This account of the life of Gala Dali describes an extraordinary love story. When she died at the age of 87 in 1982, Salvador Dali locked himself in her room, drew the curtains, and refused to eat. The couple were married for 50 years, Gala being instrumental in pulling Dali back from the verge of madness and nursing him through depressions and illnesses, real as well as imaginary. This biography describes her profound influence on Dali's painting and attempts to establish the fact that Gala was the key to understanding much of the work of the great surrealist painter. The book also covers Gala Dali's early years in Paris in the 1920s and her first marriage to Paul Elouard.