Hungarian-born actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor has died aged 99.
According to TMZ, the Hollywood icon Zsa Zsa Gabor died of a heart attack at her home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles. She appeared in more than 70 television movies and feature films, but most often she played herself.
She appeared in Orson Welles’ 1958 classic “Touch of Evil” and in Edward Bernds’ “Queen of Outer Space” (1958). However, probably her best roles were in John Huston’s adaptation of “Moulin Rouge” (1952) and in “Lili” (1953), which was included in The New York Times 2004 Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.
The Hollywood icon Zsa Zsa Gabor was born on February 6th, 1917, in Budapest, Hungary, to Vilmos and Jolie Gabor, both of Jewish ancestry. Zsa Zsa made her first stage appearance in 1934 at the Theater an der Wien after she was discovered by tenor Richard Tauber who invited her to sing the soubrette role in his new operetta, Der singende Traum. In 1936 she was crowned Miss Hungary.
In 1941 Zsa Zsa emigrated to the United States together with her mother and two sisters Magda and Eva. Her elder sister was also a socialite and her younger sister, Eva, was an actress who starred in the 1960s sitcom “Green Acres.”
She met hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, Paris Hilton’s grandfather, in the early 1940’s and they married in April 1942. The couple had one child, Francesca, who died in 2015 at the age of 67. Their marriage didn’t last long and they divorced in 1947.
This wasn’t the first or the last time she would marry. Before she married Conrad Hilton she was married to Burhan Asaf Belge, a young intellectual during the early periods of the Turkish Republic. After Conrad Hilton, she had 7 more husbands including George Sanders, Herbert Hutner, Joshua S. Cosden, Jr., Jack Ryan, Michael O’Hara, Felipe de Alba, and Frederic Prinz von Anhalt.
She was never afraid to make fun of herself or her nine marriages and she often commented: “I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.” When asked, “How many husbands have you had?”, she was quoted as responding, “You mean other than my own?”
Her lovers included Sean Connery and Frank Sinatra, and she claimed to have spurned the advances of John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley, John Huston and Henry Fonda.
As reported by The Telegraph she had a penchant for calling everyone “darling.” “I don’t remember anybody’s name,” she once said. “How do you think the ‘darling’ thing started?”
In 1989 she made headlines for slapping a Beverly Hills police officer after being stopped for a driving violation and was arrested on charges of assault and sentenced to three days in jail.
A serious car accident in Los Angeles, 2002, left her in a wheelchair. She suffered strokes in 2005 and 2007. In 2010, after a fall at her home she underwent hip-replacement surgery and in 2011 her right leg was amputated above the knee.
Her husband Frederic Prinz Von Anhalt outlived her.
We will miss you, darling!