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Member Number: 4710
Long before there was Paris Hilton, there was her great-aunt, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and her sisters Eva and Magda. Gabor has been called the first celebrity to be famous solely for her celebrity. Like Hilton, she was gossip fodder before she had any accomplishments, at least by normal standards of accomplishment, and all aspects of her life have been covered in the tabloids.
Zsa Zsa Gabor was probably born in 1917, although the zaftig Gabor girls always did their best to muddle up the records (even their mother's reported date of birth varies by as much as five years). As a young girl, Gabor may have competed in the Miss Hungary contest, or maybe not. At different times different Gabor sisters have claimed to have won that pageant, or have been runners-up. In 1937, Gabor married a Turkish foreign affairs minister who was considerably older than she was. She has claimed that they never consummated their marriage. Upon their arrival in Turkey, she caught the eye of Kemal Ataturk, President of Turkey, and they enjoyed a romance that lasted several months.
In 1941, having newly arrived in the United States, Gabor divorced her first husband and met Conrad Hilton (not necessarily in that order). Hilton, of the hotel Hiltons, married Gabor in 1942, but soon found his new bride was a profligate spender, and placed her on a strict $250-a-month allowance, souring their marriage. While pregnant with their daughter -- the only child any of the Gabor sisters would have -- she saw actor George Sanders on stage and declared that he would be her next husband. She had divorced Hilton by the time their daughter, Francesca, was born, but Hilton and Gabor remained on 'amicable' terms, and in 1955 he promised his ex-wife a special rate at all Hilton hotels for the rest of her life.
Once she had married Sanders, Zsa Zsa decided that she was an actress, and began to appear in films and on television. Her only demanding screen role was in the 1951 film of Moulin Rouge with Jose Ferrer, and during filming, director John Huston frequently humiliated her in front of the entire cast and crew. She took smaller parts in quirkier films throughout the 1950s, and began appearing as herself in cameos in the 1960s. She appeared as the gold-digging villain Minerva on two episodes of Batman, including the last episode.
During her marriage to Sanders, Gabor carried on a torrid affair with Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, beginning in 1952. Rubirosa left her after she appeared with a knot on her forehead which -- Gabor said -- was the result of a fall, but it was widely speculated that Rubirosa had punched her when she refused to leave her husband. Yet Gabor's marriage to Sanders soon ended, as did Rubirosa's brief marriage to Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, and Gabor and Rubirosa rekindled their affair, but in 1954 he gave her a black eye. Gabor dismissed the injury by saying, "Rubi loves me. Rubirosa in Spanish means red rose, for me it means black eye. A man only hits a woman if he loves her deeply."
Gabor was introduced to her next lover "Ramfis" Trujillo by Rubirosa in 1958. Although Ramfis showered gifts on Gabor and her friend Kim Novak, the romance was short-lived. During a 1964 trip to perform in a charity event for Princess Grace of Monaco, Gabor had an altercation with an aristocratic Englishwoman, Hannah Marcow. She said that Marcow had pushed her and Francesca on a plane, and that "no one pushes my child but me". Gabor brought a lawsuit, but dropped it the following year, presumably when a very patient lawyer explained that she could not possibly win.
1968 was a tumultuous year for Zsa Zsa. She slapped a bellboy in a hotel in London. She was removed from a plane bound to Mallorca when it was discovered that her hotel bill was unpaid, and she was smuggling more than $3,000 worth of clothing that she had not yet paid for. Her check was refused by a hotel in Lisbon. She also held a press conference to announce that someone was trying to kill her.
Gabor's ex-husband Sanders married her sister Magda in 1970. That marriage, was even more short-lived than his marriage to Zsa Zsa, who reportedly visited Sanders shortly before he committed suicide in 1972.
Gabor was always at her best on talk shows, as she could flash her diamonds and flirt with the host in her exaggerated Hungarian accent. She became famous for her bon mots, such as "Oh, Dahlink, zese are just my vorking diamonds." Other famous Zsa Zsa quips from her numerous appearances on Laugh-In and The Tonight Show include, "I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house." and "I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back."
In 1982, Gabor had a brief, bigamous marriage to Mexican movie star Felipe de Alba. The wedding took place on a ship and the captain officiated, but they were not yet in international waters, and Gabor was not yet legally divorced from her seventh husband, Michael O'Hara. He had been her divorce lawyer from husband number six, Jack Ryan. Just to be safe, Gabor had the marriage to de Alba annulled.
Gabor married Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt in 1986. It is her longest marriage to date, but contrary to popular belief, the marriage did not make Gabor royalty. Her husband was born Robert Lichtenberg, and as an adult had paid a royal, Marie Auguste Prinzessin von Anhalt, to adopt him -- a service the hard-up castle-owner provided to any customer who could pay. The adoption did not make Lichtenberg legally a prince or noble, it only gave him a more impressive-sounding name.
