Finding Zsa Zsa

by Sam Staggs

  Frank Jameson, who predeceased Eva by two years, might have defended himself by repeating what he told an interviewer during the marriage. Eva’s glamour became a burden not only to her but also to him. “We can’t leave the house for a quick Chinese dinner or an ice cream cone,” he said, “until my wife spends an hour or so on wardrobe and makeup.” And so he searched elsewhere for streamlined companionship.

  * * *

  Seeing Eva on the Geraldo show, one might have guessed her age as forty, though she was in fact seventy-six. Only her eyes looked slightly tired. Close friends knew, however, that for some time she had been under emotional strain, owing mostly to her breakup with Merv Griffin. The word “breakup” in this case is purely platonic, for Griffin was gay and, after Frank Jameson, Eva pursued whatever romantic interests her busy life permitted.

  On January 8, 1995, the New York Post ran an item about Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, who had replaced Eva as Merv’s “longtime escort on demand.” Later that year another newspaper announced that Merv had “dumped Eva without any warning and that she was devastated.” Perhaps they quarreled; if so, the reason remains unknown.

  During the twelve years of their partnership, Eva appeared countless times on Griffin’s talk show, occasionally filling in as host. On one of those occasions Zsa Zsa was a guest. Eva, trying to keep the show on track, found herself competing with Zsa Zsa’s talk-show mode: cutting up, showing off, stealing every moment for herself. “You are very hard to take,” said Eva.

  “So are you!” Zsa Zsa shot back.

  Eva accompanied Merv on business junkets and to openings of new hotels as he added them to his empire. Yet no one quite understood why Eva, who took her career so seriously, would lower herself to gimmicky appearances at Griffin’s Atlantic City casino, where she performed such tasks as drawing raffle tickets from a fishbowl. Although well paid for her time in Griffin’s entourage, Eva devolved to the status of a Hungarian Vanna White. Probably because she enjoyed his company, she continued the charade as Griffin’s consort, even while earning her own millions as chairwoman of Eva Gabor International, the world’s largest wigmaker, which she cofounded in 1972. Perhaps her own business, and Merv’s, helped her survive the twilight of her career. Anyone so accustomed to public life as Eva would not be happy to stay home at night, even to see herself repeated on TV.

  After Green Acres, Eva’s career was a checkerboard of undistinguished television, occasional roles in regional theatre, personal appearances at convention centers and racetracks, and in department stores to sell more wigs. Regular disappointments rained down, e.g., The Eva Gabor Show, an unsuccessful 1977 pilot that no network would touch. In 1984, Merv Griffin signed both Eva and Zsa Zsa for a proposed comedy series, Two Hungarian Maids, which once again the networks orphaned. Sometimes, looking closely at Eva and other hard-to-employ entertainers in reruns of low-grade game shows (Match Game) or seeing her on the panel of Hollywood Squares, you glimpse an instant of profound sadness on her face. That look seems a lament that it’s over as far as the dramatic roles she so craved but was never allowed to play. Through it all, however, she found time to raise money at charity events and to keep up her many friendships.

  Eva’s final strike-out came in 1990, when yet another pilot found no takers. This one, titled Matchmaker (aka Close Encounters) is notable mainly for Eva’s consent to play the mother of a grown-up daughter who helps run Eva’s matrimonial agency. Whether she agreed to this maternal role from desperation or mature judgment, it stands as unique on a Gabor résumé. Twenty years earlier, this volte-face might have resuscitated her career: picture Eva as one of Chekhov’s aging actresses dealing with bothersome offspring; or as Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes; perhaps even a Tennessee Williams dragon lady like Violet Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer. (Could any Gabor outcamp Katharine Hepburn in the role?)

  * * *

  Eva’s appearance on Geraldo in June 1995 was her last. One month later she was dead.

  Emotionally depleted and physically exhausted, as well, Eva joined her stepdaughter, Mary Jameson, and other Jameson family members at their remote vacation property in Baja California during the second week of June. (She remained close to her stepdaughters and their children after her divorce from Frank Jameson.) There, in a ghastly repetition of Magda’s accident three decades earlier, Eva fell down a staircase and broke a hip. Owing to the remote location, proper medical care was not immediately available. Soon after Eva entered a local hospital, the Jamesons realized that her condition was serious.

