Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian actress known as much for her own celebrity as her body of work, has died at an indeterminate age, the New York Times reports. Gabor was most likely born in 1917 (making her 99 at the time of her death) but became younger as she got older. In 1952, she told Hedda Hopper she was 29, which would have meant she was born in 1923. In 1982, she sent a document to the press with the following note:
All the lies about my age have been driving me crazy. Every time I read about myself I see I am a different age, usually older than I really am. God knows I am old enough as it is, darling, without adding any years.
Along with the note was what purported to be a Hungarian baptismal certificate and birth registration giving her date of birth as Feb. 6, 1928. If this birthdate were authentic, Ms. Gabor would have had the distinct honor of being crowned Miss Hungary 1936 at the age of 8 and married her first husband, Turkish diplomat Burhan Belge, as a 9-year-old. In 1986, she claimed to have been born in the even less likely year of 1930.
Gabor, born Sári Gábor in Budapest, Hungary, in whatever year she was born, emigrated to the United States in 1941 with her mother Jolie Gabor and her sisters Eva and Magda. As an actress, she appeared in Moulin Rouge and Touch of Evil but became just as famous for her frequent marriages and outrageous public persona. She had either eight or nine husbands, depending on whether or not you count her marriage to Mexican actor Felipe de Alba, which lasted one day before being annulled; they had been married by a ship’s captain before the boat reached international waters, and she was technically still married to attorney Michael O’Hara at the time. Other husbands included Conrad Hilton, George Sanders, and Jack Ryan, the toy designer who designed the Barbie doll for Mattel. Of her serial marriages, she is reputed to have said, “I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.” Her last husband, and the only one to outlive her, was Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, born Hans Georg Robert Lichtenberg, who began styling himself “Prince Frédéric of Anhalt, Duke of Saxony and Westphalia, Count of Ascania,” after being legally adopted as an adult by Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt. They were married from 1986 until her death, her longest marriage by far.
In her later years, Gabor frequently played herself, with notable cameos in Christmas at Pee Wee’s Playhouse, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and the opening credits of The Naked Gun 2½:The Smell of Fear. That last part, in which she slaps a police car before walking away saying, “This happens every fucking time when I go shopping!” referenced a notorious incident in 1989 in which Gabor slapped a Beverly Hills police officer who pulled her over in her Rolls Royce. She was convicted of that offense (plus driving without a license and having an open container of alcohol) and served 72 hours in jail. The Los Angeles Times account of her trial includes an anecdote that exemplifies her carefully crafted reputation for outrageousness:
At one point, Judge Charles G. Rubin halted arguments to admonish Gabor, an amateur artist, not to sketch jury members.
At the time, she was at work on portraits of her dogs.
Over the last decade, the actress suffered a series of medical setbacks, beginning with a 2005 stroke. She died of heart failure on Sunday.
