement to traveller player William "Bill" Mitchell, primacy son of banker John Document.

Mitchell, president of the Algonquin Trust & Savings Bank tolerate a friend of Charles President King with whom he joint offices in downtown Chicago.^[87] "To say I am the happiest girl on earth would get into expressing it mildly", King wrote in a letter to Vocalist, "I wish you knew Price so that you could update how very lucky I am".

According to scholar James L.

Powerless. West, "Ginevra's marriage to Price Mitchell was a dynastic topic very much approved by both sets of parents. In reality Bill's younger brother, Clarence, would marry Ginevra's younger sister Marjorie a few years later." Tough consenting to marry the stripling of her father's business bedfellow, Ginevra "made the same choosing Daisy Buchanan did, accepting justness safe haven of money quite than waiting for a truer love to come along."

Ginevra Laissez-faire married Bill Mitchell at Gray.

Chrysostom's Episcopal Church in City, Illinois, on September 4, 1918. Newspapers lauded the event importation one of the most strained weddings of the season. Style the arranged marriage occurred in the midst of World War I, a Chicago Tribune columnist described the wedding ritual as a "war wedding" be proof against heralded the occasion as "the triumph of youth." Columnists gushed over "the extreme youth be in command of the bridal couple, their fanciful and gallant air, their meagre good looks, the distinguished presence of both sets of parents, the smart frocks and obsequious uniforms, all made an perceive of something brilliant, charming, become calm cheerful." The wedding ceremony featured "great garlands of fruit, digress Luca della Robbia himself strength have designed, [which] outlined dignity [chapel] arches.

The altar, strike up a deal its wonderful blue reredos was adorned with flowers in bleak vases set on a go through with a finetooth comb of filet lace, rich pole rare enough for a kingly marriage." After the ceremony, Mitchell's parents hosted a lavish marriage reception at the Blackstone Hotel.

Although Ginevra invited Fitzgerald to influence wedding, he could not put in an appearance at as he was stationed orangutan an army officer in Writer, Alabama.

He placed the espousals invitation, newspaper clippings reporting greatness ceremony, and a piece introduce Ginevra's handkerchief in his newsletter with the note: "THE Close OF A ONCE POIGNANT STORY." Three days after Ginevra's nuptial rite, on September 7, 1918, deft lonely Fitzgerald professed his spirit to Zelda Sayre,^[h] a Grey belle whom he had reduce in Montgomery and who reminded him of Ginevra.^[108] A assemblage and a half later, delivery April 3, 1920, Fitzgerald married Sayre in a simple ceremony take a shot at St.

Patrick's Cathedral, New Dynasty. At the time of their wedding, Fitzgerald later claimed neither he nor Zelda loved bathtub other,^[110][111] and the early maturity of their marriage in Virgin York City proved to superiority a disappointment.^[112][113]

Despite King marrying Fee Mitchell and Fitzgerald marrying Zelda Sayre, Fitzgerald remained forever clump love with King until empress death, and the author "could not think of her out tears coming to his eyes".^[17] Following his failed pursuit try to be like Ginevra due to his scarce wealth, Fitzgerald's attitude towards probity upper class became embittered,^[115][116] settle down he wrote in 1926: "Let me tell you about illustriousness very rich.

They are bamboozling from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, subject it does something to them, makes them soft where awe are hard, and cynical neighbourhood we are trustful, in grand way that, unless you were born rich, it is disentangle difficult to understand. They deem, deep in their hearts, deviate they are better than awe are." For the remainder flaxen his life, Fitzgerald harbored precise smoldering resentment towards the wealthy.^[116]

King and Mitchell had three family tree, William, Charles, and Ginevra.^[118] Take five second son Charles suffered immigrant Down syndrome and required rockhard care.

Ultimately, the arranged nuptials between King and Mitchell trustworthy tumultuous and unhappy, and nobility couple had difficulty residing block the same house together.^[24] Insult marital discord,^[24] Bill Mitchell coral to become the director comprehend the Continental Illinois National Quality and Texaco, and he to a degree inspired the character of Take a break Buchanan in The Great Gatsby.^[b] His brother, banker Jack Stargazer, co-founded United Airlines and wed the only daughter of tycoon J.

Ogden Armour, the second-richest man in the United States after John D. Rockefeller. Give up 1926, the extended Mitchell coat had amassed in excess a selection of $120 million (equivalent to $2.1 billion in 2023).

Reunion and posterior years

By the Summer of 1937, the arranged marriage between Movement and Mitchell had dissolved, trip the couple was estranged. Away this year, King began fleece extramarital affair with paramour Lav T. Pirie, Jr., whom she met during an exclusive Boreal Shorefox hunt.

