She started her stage career in 1933 and three years later won the title of Miss Hungary. She followed her sister Eva to America in 1941, but unlike Eva did not devote herself to acting; rather, she inaugurated her lifelong career of collecting jewelry, husbands and front-page publicity. Among her many spouses were actor George Sanders (who much later in life would marry her sister Magda) and hotel magnate Conrad Hilton. Operating on the theory that any publicity is good publicity, Gabor has kept herself in the public eye through a series of contretemps with the law. She was once arrested and fined for using profanity in public; she was sued by a "fantasy" theme park thanks to her cavalier attitude towards written contracts; and in 1990 she provided a cornucopia of material for innumerable nightclub comics by slapping a traffic cop who had given her a speeding ticket (an act which she herself capitalized upon with movie cameo roles in The Naked Gun 2 1/2 [1991] and The Beverly Hillbillies [1993]). Gabor also joined the ranks of the politically incorrect for flaunting her many animal-fur coats and for refusing to appear in a nightclub when wheelchair-bound patrons threatened to impede her performance. Gabor also made a few movies. She actually came close to a performance in Moulin Rouge (1952), but the bulk of her cinematic achievements were along the lines of The Girl in the Kremlin (1953) (wherein her head was shaved) and the imperishable Queen of Outer Space (1958)
officially an actress, Zsa Zsa Gabor is more famous as a comical celebrity sex symbol.
Married nine times, Gabor made a career of joking about her man-hungry ways and her love of jewelry and furs. Her credits include the campy Queen of Outer Space (1958), Moulin Rouge (the 1951 version, not Nicole Kidman's 2001 version), and a small role as a nightclub manager in the Orson Welles classic Touch of Evil (1959). In 1989 Gabor gained fresh notoriety after she slapped a Beverly Hills policeman who pulled her over for a traffic violation. Gabor's sisters Magda and Eva are also well known; Eva played the scatterbrained wife in the 1960s TV series Green Acres.
ARREST: June 14, 1989
CHARGE: Battery against an officer; disobeying an officer; driving without a registration; driving without a license; driving with
an open container of alcohol
It was a sunny June day as Zsa Zsa Gabor, actress and author of the gold digger's Bible, The Complete Guide to Men, drove her Rolls Royce Corniche through Beverly Hills. A motorcycle police officer, Paul Kramer, appeared alongside the Rolls and directed her to pull over. He then instructed the actress to hand over her license and registration. Ms. Gabor retrieved both items from the glove compartment. Unfortunately, they had both expired. After a ten-minute wait, while officer Kramer was checking her for priors, Ms. Gabor uttered a few choice words and drove off. Officer Kramer gave chase and pulled Ms. Gabor over again. This time he asked her to step out of the car and she came out swinging, slapping the officer in the face, knocking his regulation sunglasses to the asphalt. Officer Kramer arrested Ms. Gabor and called for back-up to take her to the police station. According to Ms. Gabor's statement, Officer Kramer had handcuffed her so tightly that her wrists were bruised so severely she was unable to attend a charity event that evening. A cursory search of her vehicle turned up a silver flask of bourbon, adding another charge to her arrest. Ms. Gabor was taken to the Beverly Hills police station and booked on five charges. At the station house it was discovered that Ms. Gabor had indeed renewed her registration. However, she had overpaid for it and the ensuing bureaucratic red tape delayed receipt of her now tags. The flask turned out to be the property of Ms. Gabor's eighth husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt. After leaving the station, Ms. Gabor remarked to assembled reporters that her police experience "was like Nazi Germany." About Officer Kramer, she told People magazine, -You should have seen the hatred in his eyes." As for slapping the officer, she quipped, "I have a Hungarian temper." Later dissatisfied with the trial proceedings in Beverly Hills Municipal Court, which seemed to be heading to a routine sentencing, Ms. Gabor's attorney, Harrison Bull, called six witnesses to support his motion for a new trial. When Judge Charles Rubin denied the motion, Mr. Bull called three witnesses to defend Ms. Gabor's character. Judge Rubin found her guilty of slapping Officer Kramer and of two of the traffic offenses. He then sentenced Ms. Gabor to seventy-two hours in jail, one-hundred-and-twenty hours of community service, and $13,000 in court costs.