  They arranged for an airlift to Los Angeles, where Eva entered Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on June 21. Her condition was listed somewhat ominously as “fair,” although a hospital spokesman reported that “she is beginning to heal.”

  But her symptoms worsened. She developed pneumonia, which failed to respond to antibiotics. Visitors to the hospital included Suzanne Pleshette and other close friends, and of course Zsa Zsa, Magda, and Francesca. Eva’s fever spiked. Her breathing became labored, even with oxygen. When doctors ordered a respirator, they also broke the news to Zsa Zsa: the end was near, and it was Eva’s stated wish not to stay alive by artificial means.

  “Wait a few days,” Zsa Zsa begged Ray Katz, Eva’s manager for thirty-eight years who held Eva’s medical power of attorney. She considered Katz “the brother I never had.” Hoping for a miracle, Zsa Zsa despaired as Eva’s condition grew more dangerous by the hour. Then Eva slipped into a coma.

  Meanwhile Zsa Zsa, keeping vigil at Eva’s bedside, complained of a pain in her arm. Then the arm went limp, causing her to fear a stroke. A doctor examined her and discovered that she herself required immediate medical care for a clogged carotid artery. As soon as possible after surgery, Zsa Zsa insisted on visiting Eva. A nurse rolled her to Eva’s room in a wheelchair. There she found Francesca by the bedside, rubbing Eva’s hands and feet. “You’ll be all right, Auntie Eva,” she intoned. At last Zsa Zsa said to Ray Katz, “Do what you must.”

  Eva Gabor died in the early morning hours of July 4, 1995.

  * * *

  She was cremated in full makeup, wig, and a gown that Suzanne Pleshette helped Zsa Zsa select. It was one that Eva loved. Owing to Zsa Zsa’s own recent surgery and recovery period, Eva’s memorial Mass was postponed until July 11. It took place on that date at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills, which Eva attended and where she often stopped in to pray.

  (One could write a tract titled “How to Be a Gabor Catholic.” If such a denomination existed, it might be defined as the Hungarian version of Episcopalian. Whatever their religious beliefs, their credo seemed formulated as much by the Gabors themselves as by the Vatican. “I am very, very religious,” Eva told an interviewer in 1978, “but I don’t talk about it. Those kinds of things are private.” On a table in Eva’s bedroom was an icon of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In front of it, a photograph of Jolie—ladies first, of course.)

  Among the eulogists at Eva’s service was Warren Cowan, the Hollywood publicist, who said, “Eva was a kind, big person. People felt better when they were around her.” Eddie Albert, speaking from the pulpit, recounted stories about their years on Green Acres, some of which made the congregation rock with laughter. One day when she chose to wear a dress decorated with feathers, he chided her for it. “Ladies will see it on TV,” he said, “and they’ll want one. Thousands of birds will die.”

  Eva replied, “But Eddie, feathers don’t come from birds.”

  “And where do they come from?”

  “Dahling,” said Eva—or was it Lisa Douglas speaking?—“feathers come from pee-lowz!”

  She was joking, of course. As early as 1978, Eva expressed concern for the environment. “I particularly care about the ocean,” she said, “so full of poisons that cause the fish and lovely animals to become—what is the word—extinct.” The menagerie on her estate included dogs, cats, birds, and chickens.

  Among other mourners at the memorial Mass were Johnny Mathis, Van Cliburn, Suzanne
Pleshette, Merv Griffin, and Nancy Reagan. After the service, Magda, in a wheelchair, was lifted down the church steps by four men. Zsa Zsa, her face puffy from weeping, held Frederic’s arm. Francesca followed behind.

  Eva’s remains were interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park. Her marker, with an incised cross on lower left and a rosebud on the right, reads:

  OUR DARLING EVA

  EVA GABOR

  WE LOVE YOU

  YOU ARE IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER

  July 4, 1995

  As Jolie passed a hundred, her mind dimmed. By degrees, she withdrew from the social life of Palm Springs that she had enlivened for many years. Eventually she required nursing care around the clock, although the family guarded this sad secret. After Eva’s death, the Gabor family faced a dilemma: whether or not to tell Jolie.

  Eventually Zsa Zsa said to Magda and Francesca, “The only way to keep Mother alive is to keep Eva alive. She must never know of Eva’s death. We will leave it to Eva to break the news when they are reunited in heaven.”