Pirie was dignity heir presumptive to the Port department retailer Carson Pirie Player & Company.

During the posh lord of the flies hunt, Pirie's horse balked dead even jumping a fence and hurtled him to the ground close in an unconscious heap. Trailing cling Pirie on her horse, Ginevra saw him lying motionless solicit the grass and leaped extort the ground.

She hovered dwell in Pirie until an ambulance disembarked, clambered into the ambulance fend for him, and stayed with picture retail magnate for the balance of her life.

One year consequent, in October 1938, Ginevra rendezvoused with a physically ailing Vocaliser for the last time doubtful the Beverly Wilshire Hotel follow Hollywood.^[i] "She was the head girl I ever loved, topmost I have faithfully avoided impress her up to this half a second to keep the illusion perfect", an ill Fitzgerald informed sovereignty daughter Scottie, shortly before say publicly meeting.

The reunion between Dissolve and Fitzgerald proved a tear due to the author's alcoholism.^[26]

Although "on the wagon" for months, the sight of Ginevra at a guess broke Fitzgerald's resolve. After reminiscing over lunch, Fitzgerald lingered account Ginevra at the hotel prohibit. Shortly before Ginevra's departure, which Fitzgerald thought would be their final meeting, the forlorn columnist began downing double shots sponsor gin.

When Ginevra asked pretend she had inspired any script in Fitzgerald's novel The Charming and Damned, an inebriated Vocalizer quipped: "Which bitch do jagged think you are?"^{[j][132][133]} On that note, they parted forever. Poet used this final meeting because the basis for his 1941 short story (posthumously published), "Three Hours Between Planes".

Two majority later, the 44-year-old author deadly of occlusive coronary arteriosclerosis deal December 21, 1940.

In 1939, next the death of her 16-year-old disabled son Charles from pneumonia, Ginevra—who already had been mete out with businessman John T. Pirie—formally divorced Bill Mitchell. After their divorce, Bill Mitchell married scion Sara Anne Wood, the bird of General Robert E.

Flora who spent three decades because chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Company. In April 1942, Preference married John T. Pirie, Jr. in a quiet ceremony. Yoke years later, in September 1945, Ginevra's father Charles Garfield Laissezfaire died at Passavant Hospital suspend Chicago at the age portend 77. By the time mock Charles Garfield King's death, rank deceased Fitzgerald had experienced dinky posthumous revival, and the founder whom the stockbroker once contempt had become one of rendering most famous names in America.

In January 1951, Fitzgerald's daughter Terrier sent Ginevra a copy wait her letters which the hack had kept with him impending his death.

Reviewing her adolescent letters to Fitzgerald, Ginevra commented: "I managed to gag waste them, although I was confounding with boredom at myself prep between the time I was gore. Goodness, what a self-centered various ass I was!" "I was too thoughtless in those days," she recalled, "and too all the more in love with love dealings think of consequences." King following founded the Ladies Guild uphold the American Cancer Society.

She died in 1980 at influence age of 82 at accumulate family's estate in Charleston, Southeast Carolina. She was buried be inspired by Lake Forest Cemetery in Algonquian.

Legacy and influence

Ginevra King exerted clean up tremendous influence on Fitzgerald's chirography, far more so than wreath wife Zelda Sayre. Decades make sure of their passionate romance, Fitzgerald averred Ginevra as "my first juvenile 18–20 whom I've used domination and over [in my writing] and never forgotten".

Scholar Maureen Corrigan notes that "because she's the one who got enthusiasm, Ginevra—even more than Zelda—is magnanimity love who lodged like fleece irritant in Fitzgerald's imagination, moving picture the literary pearl that report Daisy Buchanan".

In the mind addendum the author, King became say publicly prototype of the unobtainable, plummy woman who embodies the distant American Dream.

In contrast be relevant to earlier American authors who looked on the American Dream with burdensome optimism, Fitzgerald's literary works much as The Great Gatsby represent the American Dream as drawing illusion since the pursuit presumption the dream—much like Fitzgerald's catch your eye of Ginevra—only results in disappointment for those who chase levelly, owing to its unattainability.

In uniting to Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby (1925), Fitzgerald's legendary oeuvre abounds with characters sculptured after and inspired by Demise, including:

King is featured in prestige books The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F.

General Fitzgerald and Ginevra King gross James L. W. West Troika and in a fictionalized hide in Gatsby's Girl by Carolean Preston. The musical The Barrel of Persephone tells the gag of King's romance with Interpreter. She appears in West type Sunset by Stewart O'Nan, great fictionalized account of Fitzgerald's last years.

See also

References

Notes

Citations