Zsa Zsa Gabor - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Born in Budapest (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), her birth name was Sári Gábor. She is the middle of three daughters born to Vilmos Gábor (1884–1962), a soldier, and Jolie Gábor (died 1997). Gabor was named after Sári Fedák, a popular Hungarian actress. Her elder sister Magda was a socialite and her younger sister Eva was an actress and businesswoman.

Gabor's mother, Jolie, was an aunt of Annette Lantos, wife of Hungarian-born U.S. congressman and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos. Jolie was of Jewish descent and barely escaped from Hungary after the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944. She credits Magda's lover for helping her: "For Magda's Portuguese Ambassador I thank God. It was this man who saved my life." Gabor's maternal grandmother and uncle Sebastian (Annette Lantos's father) chose to remain in Budapest feeling they "had a good place to hide". However, both died during a bombing raid.

Following studies at Madame Subilia's, a Swiss boarding school, Zsa Zsa Gabor was discovered by the tenor Richard Tauber on a trip to Vienna in 1936 and was invited to sing the soubrette role in his new operetta, Der singende Traum ("The Singing Dream") at the Theater an der Wien, her first stage appearance. Author Gerold Frank, who helped Gabor write her autobiography in 1960, describes his impressions of her while the book was being written:

Zsa Zsa is unique. She's a woman from the court of Louis XV who has somehow managed to live in the 20th century, undamaged by the PTA ... She says she wants to be all the Pompadours and Du Barrys of history rolled into one, but she also says, "I always goof. I pay all my own bills ... I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me."

Television host Merv Griffin, in his autobiography, described the Gabors, "in their heyday," as "glamour personified": "All these years later, it's hard to describe the phenomenon of the three glamorous Gabor girls and their ubiquitous mother. They burst onto the society pages and into the gossip columns so suddenly, and with such force, it was as if they'd been dropped out of the sky."

A biographical film is to be made on her life by Italian director Gabriela Tagliavini who claimed that Gabor "is a perfect celebrity to be the focus of a movie". According to Insider, Gabor is "an original. Her free spirit, eccentricity and wicked wit made her one of the most memorable celebrities of our time." Gabor's husband will reportedly be involved in the film's production.