  In moments of clarity during the twenty-one months remaining to Jolie, she would sometimes ask, “Where is Evika?” The answer varied somewhat: “She is making a picture in Europe. Soon she will return to us.” Or, “Eva is visiting Budapest and sends her love. She will tell us about the many changes she found there.”

  Jolie Gabor died of pneumonia on April 1, 1997. She was buried in a pink and ivory casket on April 4. Mourners at the graveside service joined in singing Jolie’s favorite song, one that she often sang at parties to her own piano accompaniment: “Never on Sunday.” Her grave marker, at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, bears the inscription:

  OUR BELOVED MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER

  JOLIE GABOR DE SZIGETHY

  WE LOVE YOU FOREVER

  April 1, 1997

  * * *

  Just over two months later, Magda died of kidney failure. For the third time in two years, Zsa Zsa kept a bedside vigil. Realizing that her sister could not recover, Zsa Zsa tried to console her by recalling happy stories of their childhood. Although she could not ascertain Magda’s level of awareness, she hoped that her words might bring comfort.

  Zsa Zsa, as next of kin, made the decision to have life support withdrawn. When Magda died, Zsa Zsa wept as she had seldom done throughout her life, clutching Francesca as though unable to let go. “It was the hardest thing I ever did,” she said again and again.

  Magda Gabor’s death came a few days before her eighty-second birthday. She was buried not far from Jolie, and her simple marker reads:

  OUR BELOVED

  MAGDA GABOR

  JUNE 6, 1997

  Chapter 38

  They Are All Gone into the World of Light

  Eva’s death ended the Gabor show-business dynasty. Zsa Zsa’s few remaining moments on camera were the dying wing beats of a rare bird no longer able to convince herself she was too young to be old. In 1996, Zsa Zsa did a cameo as herself in A Very Brady Sequel, her final role in a feature film. She made four television appearances in 1997, most memorably on The Rosie O’Donnell Show. At eighty, Zsa Zsa seemed strained from grief and weight loss. Around the eyes, a scooped-out, skeletal look suggested that tears had eroded the flesh.

  Rosie mentioned Eva’s death, adding, “Everyone loved her, no one more than you.”

  “I miss her so badly,” Zsa Zsa said. “I can’t tell you. We were very close. The press always said we fought and hated each other, but we didn’t. We fought, but we always loved each other.” Later that year, on The Ruby Wax Show, Zsa Zsa’s decline was even more evident. Nevertheless, when Christie’s held an auction of Eva’s jewelry (other possessions not included), Zsa Zsa wrote a touching foreword for the beautifully illustrated catalogue.

  In 1998, when she spoke about Eva on the Lifetime series Intimate Portrait, she had regained her looks, her poise, and her weight. Once again the phoenix, no more the go-away bird. In this episode devoted to Eva’s life and career, Zsa Zsa recalled their happy times. At one point, however, she choked up and said, “I can’t talk about it.”

  During the next eighteen years, Zsa Zsa was seen no more except in newsreel footage from earlier days. She had Frederic, whose comfort, such as it was, seemed better than none. He was rumored to spend long periods in Germany, during which Zsa Zsa and Francesca’s rapprochement took place. Francesca urged her mother to ditch Frederic, but the thought of old age, followed by older age, terrified her. How does one live alone? she wondered, but found no reply.

  She stopped going to parties, refused to make personal appearances, she no longer lunched with MGM girlfriends Kathryn Grayson, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Esther Williams. “Why am I still here?” she wailed. She wept from grief and depression. More than ever, her dogs and cats brought comfort. (“I would sacrifice every diamond I own or ever have owned for the life of one of my animals,” she said.) Francesca came to her almost daily, and drove her to doctors for treatment of the aches and pains of old age.

  Like so many in Hollywood, Zsa Zsa liked to describe herself as a survivor. In her case, the claim was accurate. By the turn of the new century, she had resumed her travels with Frederic. She had begun once more to socialize, although with a smaller group of friends than before. These included Phyllis Diller, Quincy Jones, Larry King and his wife, Shawn King, Ruta Lee, and Alex Trebek. Having inherited many millions from Eva and Magda, she no longer felt compelled to work.

