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Zsa Zsa Gabor (ronunciation respelling key" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help
ronunciation_respelling_key">zhah-zhah ronunciation respelling key" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helpronunciation_respelling_key">gah-bor; born Sári Gábor; February 6, 1917 – December 18, 2016) was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite.[1]
Gabor began her stage career in Vienna and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936.[2] 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."[3] Her first film role was a supporting role 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.[4] Outside of her acting career, Gabor was best known for having had 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."[5]
Early life
Gabor was born February 6, 1917[6] in Budapest (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)[6][7] as Sári Gábor (Gábor Sári in Hungarian order, pronounced [ˈɡaːbor ˈʃaːri]). She was the middle of three daughters of Vilmos Gábor[8] (19 September 1881, Budapest[9] – 7 July 1962, Budapest[9]), a soldier, and Jolie Gabor (née Tilleman; 1896–1997).[10][11][12]She was reportedly named after Sári Fedák, a popular Hungarian entertainer.[13] Her elder sister, Magda, was a socialite, and her younger sister Eva, was an actress and businesswoman. Their parents were both from Jewish families.[14][15][16]
Gabor's mother, Jolie, was an aunt of Annette Lantos, the wife of Hungarian-born U.S. congressman and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos.[16][17] Jolie barely escaped Hungary after the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944,[16] crediting Magda's influential connections with rescuing her: "For Magda's Portuguese Ambassador [ Garrido ] I thank God. It was this man who saved my life."[18] 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 an Allied bombing raid. The fate of Zsa Zsa's three maternal aunts, Jolie's sisters, remains unclear.[18]
Career
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Following studies at Madame Subilia's, a Swiss boarding school, Zsa Zsa was discovered by tenor Richard Tauber on a trip toVienna in 1934 and was invited to sing the soubrette role in his new operetta, Der singende Traum (The Singing Dream), at theTheater an der Wien, making her first stage appearance. In 1936, she was crowned Miss Hungary. In 1944, she and a woman named Victoria Wolf wrote a novel that was bought by an American magazine. While fictional, it was partially derived from Zsa Zsa's own life experiences.[19] In 1949, she declined an offer to play the role of Lady Chatterley in a film version of the book Lady Chatterley's Lover due to its controversial theme.[20]
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."[21]
In his autobiography, television host Merv Griffin, who often squired Zsa Zsa's younger sister Eva socially, 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."[22]
Personal life
Gabor was married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage wasannulled. Her husbands, in chronological order, were:
- Burhan Asaf Belge (1937–1941; divorced)[23]
- Conrad Hilton (April 10, 1942 – 1947; divorced)[23][24]
- George Sanders (April 2, 1949 – April 2, 1954; divorced)[23]
- Herbert Hutner (November 5, 1962 – March 3, 1966; divorced)[25][26]
- Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. (March 9, 1966 – October 18, 1967; divorced)[27]
- Jack Ryan (January 21, 1975 – August 24, 1976; divorced)[28]
- Michael O'Hara (August 27, 1976 – 1983; divorced)[29]
- Felipe de Alba (April 13, 1983 – April 14, 1983; annulled)[30]
- Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (August 14, 1986 – December 18, 2016; her death)
Gabor arriving at a movie premiere in 1962
Gabor's 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."[31][32] When asked, "How many husbands have you had?", she was quoted as responding, "You mean other than my own?"[31]Gabor later claimed to have had a sexual encounter with her stepson, Nicky.[16]
In 1970, Gabor purchased a 8,878-square-foot Hollywood Regency-style home in Bel Air, which once belonged toElvis Presley. It was originally built by Howard Hughes[33]and featured a unique-looking French style roof. In June 2011, it was announced that Gabor placed the house for sale as it had "gotten too big to manage" for her. Originally put up for sale for $15 million, it was reduced to $12.9 million, and then pulled from the market. In 2012, the house was listed for sale again, at $14.9 million.[34][35][36]
