These Glamorous Gabors
by Mark Tunnell

What's in a name? For well over 50 years, the word "Gabor" has been synonymous with style, elegance, and exoticism. But there is so much more to Magda, Zsa Zsa, Eva and their mother Jolie than just beauty and grace.

Many, many years ago, in Hungary, a stunning model and a distinguished soldier married and had three daughters. From the very beginning, Jolie and Vilmos Gabor wanted their children to excel at every possible activity. And, as we all know, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Besides being able to speak 5 or more languages each, Magda, Zsa Zsa and Eva also excelled (from a very early age) at various athletic pursuits such as equestrianism, skiing and ice skating. In addition, as they became young women, their immense beauty became legendary all across Hungary, and beyond. Soon, they had men breaking doors down to get to them (much to the chagrin of their father, who often wished, only half-jokingly, that he'd had male children instead).

Magda's first marriage was to a Polish count named Jan de Bichovsky, and, at the age of fifteen, Zsa Zsa became the wife of the Turkish ambassador to Hungary, Burhan Belge. But it was Eva's engagement which set the stage for the the events which would make trhe family most famous. When she married a Swedish physician named Eric Drimmer, she hadn't really thought about moving to the United States, but this is exactly what eventually happened. Dr. Drimmer soon became the personal physician to Greta Garbo (with whom Zsa Zsa later fell madly in love), and Eva was bitten by the acting bug.

Needless to say, it wasn't long before her sister Zsa Zsa joined her in the United States (although Zsa Zsa was careful to establish her career on the East Coast so as not to cause too much confusion). Eventually, after a disatrous run-in with Adolf Hitler's men (the Gabors were Catholic, and Magda had aided the Hungarian Resistance movement against the Nazis), Magda, Jolie and Vilmos ended up in America too.

At first, none of the sisters' acting careers were too successful. Eva was considered a little too heavy to be a leading lady of the movies(ironically, in Hungary she had been considered too light). Zsa Zsa had a bit of a reputation for being difficult (a reputation which would increase in the coming years). And Magda was not as interested in the thespian world as her sisters and only occasionally acted on stage. But, after a 1952 appearance on Martha Raye's television program and an extremely well-received semi-autobiographical show in Las Vegas, the Gabors soon became household names, and various television, film and stage appearances followed, far too many to name here. (Peter Harry Brown's book Such Devoted Sisters provides an excellent account of the family's careers and lives, including the sisters' many (19!) turbulent marriages).

But, for every success which the family encountered, tragedy followed in large amounts. Vilmos and Jolie's marriage eventually fell apart, and Vilmos permanently returned to Hungary. Zsa Zsa became severely depressed after the breakup of her second marriage (to multimillionaire businessman Conrad Hilton), and spent two months in a psychiatric hospital, where she was given electroshock therapy and a variety of other horrible treatments. Eva was seriously injured by two men who were attempting to rob her (robberies were, unfortunately, a frequent occurrence for the family, due to their immense fame and wealth). And Magda was injured in a fall at her house which left her temporarily paralyzed and unable to speak. But the Gabors are survivors, and in each case, it wasn't long before they triumphantly returned to sparkle, shine and delight millions, both in the entertainment world and at their many parties in Palm Springs, California

The rest, as "they" say, is history. But, unfortunately, time has claimed three of the Gabor women. In 1995, Eva was visiting her friend Merv Griffin's house when she fell, breaking her hip. While recovering, she developed a respiratory infection which led to her death on July 4, 1995. On April 1, 1997, "Mama Jolie" died of heart failure in a hospital in Rancho Mirage (joining her beloved husband, Edmund de Szigethy, who had been killed in a car accident a few years previously) and on June 6, 1997, Magda died of kidney failure at her home. Zsa Zsa now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, and near her daughter, the actress Francesca Hilton (the only child of any of the sisters), and is busy carrying on the Gabor mystique, which is delightfully enigamtic yet mysteriously elusive.