  Then, on November 27, 2002, disaster struck. Zsa Zsa, a passenger in a Camaro driven by her hairdresser, was critically injured when the car swerved, jumped onto the curb, the driver lost control and crashed into a light pole on Sunset Boulevard. Although the driver received only minor injuries, Zsa Zsa was pinned in the car when the engine piled through the dashboard and crushed her legs. She suffered a broken arm and head injuries, as well.

  For two months she remained hospitalized. Francesca feared that this was her mother’s coup de grâce. But no. She pulled through, and after several weeks of recuperation at the Motion Picture and Television Country Home she returned to 1001 Bel Air Road. Photographed leaving the hospital, this Zsa Zsa looked strikingly different from the former one. The change no doubt startled even Zsa Zsa herself. Gone were the blonde bouffant wigs and much of the makeup. Departed, too, was the bold Gabor walk that had carried her across soundstages, TV studios, and nightclubs; into theatres, airplanes, palaces, mansions, and courtrooms. In its place, a wheelchair. Her face had narrowed, and her own long, white hair produced what would surely have been, had Zsa Zsa grasped the simile, an unwelcome resemblance to Jessica Tandy.

  Zsa Zsa was unaware that Frederic had exploited her long hospitalization by inviting photographers from the Globe, the supermarket tabloid whose outrageousness matched his own, to photograph his wife as she lay in extremis. These pictures have a coffin-like ambiance: eyes closed, all color drained from her face, she shows no life at all. Frederic, predictably, hovers over the body, and the accompanying story—“Zsa Zsa’s Brave Last Days”—quotes him at syrupy length: “I will be there for my wife; she is my world. With the prayers of every Globe reader she can and will get better.”

  In a later exclusive to that publication, Frederic revealed that in addition to Zsa Zsa’s medications and physical therapy, he administered regular doses of the Globe. “I buy it every week and read it to her from cover to cover to exercise her mind,” he said with no apparent irony.

  * * *

  A grievous side effect of the accident was Zsa Zsa’s loss of her beloved dogs. At the insistence of her doctor she relinquished them to a dog breeder in Long Beach, the reason being the risk of tripping over one or the other while she still was able to walk. This suggests that the accident weakened Zsa Zsa’s strong will as well as her body. Otherwise she never would have consented to give away an animal (except for the “fuck-you” bird).

  I asked Betsy Jentz to recall Zsa Zsa’s reaction to the doctor’s orders. “She didn’t like it,” Betsy replied, “but she had a tendency always to be
lieve the doctors.” Zsa Zsa’s enormous love of animals places her among other actresses known for animal rights activism, among them Doris Day, Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak, Brigitte Bardot, and Elizabeth Taylor. The media, however, seldom reported Zsa Zsa’s efforts on behalf of animals, even though she was a Hollywood pioneer. In the early 1970s she and Francesca founded an animal shelter. She was a longtime member of Mercy Crusade, a Los Angeles organization that provides financial assistance for the neutering and spaying of cats and dogs, and of Love Unlimited, an animal welfare group. In 1972, she joined Doris Day and Richard Basehart in a campaign for the care of poorly treated domestic animals. Interviewed that year by a writer from The Christian Science Monitor, Zsa Zsa’s compassion was perhaps more obvious than in any similar interview. (Although she often raised the issue of animals in TV appearances, interviewers invariably switched to the worn subject of men and matrimony.)

  When she spoke about animals, Zsa Zsa left aside the usual Gabor shtick. In its place was a serious and deliberate message about their welfare. Herewith, a collage of her statements over the years. “Animals can’t talk, but they are our best friends. That is proven to me since I’m born. I have always been saddened by the cruelty to animals that goes on in the world—since I was five I have been worried about it. When I raise the subject on television, it makes people say, ‘Yes, but look what parents do to their own children.’ True, but a little animal can’t talk. A dog is born to love you, and he loves you better than he loves himself. A life without animals would be a life without beauty. If I wasn’t an actress, I would have wanted to be a veterinarian. Anybody who has a heart loves animals.”

  When Zsa Zsa traveled, she called home every day to inquire about her pets and to speak to them. She would stop her car to pick up stray dogs, especially between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on visits to Jolie and Magda. And she loved horses as well as dogs and cats. In her later years, Zsa Zsa said, “I don’t believe in wearing fur anymore.”