Hollywood doesn't really make "stars" like Zsa Zsa Gabor anymore. Not really. We have influencers and we have prestige actors, but the specific, glittering, slightly ridiculous space Zsa Zsa occupied was unique to her. When Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18, 2016, it felt like the final curtain call for a very specific type of mid-century glamour that relied more on personality than a filmography. She was famous for being famous long before the Kardashians were even a thought in Kris Jenner's mind.
She was 99. Just two months shy of her 100th birthday.
Honestly, most people thought she was immortal. She’d survived so many health scares, car accidents, and literal decades of headlines that her passing at her Bel-Air mansion felt like the end of a marathon. Her husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, told the press at the time that she passed away surrounded by friends and family. But the reality of her final years was a bit more complicated, involving a long, slow decline that saw her largely withdrawn from the public eye she once craved so desperately.
The Long Goodbye in Bel-Air
By the time news broke that Zsa Zsa Gabor died, she had been out of the spotlight for nearly fifteen years. It started with a car accident in 2002. That crash on Sunset Boulevard left her partially paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair. Then came a stroke in 2005. Then a broken hip in 2010.
It was a grueling decade.
In 2011, doctors had to amputate most of her right leg because of a gangrenous infection. It’s hard to reconcile that image—a frail woman in a hospital bed—with the woman who slapped a Beverly Hills police officer in 1989 or the woman who called everyone "dahlink" because, as she famously joked, she couldn't remember their names.
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Her husband kept her shielded. Some say he kept her too shielded. There were long-standing feuds between Von Anhalt and Zsa Zsa’s only daughter, Francesca Hilton. Francesca actually passed away in 2015, a year before her mother, and reportedly, Zsa Zsa was never even told her daughter had died. Von Anhalt claimed he wanted to protect his wife’s fragile health from the shock. It’s a tragic, almost Shakespearean layer to the story of a woman who lived such an outwardly "perfect" and expensive life.
Why We Are Still Obsessed With Her Nine Marriages
If you ask a random person on the street what Zsa Zsa Gabor was in, they probably won't name Moulin Rouge (1952) or Lili (1953). They’ll talk about her husbands.
She had nine of them. Or eight, depending on if you count the one that was annulled after one day.
- Burhan Asaf Belge: A Turkish diplomat.
- Conrad Hilton: Yes, that Hilton. The hotel tycoon.
- George Sanders: The actor. He later married her sister, Magda. Talk about awkward family dinners.
- Herbert Hutner: An investment banker.
- Joshua S. Cosden Jr.: An oil heir.
- Jack Ryan: The man who helped design the Barbie doll. Fitting, really.
- Michael O'Hara: A lawyer.
- Felipe de Alba: This was the one-day marriage.
- Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt: Her final husband who stayed with her until the end.
"I am a marvelous housekeeper," she once said. "Every time I leave a man, I keep his house."
That quote basically sums up her entire brand. She was the pioneer of the "socialite" career path. She understood that in Hollywood, your personal life could be your primary product. She didn't just get married; she performed marriage. She wore diamonds like they were oxygen. She spoke with a thick Hungarian accent that she likely leaned into because it sounded exotic and expensive.
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The Reality of Her Final Days
When Zsa Zsa Gabor died, the cause of death was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest. Basically, her heart just gave out. But the context of her final years is a reminder of how lonely the "Golden Age" of Hollywood could become once the lights dimmed.
Her mansion on Bel-Air Road was the site of much drama. It was the former home of Elvis Presley. Toward the end, it was falling into some disrepair. It was eventually sold in a "deferred closing" deal that allowed her to live there until her death. There’s something deeply poetic and a little sad about an icon living in a crumbling palace, surrounded by photos of her younger self, while the world outside moved on to the digital age.
She was a survivor of the Hungarian Revolution. She moved to the United States in the 1940s and reinvented herself completely. You have to admire the hustle. She wasn't just a "dumb blonde" trope; she was a shrewd businesswoman who knew that if she stopped being interesting, the checks would stop coming.
The Gabor Legacy and What It Actually Means Today
People often confuse Zsa Zsa with her sisters, Eva and Magda. Eva was the "actress" of the family (starring in Green Acres), but Zsa Zsa was the "star." There’s a difference. Zsa Zsa understood the meta-commentary of fame. She played herself in movies more often than she played characters.
Think about the 1989 slapping incident. She spent three days in jail for slapping Officer Paul Kramer after a traffic stop. Most celebrities would have tried to hide that. Zsa Zsa? She made it part of her act. She joked about it on talk shows. She leaned into the "diva" persona because she knew that’s what people paid to see.
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Since Zsa Zsa Gabor died, we’ve seen the rise of celebrity culture that mimics her blueprint but lacks her specific wit. She was camp before we really knew how to define camp. She was a woman who owned her desires, her mistakes, and her excessive jewelry with zero apologies.
What You Can Learn From the Zsa Zsa Era
Looking back at her life and death offers a few "dahlink-approved" insights into the nature of public life:
- Personal Branding is Permanent: Zsa Zsa created a "character" that outlived her actual acting career by forty years. In the modern world, your "vibe" is often more marketable than your specific skills.
- Resilience Matters: Despite the jokes about her husbands, she survived world wars, multiple health crises, and the fickle nature of Hollywood. She never let herself be "cancelled" or forgotten.
- The Price of Privacy: Her final years show the tension between living a public life and the need for private dignity. The legal battles over her care and the isolation of her Bel-Air home serve as a cautionary tale about the importance of estate planning and family communication.
- Humor Defuses Scandal: Whenever Zsa Zsa was in trouble, she used a self-deprecating joke to win the audience back. It’s a lost art in an age of corporate apology notes on iPhone screens.
The next time you see a celebrity making a career out of just "being there," remember that Zsa Zsa Gabor did it first, did it better, and did it in higher heels. Her death was the end of an era where glamour was a 24/7 job. Even at 99, she remained the ultimate Hungarian export, a woman who proved that if you call the world "dahlink" long enough, eventually, they’ll start calling you a legend.
To truly honor the Gabor legacy, one shouldn't just look at the movies. Look at the interviews. Watch her old appearances on The Merv Griffin Show. You’ll see a woman who was always "on," always sharp, and always aware that the secret to staying young was staying relevant. She might be gone, but the mold she broke hasn't been replaced.
Next Steps for the Hollywood Historian
To get a deeper sense of the world Zsa Zsa inhabited, look into the 1989 documentary The Gabor Sisters or read her 1991 autobiography, One Lifetime Is Not Enough. These sources provide a much grittier look at her escape from Hungary and her rise in Hollywood than the tabloid headlines suggest. If you are interested in her film work, Moulin Rouge (the 1952 version) remains the best showcase of her actual talent before her persona took over. Finally, researching the legal complexities of her estate after 2016 provides a fascinating, if sobering, look at how the fortunes of the Golden Age icons are managed in the modern era.