Famously famous Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor dies
LOS ANGELES — Long before Paris Hilton first uttered a breathy “that’s hot,” or Kim Kardashian sashayed down a red carpet flashing her dangerous curves, there was Zsa Zsa. No last name needed.
Zsa Zsa Gabor pioneered the art of being famous simply for being famous, which generations of dubious starlets have emulated ever since. She was an open book, having crafted a career from multiple marriages, conspicuous wealth and lavish wisdom about the opposite sex and the good life. And yet there remained an air of exotic mystery, borne perhaps by the accent, the glamour, her coyness about her real age and her insistence on always appearing perfectly coifed.
The jet-setting Hungarian actress and tabloid queen died Sunday at her Los Angeles home after a heart attack, her husband, Fredric von Anhalt, said. She was 99.
“We tried everything, but her heart just stopped and that was it,” von Anhalt said.
Gabor had been given several blood transfusions and was receiving nutrition through a feeding tube in the months prior to her death.
The middle Gabor sister had to use a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed in a 2002 car accident and suffering a stroke in 2005. Afterward, she retreated from public view, in stark contrast to how she once loved to bask in the spotlight.
For more than a half-century, Gabor captivated the public. She was born into a world, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the verge of collapse and at times carried on like a countess in exile.
Sari Gabor — Zsa Zsa is a family nickname — was born in Budapest in 1917, according to a finishing school yearbook kept by a former classmate. She was still in Hungary when she won a beauty contest and married and divorced a Turkish diplomat.
Gabor, sisters Eva and Magda, and their mother, Jolie, emigrated to America around World War II.
“When she first came to fame in the early 1950s, Zsa Zsa wasn’t an actress or a singer or a dancer or an entertainer of any sort,” cultural historian Neal Gabler said. “She was the beautiful wife of actor George Sanders who happened to appear on a quiz show dispensing offhanded advice to lovelorn viewers. By being herself she became such a success that she immediately landed movie roles.”