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Good Housekeeping Hollywood Style

April 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

Despite her quips on her housekeeping, Zsa Zsa Gabor purchased her current abode in 1973 for $250,000.  Now on the market for $15 million, she claims that both Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley had once lived there (although not together), which may or may not be true.

For Sale – Just Reduced

Regardless, the gated French Regency-style mansion in the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood was the scene of countless parties attended by la crème de la crème.  Queen Elizabeth of England and former First Lady Nancy Reagan, a queen in her own mind, attended one dinner.  Other frequent guests included Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Kirk Douglas, who enjoyed eating sausage with her and one of her  sisters in the kitchen.

The 6,393 square-foot edifice built in 1955 sits on a one-acre site.  It is comprised of 28 rooms, including the master bedroom with a two-room closet, four guest bedrooms, five baths, breakfast nook, butler’s pantry, an enclosed patio, an oversized dining room, a recreation room with a fifteen-foot long bar, a formal sitting room, a roof top terrace, and staff quarters.

There’s also a heated pool where Zsa Zsa swam naked in the morning.

Inside or out, the views of downtown Los Angeles and westward to Santa Monica and Catalina Island are magnificent,

Movie-star glamour is evident everywhere, from Zsa Zsa’s portraits to her photographs posing with a veritable who’s who of twentieth-century society, here and abroad. “It’s like walking through a museum,” effusively exclaimed Christophe Choo, the listing agent.

While Choo admits the property needs some remodeling, he estimates, “I think a potential buyer would come in and spend a million dollars or so… and make it special.”

It’s certainly worth a look:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5KBgxmwSkk

© 2012 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

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I am a marvelous housekeeper.  Every time I leave a man I keep his house.

— Zsa Zsa Gabor

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Who’s Counting?

October 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

It’s difficult to pin down statistics on celebrity divorce.

While 43% of marriages among the general population come to an end, it’s estimated that 75% among the well-known and well-heeled do so.  The source of this statistic is unknown, but it certainly seems accurate.  Just peruse the National Enquirer while waiting in the grocery line.

Celebrity marriages don’t seem to last as long either.   And then the movie stars, rock stars, and other Hollywood types try it again.

“I do. I do. I do.” Photo by: brtsergio

This isn’t a recent phenomenon.  We’re all familiar with the conjugal histories of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mickey Rooney.  They started young and kept going and going and going – Energizer bunnies, all of them.

Gabor first married in 1937 in her native Hungary when she was twenty years old.  Her husband was a Turkish ambassador.  She left him four years later to immigrate to the United States where her stage background gave her entree to Hollywood.  She’s been married to her eighth or ninth husband, depending on how you count, since 1986.

Elizabeth Taylor also wed eight times beginning in 1950 at the tender age of eighteen.  Her first husband, Nicky Hilton, was a playboy with a mean temper and a drinking problem, and she left him less than nine months later.

But, boy, was Hilton good-looking with lots of sex appeal!  Zsa Zsa had an affair with him while she was married to his father, Conrad Hilton, founder of Hilton hotels.  It lasted through her divorce, into her marriage to actor George Sanders, and beyond Nicky’s betrothal to Taylor.

Zsa Zsa also had an affair with Richard Burton in his pre-Elizabethan days while he was married to Sybil Williams.  She certainly got around, as did Burton.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, once stated, “I’ve only slept with men I’ve been married to.  How many women can make that claim?”  Certainly not Zsa Zsa, although they were the best of friends.

Mickey Rooney and Ava Gardner, the first of his eight wives, couldn’t keep it going much more than a year.  In 1942 he was only twenty-one years old; she was nineteen and on her way to stardom.

Ava next married jazz musician Artie Show.  She was the fourth of his eight wives, and their union was short.  Frank Sinatra, whom Zsa Zsa also slept with although she didn’t like him much, was the love of her life and her third and last husband, but they were both too tempestuous to make it last.

Mickey, however, has now been happily married to the same woman since 1978.   His secret?  “Don’t marry anybody you love… Marry somebody you like,” he advises. “Love is sex, love is drunkenness, but it never lasts.  But when you marry your best friend, love grows.”

At one time Mickey also suggested, “Always get married in the morning. That way if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.”

© 2011 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

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Zsa Zsa and the Prince

June 19, 2011 by 9 Comments

If Elizabeth Taylor was the last movie star, then Zsa Zsa Gabor was the first to be famous for being famous.  She was all glitz and glamour, and I mean that in the best possible way.

She had a witty sense of humor.  Known for her many relationships, she was often asked, “How many husbands have you had?”  Without a blink, she replied, “You mean other than my own?”

In fact, Zsa Zsa nine times, if you count her union with Felipe de Alba.  It was subsequently annulled because her divorce from husband number seven, Michael O’Hara, had not yet been finalized

She is now married to  Frederic Prinz Von Anhalt. They tied the knot in 1986, making it her longest lasting relationship.  And he came with a title, even if it wasn’t one to which he was born.

Zsa Zsa Gabor by Classic Film Scans

Zsa Zsa is twenty-six years older than her spouse.  Does that make her a cougar? I think she’d rather like the title and all that it implies.

At 94-years old, Ms. Gabor is in very poor health.  She’s been partially paralyzed since a car accident in 2002, and she suffered a stroke in 2005.

Almost a year ago she broke several bones falling out of bed and required surgery to replace her hip.

In January of this year, she had her right leg amputated above the knee to stop the spread of gangrene.

Since then she took ill with pneumonia, suffered complications from a feeding tube into her stomach, coughing up blood, and slipped into and out of a coma.

Throughout her trials and tribulations the Prince, has been by her side, sort of.  He’s always been distracted by various extracurricular activities.

As an example, in 2007, he threw his hat in the ring along with Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Smith, claiming to have fathered Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter.  Paternity tests showed otherwise.

That same year police found him naked in his Rolls Royce Phantom.  He maintained several women had mugged him.  Presumably, the family jewels were left intact.

Last year, Von Anhalt filed papers to run for governor of California, pledging to legalize marijuana and prostitution, taxing all vices.  He said then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, warts and all, had inspired him.  He should have found a better role model.

Late fall he was hospitalized for swallowing a bee while sunbathing in the backyard.  Soon after he was back in the hospital after accidentally gluing one of his eyelids shut.  He had picked up a bottle of nail glue, mistaking it for eye drops.

A few months ago Von Anhalt announced he and his wife were trying to become parents using an egg donor, artificial insemination, and a surrogate.  It was something he said she had hoped for ever since they got married – a quarter of a century ago.

He put her Bel Air mansion on the market for $28 million, intending to move his bride to a condominium, something else he said she always wanted to do.  A few months later he reduced the asking price to $15 million.

To cover her medical expenses he has made known his plans to auction off her treasured fur coat collection and her fancy designer dresses.

Justly concerned, Francesca Hilton, Zsa Zsa’s daughter, only four years younger than her stepfather, now 68, is preparing to take him to court to protect her mother’s dignity and keep him from trashing her estate.  But that doesn’t seem to concern him.  He’s a prince with no charm, a cub that never grew up.

© 2011 Susan Marg – All Rights Reserved

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