Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor
Publicity photo of Gabor, 1955
Born	Sári Gábor February 6, 1917 (1917-02-06) (age 95) Budapest, Austria-Hungary (present-day Budapest, Hungary)
Nationality	Hungarian American
Occupation	Actress, socialite
Years active	1936–1997
Spouse	Burhan Asaf Belge (1937–41; divorced) Conrad Hilton (1942–46; divorced) George Sanders (1949–54; divorced) Herbert Hutner (1962–66; divorced) Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. (1966–67; divorced) Jack Ryan (1975–76; divorced) Michael O'Hara (1976–83; divorced) Felipe de Alba (1983; annulled) Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (1986–present)
Children	Francesca Hilton (b. 1947)
Parents	Vilmos and Jolie Gabor
Relatives	Magda Gabor, Eva Gabor (sisters, deceased)

Zsa Zsa Gabor  /ˈʒɑːʒɑː ɡəˈbɔər/ (Hungarian: Gábor Zsazsa [ˈɡaːbɔr ˈʒɒʒɒ], born February 6, 1917) is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.

She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936.^[1] She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that "exuded charm and grace".^[2] Her first movie role was as supporting actress in Lovely to Look At. She later acted in We're Not Married! and played one of her few leading roles in Moulin Rouge (1952), directed by John Huston, who described her as a "creditable" actress.^[3] Besides her film and television appearances, she is best known for having nine husbands, including hotel magnate Conrad Hilton and actor George Sanders. She once stated, "Men have always liked me and I have always liked men. But I like a mannish man, a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman—not just a man with muscles."^[4]

Early life and career

Born in Budapest (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), her birth name was Sári Gábor. She is the middle of three daughters born to Vilmos Gábor (1884–1962), a soldier, and Jolie Gábor (died 1997).^[5] Gabor was named after Sári Fedák, a popular Hungarian actress.^[6] Her elder sister Magda was a socialite and her younger sister Eva was an actress and businesswoman.

Gabor's mother, Jolie, was an aunt of Annette Lantos, wife of Hungarian-born U.S. congressman and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos.^[7][8] Jolie was of Jewish descent^[9] and barely escaped from Hungary after the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944. She credits Magda's lover for helping her: "For Magda's Portuguese Ambassador I thank God. It was this man who saved my life."^[10] Gabor's maternal grandmother and uncle Sebastian (Annette Lantos's father) chose to remain in Budapest feeling they "had a good place to hide". However, both died during a bombing raid.^[10]

Following studies at Madame Subilia's, a Swiss boarding school, Zsa Zsa Gabor was discovered by the tenor Richard Tauber on a trip to Vienna in 1936 and was invited to sing the soubrette role in his new operetta, Der singende Traum ("The Singing Dream") at the Theater an der Wien, her first stage appearance. Author Gerold Frank, who helped Gabor write her autobiography in 1960, describes his impressions of her while the book was being written:

Zsa Zsa is unique. She's a woman from the court of Louis XV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century, undamaged by the PTA ... She says she wants to be all the Pompadours and Du Barrys of history rolled into one, but she also says, "I always goof. I pay all my own bills ... I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me."^[11]

Television host Merv Griffin, in his autobiography, described the Gabors, "in their heyday," as "glamour personified": "All these years later, it's hard to describe the phenomenon of the three glamorous Gabor girls and their ubiquitous mother. They burst onto the society pages and into the gossip columns so suddenly, and with such force, it was as if they'd been dropped out of the sky." ^[12]

A biopic is to be made on her life by Italian director Gabriela Tagliavini^[13] who claimed that Gabor "is a perfect celebrity to be the focus of a movie". According to Insider, Gabor is "an original. Her free spirit, eccentricity and wicked wit made her one of the most memorable celebrities of our time."^[13] Gabor's husband will reportedly be involved in the film's production.^[13]

Personal life

Gabor has been married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage was annulled. Her husbands, in chronological order, are:

At a social affair, c. 1954 accompanied by international playboy and diplomat Porfirio Rubirosa (behind her, to the left)

