Goodbye, my dear friend
I lived with Zsa Zsa Gabor for years — six weeks at a time.
Back when Hungary begat three sisters — Zsa Zsa, Eva, Magda, their mother being Madison Avenue jewelry shopkeeper mama Jolie — Zsa was Earth’s most gorgeous creature. Her hair was a cloud.
My husband, comedian Joey Adams, co-starred in Vegas clubs with Zsa Zsa in the big-time, heavy-money era of heavy rollers. Not like today when big rollers stick only in our hair. Then, salaries were big. VIPs, big. Bad boys, big.
Celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Don Rickles, Martin & Lewis, Zsa Zsa and Joey — were huge.
One Las Vegas season Zsa Zsa also stayed busy offstage. She was Doing It with the maitre d’. He made money, was savvy about tips, and had a big palm. What else he had big, who knows . . . whatever . . . it grabbed Zsa.
All of a sudden she’d start blowing Joey’s rehearsed jokes.
Like, Joey: “What if I told you that you had a beautiful body?” Zsa: “Then I would hold it against you.” This was the ’60s. She’s gorgeous. Big laugh. He’d prepped her. Taught her timing. Showed how to deliver the line. It never failed. Until it did.
Seems nightly this maitre d’ was giving her a rose. She’d come out holding it. Instead of punching her line, she’d lose momentum by smelling that stupid rose. Gone was the
routine. No laugh. No nothing.
One night she showed up
roseless. Said Zsa: “Ve broke opp. He vants now to go out viz me. Be seen togedder. I don’t mind going to bed viz heem — he’s very good — but to be seen viz him in public? A headvaiter?!”