Eva Gabor

Eva Gabor was a Hungarian-American actress, socialite, and businesswoman born on February 11, 1919, in Budapest, Hungary, the youngest daughter of Vilmos Gábor, a soldier, and Jolie Gábor, a trained jeweler. Both parents came from Hungarian Jewish families. Her elder sisters, Zsa Zsa and Magda, were also actresses and socialites. Gabor was the first of the three sisters to emigrate to the United States, doing so shortly after her 1937 marriage in London to Swedish osteopath Dr. Eric Drimmer, whom she wed at age eighteen. She died on July 4, 1995, in Los Angeles, from respiratory failure and pneumonia following a fall in a bathtub while vacationing in Mexico. Her funeral took place on July 11, 1995, at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills.

Gabor's screen career began in 1941 with a role in Forced Landing at Paramount Pictures. Through the 1950s she appeared in supporting parts in several feature films, among them The Last Time I Saw Paris with Elizabeth Taylor and Artists and Models, which starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Later film appearances included a remake of My Man Godfrey, Gigi, and It Started with a Kiss. In 1953 she was given her own television talk show, The Eva Gabor Show, which ran for one season through 1954. She also appeared in an episode of the mystery series Justice and served as a mystery challenger on the game show What's My Line?.

Her most prominent television role came in 1965, when she was cast as Lisa Douglas in the CBS sitcom Green Acres, created by Paul Henning. The series centered on Lisa's attorney husband Oliver Wendell Douglas, played by Eddie Albert, who abandons city life to purchase a farm in the rural community of Hooterville, the same setting used in the sister sitcom Petticoat Junction. Green Acres remained in the Nielsen top twenty for its first four seasons before being cancelled in 1971 as part of CBS's so-called rural purge, a network policy that also ended The Beverly Hillbillies. In 1966, Gabor and Johnny Carson played Twister together on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Following Green Acres, Gabor continued working in television and voice performance. She provided the voice of Duchess in the 1970 Disney animated film The Aristocats and later voiced Miss Bianca in The Rescuers in 1977 and its 1990 sequel The Rescuers Down Under. She also voiced the Queen of Time in the Sanrio film Nutcracker Fantasy. On the game show circuit, she served as a panelist on the Gene Rayburn-hosted Match Game and appeared on the Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour from 1983 to 1984. She played Aunt Renee in the fourth season of Hart to Hart, and in 1990 she appeared in the CBS sitcom pilot Close Encounters, which aired as a special but did not advance to series.

Gabor's Broadway career spanned from 1950 to 1983. She starred in the comedy Present Laughter and appeared in Little Glass Clock and The Happy Time. In 1983 she reunited with her Green Acres co-star Eddie Albert on Broadway, playing the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina in You Can't Take It with You. Beyond performing, Gabor was an active businesswoman who marketed wigs, clothing, and beauty products, and in 1972 she launched an eponymous fashion collection in partnership with Cuban-born American designer Luis Estévez.

Gabor was married five times. Her first husband was Dr. Eric Drimmer; they divorced in Los Angeles in 1942. She subsequently married investment broker Charles Isaacs in 1943, divorcing in 1949. Her third marriage, to plastic surgeon John Elbert Williams, MD, lasted from April 1956 to March 1957. She married textile manufacturer Richard Brown at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on October 4, 1959; that marriage ended in Santa Monica in June 1973. Her fifth and final marriage was to aerospace executive Frank Gard Jameson Sr., a former vice president of Rockwell International; they wed on September 21, 1973, at the Vivian Webb Chapel of The Webb Schools in Claremont, California, and divorced in 1983. Gabor also had a long-term, intermittent relationship with actor Glenn Ford, which began during the 1957 filming of Don't Go Near the Water. After her final divorce, she was involved with television producer Merv Griffin until her death. Gabor had no biological children.