Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as “celebrity”, Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her “dahlink” catchphrase, her actions, life gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career. It is unclear as to Zsa Zsa’s birth year: sources vary from 1917 to 1919. Born in Budapest, Hungary, as Sari Gabor, she followed her sister Eva Gabor to Hollywood, California. A radiant, beautiful blonde, Zsa Zsa began appearing on television series and doing odd movies.
Her first film was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Lovely to Look at (1952), co-starring Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. She next made a comedy called We’re Not Married! (1952) at 20th Century Fox, with Ginger Rogers. It was far from a star billing for Zsa Zsa, appearing several names down the cast list as a supporting actress. However, it was in 1952 that saw her break into movies big time occurred, with her starring role opposite José Ferrer in Moulin… read more
Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as “celebrity”, Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her “dahlink” catchphrase, her actions, life gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career. It is unclear as to Zsa Zsa’s birth year: sources vary from 1917 to 1919. Born in Budapest, Hungary, as Sari Gabor, she followed her sister Eva Gabor to Hollywood, California. A radiant, beautiful blonde, Zsa Zsa began appearing on television series and doing odd movies.
Her first film was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Lovely to Look at (1952), co-starring Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. She next made a comedy called We’re Not Married! (1952) at 20th Century Fox, with Ginger Rogers. It was far from a star billing for Zsa Zsa, appearing several names down the cast list as a supporting actress. However, it was in 1952 that saw her break into movies big time occurred, with her starring role opposite José Ferrer in Moulin Rouge (1952), although it has been said that she was given a very hard time throughout the filming by director John Huston.
In the following years, Zsa Zsa slipped back into supporting roles in films such as Lili (1953) and 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her main period of film work was in the 1950s, with other roles in Death of a Scoundrel (1956) with Yvonne De Carlo and The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk (1958) with Anna Neagle. Again, these were supporting roles. By the 1960s, Zsa Zsa was appearing more as herself in the movies. She now appeared to follow her own persona around, and cameo appearances were the order of the day in films such as Pepe (1960) and Jack of Diamonds (1967). This has continued throughout the 1970s decade.
She was very memorable as herself in The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991), in which she humorously pokes fun at an incident. In 1990 when she was convicted of slapping a police officer (Paul Kramer) during a traffic dispute and spent three days in jail and had to do 120 hours of community service after her time in jail expired. Such infamous incidents contributed to her becoming one of the most all-time recognizable of Hollywood celebrities in recent years, and sometimes ridiculed as a result. She was also memorable to British television viewers on “The Ruby Wax Show” (1997).
In 2002, Gabor was reported to be in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital after a horrifying car accident. The 85-year-old, star was injured when the car she was traveling in hit a light pole in West Hollywood, California. The reports about her coma, eventually proved to be inaccurate. —IMDb