Gabor's only child, a daughter named Constance Francesca Hilton, was born on March 10, 1947.[24] 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 had a child.[16] In 2005, a lawsuit was filed accusing her daughter of larcenyand fraud, alleging that she had forged her signature to get a US$2 million loan on her mother's Bel Air house. However, the Santa Monica Superior Court threw out the case due to Gabor's failure to appear in court or to sign an affidavit that she indeed was a co-plaintiffon the original lawsuit filed by her husband, Frédéric von Anhalt. Francesca Hilton died on January 5, 2015, at the age of 67 from a massive stroke.[37][38] Gabor′s husband never told her about her daughter′s death, fearing that this information could have caused Gabor's own death.[39][40]
On 11 April 2016, Gabor expressed her wishes to move back to Hungary during 2017 to live out the rest of her life there. Her husband stated that he was determined to make her wish come true and that he intended to arrange for "a big party in the summer" to celebrate the actress' 100th birthday, after which she would return to Budapest.[39]
Legal difficulties
On June 14, 1989, in Beverly Hills, California, Gabor was accused of slapping the face of Beverly Hills police officer Paul Kramer when he stopped her for a traffic violation at 8551Olympic Boulevard.[41] On September 29, 1989, it was announced that a jury convicted the actress of slapping a police officer, driving without a license and possessing an open container of alcohol—a flask of Jack Daniel's—in her $215,000 Rolls-Royce, but also acquitted her on charges of disobeying officer Kramer when she drove away from a routine traffic stop.[42] On October 25, 1989, it was announced that Beverly Hills Municipal Judge Charles G. Rubin had sentenced Gabor to serve three days in jail, to pay fines and restitution totaling $12,937, to perform 120 hours of community service—and to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.[43] On June 14, 1990, Gabor decided to drop her conviction appeal and agreed to serve her sentence.[44] However, Gabor refused to take part in community service and served three days in jail between July 27 and July 30, 1990.[45]
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 dollarlibel suit by 1993.[46]
2009 financial problems
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 inBernie Madoff's company, possibly through a third-party money manager.[47] Marcus Prinz von Anhalt, a German nightclub owner and adopted son of Gabor's husband, reportedly provided significant financial assistance to the couple.[48]
Official records of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York reportedly do not list Gabor as a victim.[49]
Later life and health
On November 28, 2002, Gabor was a front seat passenger in an automobile crash inSunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, from which she remained partially paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair for mobility. She survived strokes in 2005 and 2007 and underwent surgeries.[50] In 2010, she fractured her hip and underwent a successful hip replacement.[51][52]
In August 2010, Gabor was admitted to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in serious condition and received last rites from a Catholic priest.[53][54]
In 2011, her right leg was amputated above the knee to save her life from an infection.[55]She was hospitalized again in 2011 for numerous emergencies.[56][57][58]
On February 8, 2016, two days after her 99th birthday, Gabor was rushed to hospital after suffering from breathing difficulties. She was diagnosed with a feeding tube-related lung infection and was scheduled to undergo surgery to have her feeding tube removed.[59][60]
Death
Gabor died of a heart attack at her home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, on December 18, 2016, aged 99.[61] She had been on life support for the previous five years.[62]
Filmography
Film
Television (abridged)
Plays
Miss Gabor occasionally appeared in theatre. From 1961 to 1970, she portrayed Elvira in national tours of Blithe Spirit. In 1970, she made her Broadway debut in Forty Carats. From 1971 to 1983, she appeared in national tours of Forty Carats, Bell, Book and Candle,Blithe Spirit, Arsenic and Old Lace (with her sister, Eva), Finders Will Return, andNinotchka. Finally, in 1993, she portrayed the Fairy Godmother in UCLA's staging ofCinderella.
Bibliography
- Gabor, Zsa Zsa; Frank, Gerold (1960). Zsa Zsa Gábor: My Story. Cleveland, Ohio: World Pub. Co. OCLC 1069078.
- —— (1970). How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC 92114.
- ——; Leigh, Wendy (1991). One Lifetime Is Not Enough. New York, NY: Delacorte Press. ISBN 0-385-29882-X. [An abridged audio-cassette of the book, read by Miss Gabor and produced by Susan E. Perrin, was published by Simon & Schuster, in 1991.]
- Turtu, Anthony; Reuter, Donald F. (2001). Gaborabilia: An Illustrated Celebration of the Fabulous, Legendary Gabor Sisters. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80759-5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zsa_Zsa_Gabor
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