• Burhan Asaf Belge (1937–1941) (divorced)^[14]
• Conrad Hilton (April 10, 1942 – 1947) (divorced)^[14][15]
• George Sanders (April 2, 1949 – April 2, 1954) (divorced)^[14]
• Herbert Hutner (November 5, 1962 – March 3, 1966) (divorced)^[16][17]
• Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. (March 9, 1966 – October 18, 1967) (divorced)^[18]
• Jack Ryan (January 21, 1975 – August 24, 1976) (divorced)^[19]
• Michael O'Hara (August 27, 1976 – 1983) (divorced)^[20]
• Felipe de Alba (April 13, 1983 – April 14, 1983) (annulled)^[21]
• Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (August 14, 1986 – present)

Gabor's high number of divorces inspired her to make numerous quotable puns and innuendos about her marital (and extramarital) history. She commented: "I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house."^[22][23] When asked, "How many husbands have you had?", she was quoted as responding, "You mean other than [or 'apart from'] my own?".^[22]

While Gabor was still married to Conrad Hilton, she once admitted to having sexual relations with her stepson Nicky, future husband of Elizabeth Taylor.^[24]

In 1974, she purchased a home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California which once belonged to Elvis Presley.^{[citation needed]} It was originally built by Howard Hughes^[25] and featured a unique looking French style roof.

Gabor's only child, a daughter named Constance Francesca Hilton, was born on March 10, 1947.^[15] According to Gabor's 1991 autobiography One Lifetime Is Not Enough, her pregnancy resulted from rape by then-husband Conrad Hilton. She was the only Gabor sister to have a child.^[24] In 2005, Gabor accused her daughter of larceny and fraud, alleging that she had forged her signature to get a $2 million loan on her mother's Bel Air house, and filed a lawsuit against Francesca in a California court. However, the Santa Monica Superior Court threw out the case due to Gabor's refusal to appear in court or to sign an affidavit that she indeed was a co-plaintiff on the original lawsuit filed by her husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt.^[26]

Gabor said in a November 27, 1991, interview with David Letterman that she is a Democrat.^{[citation needed]}

Health

In 2002, Gabor was a passenger in an automobile crash in Los Angeles, from which she would remain partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. She suffered strokes in 2005 and 2007 and underwent surgeries.^[27] In 2010, Gabor fractured and underwent a successful hip replacement.^[28][29] In 2011, her right leg was amputated above the knee to save her life due to an infection.^[30] She was hospitalized again during 2011 for various emergencies.^[31][32][33]

Legal difficulties

Publicity photo, c. 1955

On June 14, 1989, in Beverly Hills, California Gabor was accused of slapping the face of a police officer named Paul Kramer when he stopped her for a traffic violation.^[34] She poked fun at her role in the incident in various cameo appearances, most notably in the 1991 comedy The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, where she swats the police siren at the end of the opening credits shouting, "This happens every fucking time I go shopping!!"

Gabor also had a long-running feud with German-born actress Elke Sommer that began in 1984 when both appeared on Circus of the Stars and escalated into a multi-million dollar libel suit by 1993.^[35]

Financial problems (2009)

On January 25, 2009, the Associated Press reported that her attorney stated that forensic accountants determined that Gabor may have lost as much as $10 million invested in Bernard Madoff's company, possibly through a third-party money manager.^[36][37] Marcus Prinz von Anhalt, a German nightclub owner and adopted son of Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, reportedly provided significant financial assistance to the couple.^[38] However, official New York Bankruptcy Court records reportedly do not show Gabor as a victim.^[39]

Filmography

Television

Plays

Gabor appeared in several plays, most notably Forty Carats, on Broadway, and Blithe Spirit (as Elvira), in the national tour.

Bibliography

• Zsa Zsa Gabor, My Story By Zsa Zsa Gabor with Gerold Frank, The World Publishing Company, 1960.
• How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, and How to Get Rid of a Man, by Zsa Zsa Gabor, Doubleday, 1970.
• One Lifetime Is Not Enough, by Zsa Zsa Gabor, assisted by and edited by Wendy Leigh, Delacorte Press, 1991. ISBN 0-385-29882-X
• Gaborabilia, by Anthony Turtu and Donald F Reuter, Three Rivers Press, 2001. ISBN 0-609-80759-5

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zsa Zsa Gabor

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Zsa Zsa Gabor

• Zsa Zsa Gabor at the Internet Movie Database
• Zsa Zsa Gabor at the TCM Movie Database
• Gabor family's website
• Zsa Zsa Gabor in Her Heyday - slideshow by Life magazine
• Video: Zsa Zsa Gabor being roasted by comedian Corbett Monica, Dean Martin Show, circa 1980