In 1989, Gabor was pulled over in Beverly Hills and found to be driving with an expired license. There was reportedly an open bottle of liquor in her car, and after a heated exchange with the officer, she slapped him. Gabor was arrested for driving on an expired license and battery. She compared the experience to "Nazi Germany", but was found guilty. Gabor indignantly said that she had not been judged by a jury of her peers: "It was not my class of people, there was not a producer, a press agent, a director, an actor." She served 72 hours in prison and paid a fine. She later lampooned the cop-slapping incident in the movie Naked Gun 2½.
In 1993, Gabor was sued for libel, and ordered to pay more than one million dollars to actress Elke Sommer. The feud between the two blondes apparently began when Sommer said that Gabor had a big behind, and Gabor told the press that Sommer's career was washed up. The actual libel suit was brought about when Gabor's husband, von Anhalt né Lichtenberg, claimed that Sommer had said, "All German men are pigs." Losing the lawsuit forced Gabor into bankruptcy. The feud between Francesca Hilton and von Anhalt was renewed in 2005 when Gabor and von Anhalt sued Francesca for allegedly forging Gabor's signature on a loan on Gabor's home and stealing at least millions.
In 2002, she was injured when a car she was riding in, driven by her hairstylist, hit a lamp post. A dramatic feud was chronicled in the tabloids when Gabor's daughter Francesca claimed that von Anhalt was preventing her from visiting Gabor in the hospital. After Gabor was released from the hospital, she sued her former hairstylist and driver, and won $2 million dollars.
Gabor remains partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound from the accident, or from a rumored 2003 stroke. She has not spoken to the press since her 2002 accident, but the tabloids and TV shows have continued running old footage of the pre-accident Gabor, laughing and walking, while reporting developments in her lawsuit against her daughter.
"You know what elder abuse is?" asks Francesca Hilton. "That's what's happening with my mother. [Von Anhalt] is trying to take everything. I refinanced the house with her permission in order to stop that."
Von Anhalt claims that Hilton is afraid of being left nothing when her mother dies. "Francesca is afraid something is going to happen to her mother one day, and her husband is in the last will. She can't take that. She always comes for a handout to her mother. She always wants money, money, money, money."
Gabor was hospitalized after a stroke in 2005.
Accomplishments
This is not Zsa Zsa's complete works. She appeared in over 75 films (some unknown titles and years), has made hundreds upon hundreds of television appearances, and starred in many plays and musicals.
* Lovely to Look At (1952)
* We're Not Married! (1952)
* Moulin Rouge (1952)
* The Million Dollar Nickel (1952) (short subject)
* The Story of Three Loves (1953)
* Lili (1953)
* The Most Wanted Man (1953)
* Love in a Hot Climate (1954)
* Ball of the Nations (1954)
* 3 Ring Circus (1954)
* Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
* The Girl in the Kremlin (1957)
* The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1958)
* Country Music Holiday (1958)
* Touch of Evil (1958)
* Queen of Outer Space (1958)
* For the First Time (1959)
* The Blue Contessa (1960)
* Pepe (1960) (Cameo)
* Lykke og krone (1962) (documentary)
* The Road to Hong Kong (1962) (scenes deleted)
* Boys' Night Out (1962)
* Picture Mommy Dead (1966)
* Arrivederci, Baby! (1966)
* Jack of Diamonds (1967)
* Up the Front (1972)
* Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
* Every Girl Should Have One (1978)
* Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie (1984)
* Smart Alec (1986)
* A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
* Johann Strauss: The King Without a Crown (1987)
* The People vs. Zsa Zsa Gabor (1991) (documentary)
* The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991)
* The Naked Truth (1992)
* East & West: Paradises Lost (1993)
* Happily Ever After (1993) (voice)
* The Beverly Hillbillies (1993)
* A Very Brady Sequel (1996)
Television Work
* Ninotchka (1960)
* Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1966)
* Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971)
* Hollywood, ich komme (1980)
* As the World Turns (cast member in 1981)
* California Girls (1985)
* Charlie Barnett's Terms of Enrollment (1986)
* Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special (1988)
* Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
She has had nine husbands. Zsa Zsa herself has claimed she proposed all of her marriages. She was married to:
* Burhan Belge, press director for the foreign ministry of Turkey, later known as a writer and diplomat (1937-1941).
* Conrad Hilton, Hilton Hotel magnate (1942-1946): one child, Francesca
* George Sanders, actor (1949-1954)
* Herbert Hutner, financial consultant (1964-1966)
* Joshua S. Cosden, Jr., oil heir and businessman, (1966-1967)
* Jack Ryan, inventor associated with the Barbie and Chatty Cathy dolls, (1975-1976)
* Michael O'Hara (1977-1982)
* Felipe de Alba, a Mexican attorney and former film star. The marriage, however, was bigamous, since Gabor was still married to Michael O'Hara. An annulment was received. (1982)
* Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (né Hans-Robert Lichtenberg, 1986-present). In February 2007, Prinz von Anhalt claimed to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, following Smith's death at age 39. Prinz von Anhalt is one of six men claiming to be the child's father. Gabor reportedly has expressed anger and sadness towards his claims, and there have been claims that she has threatened divorce
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