The Murphys tend nowadays to be classed merely as part of Scott Fitzgerald's social milieu and as the originals of Dick Diver and his wife in Tender is the Night. In fact, they were a power in themselves and were among the creators of the Riviera craze for boating, swimming and beach frolics - with, as a rule, a few stiff cocktails afterwards and maybe a party to follow in the evening. Picasso, Leger, Count Etienne de Beaumont and his wife were among their familiars, and so was the poet Archibald MacLeish (a very big name then) and the New Yorker set of Benchley, Dorothy Parker, etc. Gerald was himself a talented painter, though he did not pursue it. The idyll was shattered by the death of their young son Baoth from mastoiditis, from which they never quite recovered. The Murphys lived on long enough to be savaged by Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, which hurt them deeply.