Eva Gabor played the lovably silly Lisa Douglas on Green Acres, a 1965-70 sitcom about city sophisticates who move to the country. Gabor and her sisters Zsa Zsa and Magda were a popular trio of celebrity beauties in their day, with Zsa Zsa and Eva being nearly interchangeable -- blondes in furs with Hungarian accents. Eva Gabor had a scattershot career in Hollywood movies; her best-known role was probably the high-strung Paris beauty Liane d'Exelmans in the 1958 musical Gigi. Eva Gabor also appeared on Broadway, notably in the 1950 hit The Happy Time.
Gabor was married five times... She did voices for the Disney animated films The Aristocats (1970) and The Rescuers (1977)... Her husband on Green Acres was played by Eddie Albert.
Career Highlights: Gigi, The Aristocats, It Started with a Kiss
First Major Screen Credit: Pacific Blackout (1941)
Biography
Best known as the Gabor sister with talent, actress Eva Gabor began her career as a cabaret singer and ice skater in her native Hungary. Forced to emigrate to the U.S. at the outbreak of World War II, Gabor was able to secure film work in mystery-woman parts in such films as Forced Landing and Pacific Blackout (both 1941). The actress didn't truly achieve star stature until her Broadway appearance in The Happy Time (1950), though, curiously, she wasn't called upon to appear in the 1952 film version. Gabor's movie career, in fact, remained rooted in supporting roles, such as one of Vincent Price's victims in The Mad Magician (1954) and as Liane d'Exelmans in the Oscar-winning Gigi (1958). Like her sister Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eva has accrued plenty of press coverage thanks to her multiple marriages, but, unlike Zsa Zsa, Gabor has managed to stay off the police blotter -- except for a 1964 incident in which she was nearly killed fighting off a couple of vicious diamond robbers. Gabor's best-loved public appearances were manifested in her five-year run as Lisa Douglas on the popular TV sitcom Green Acres (1965-1970). Contrary to the Gabor Sisters' image of contentiousness, Eva was well liked on the Green Acres set by both co-star Eddie Albert and director Richard Bare, who had nothing but praise for her professionalism and comic timing. Gabor proved she hadn't lost her touch in 1990 when the inevitable Green Acres two-hour revival movie made its way to television. She died in 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Like her sisters, Eva Gabor was known for her string of marriages; she had five:
1939-1942: Eric Drimmer, a Swedish physician
1943-1950: Charles Isaacs
1956-1957: John Williams, an American physician
1959-1972: Richard Brown
1973-1983: Frank Gard Jameson
All of the marriages were childless.
Death
Eva Gabor died on July 4, 1995, aged 76, from respiratory failure and pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, following an accident in which she lost her balance and fell into her bathtub in Mexico, where she had been on vacation.
Although the youngest of the three sisters, she was the first to die. On April 1, 1997, her 100-year-old mother, Jolie, died, unaware of Eva's death. On June 6, 1997, her eldest sister Magda died from renal failure.
