Actress who stole limelight as top celebrity dies at 99
ZSA ZSA Gabor, the Hungarianborn Hollywood siren perhaps better known for her prodigious love life than her movie credits, has died. She was 99.
Her ninth husband, Frederic von Anhalt, said that Gabor had died at home, after having suffered a heart attack, surrounded by friends and family.
“Everybody was there. She didn’t die alone,” he said.
The couple married in 1986, making it by far the longest of Gabor’s marriages.
The actress, who in her heyday embodied the film industry’s platinum blonde ideal, was a voluptuous former beauty queen with a penchant for gowns that accentuated her hourglass curves.
Her resumé includes a long list of roles in such hit movies as Moulin Rouge, Lili and Arrivederci
Baby!
But the actress was at least as famous for her conquests between the sheets as her triumphs on the silver screen.
Like her famous great-granddaughter by marriage, Paris Hilton, Gabor was among the first celebrities to be famous for her celebrity.
Her Hungarian accent was much parodied – especially her penchant for calling everyone she met “darling”, or “dahlink” as she pronounced it.
It became her unique signature.
“I call everyone ‘dahlink’ because I can’t remember their names,” the socialite once said.
Fellow actress Barbara Eden paid tribute to the star.
“Rest in peace Zsa Zsa Gabor. She and her sisters were lovely ladies who were always fun and delightful to be around,” Eden wrote on Twitter yesterday.
Born in Hungary on February 6 1917, as Sari Gabor, Zsa Zsa was one of a trio of ravishing sisters known for their shapely curves and passion for well-heeled men.
Her sisters were Magda and Hollywood star Eva Gabor, who achieved greater acting success in the US than her sister for her role in the 1960s hit television series Green Acres.
Zsa Zsa also came to be known for her love of diamonds and was frequently photographed dripping in the sparkling gems.
During her many marriages and a prodigious number of affairs that made her a fixture in America’s gossip magazines, she had just one child -- a daughter, Francesca, fathered by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Francesca died early last year.
Gabor wrote in her 1993 autobiography One Lifetime Is Not
Enough that she lost her virginity at the age of 15 to Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
Her romantic scorecard was a Who’s Who of Hollywood heartthrobs of her day, and her book detailed romances with screen legends Sean Connery and Frank Sinatra.
Gabor was known to be picky, however, spurning the advances of John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley, John Huston and Henry Fonda, she wrote in her autobiography.
She was famous for her quirky quotes, one being: “I’m a great housekeeper. I get divorced. I keep the house.”
Another was: “I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.” – AFP