Zelda Fitzgerald was once described by her husband, the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, as the first American flapper.
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Like the hedonistic Jazz Age of which she was an uninhibited flag bearer, Zelda flamed out. Alcoholism and mental illness - she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had several breakdowns - beset her adult life and the marriage to F. Scott was troubled, with each accusing the other of infidelity, jealousy and plagiarism.
Zelda died in a hospital fire eight years after F. Scott's sudden death in 1940 aged 44.
But now a very modern Hollywood darling, Jennifer Lawrence, is said to be lining up to play the socialite in a dramatic adaption of the Nancy Milford biography, Zelda, currently in development by veteran film director Ron Howard.
The project re-teams Lawrence with producer Allison Shearmur who worked with the actress on The Hunger Games, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Shearmur (Cinderella and the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is producing the untitled project with Brian Oliver (Hacksaw Ridge). Lawrence and producing partner Justine Ciarrocchi also will serve as producers.
The filmmakers have optioned Milford's best-selling biography, shortlisted for the 1970 Pulitzer Prize, to serve as the inspiration for the screenplay.
It's the second film to chronicle the Fitzgerald marriage in film production. Avengers star Scarlett Johannson was reported in April to have signed on to play Zelda Fitzgerald in a biopic about the famous couple, The Beautiful And The Damned.
F. Scott wrote The Great Gatsby, regarded as one of the greatest novels of the American Jazz Age, in 1925.
His follow-up novel nine years later, the semi-autobiographical Tender is the Night, about an American psychiatrist living in Paris, France, and his troubled marriage to a wealthy patient, was published after Zelda wrote her own fictional account of their lives in Europe, Save Me the Waltz.
