This Is Your Life: Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa GABOR (1917-2016)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Zsa Zsa Gabor, actress, was surprised by Michael Aspel while being photographed in the garden of her home at 1001 Bel Air Road in Beverley Hills, California.

Zsa Zsa, who was born in Budapest, Hungary, studied at a Swiss finishing school before moving to Vienna in 1934, where she made her stage debut after meeting tenor Richard Tauber, who offered her a part in one of his operettas.

Having emigrated to the United States in 1941, she found work in supporting roles in films such as Lovely to Look At and We're Not Married! before getting her big break in a starring role in John Huston's Moulin Rouge in 1952. Zsa Zsa became famous for being famous, known for her many marriages, personal appearances and her 'dahlink' catchphrase.

"When did you arrive? Why didn't you call me? My life one book? Michael how wonderful. How wonderful, you look, you lost weight, you look gorgeous, you've still the same wife?"

programme details...

Edition No: 763
Subject No: 755
Broadcast date: Wed 29 Nov 1989
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Sun 19 Nov 1989
Repeated: Thu 30 Nov 1989 1.30pm
Venue: unknown
Series: 30
Edition: 6
Code name: Star

on the guest list...

Prince Frederic Von Anhalt - husband
Jolie - mother
Magda - sister
John Frederick
Francesca - daughter
Josef - cousin
Aneko - Josef's wife
Kathryn Grayson
Patty Kate Johnston
Chubby Checker
Lance Thompson
Silver Fox - her horse!
Bob Hope
unnamed relatives
Ann Miller
Cesar Romero
Frankie Howerd
Dame Edna Everage
Anthony Quayle

production team...

Writer: Roy Bottomley
Director: Brian Klein
Associate Producer: John Graham
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

The Glamorous Life

Hollywood in the spotlight

The Big Red Book

the programme's icon

Six Of Their Best!

Celebrities select their ideal This Is Your Life subject

Bob Hope

Ann Miller

Photographs and screenshots of Zsa Zsa Gabor This Is Your Life

Zsa Zsa Gabor recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her book, One Lifetime Is Not Enough...

I also made another film in London called The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, in which I play a secret agent who pretends she is married to a scientist. The film was directed and produced by Herbert Wilcox and also starred his wife, Anna Neagle. The scientist was played by Shakespearean actor Anthony Quayle. Tony was a wonderful man. Stage actors are usually snobbish people, but not Tony. He had a sardonic sense of humor and we had a marvelous time making the film.

Tony and I always remained friends and when the British version of This Is Your Life did my life, the producer taped a segment featuring Tony reminiscing about working with me. At that time, he was in the hospital and when I saw it I was shocked to see how old and ill Tony looked. He was only sixty-eight. Three days later, he was dead of cancer. I sent roses to his funeral with a note saying that I would never forget him. And I won't because I can still see his big round, lovable boyish face smiling at me.

Darwin Porter recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, Those Glamorous Gabors: Bombshells from Budapest...

Although she saw little of Quayle during the years to come, they always remained in touch. In 1989, the BBC in London presented the British version of This Is Your Life, focusing one of its episodes on Zsa Zsa. Unknown to her, Quayle had been asked to recall his experience of working with her during the filming of The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, more than thirty years before.

"I was shocked when I saw him on the screen," she said. "He was sixty-eight years old but looked like he was ninety. He was emaciated, so very ill. My heart went out to him. I felt so sorry for him."

Three days after the telecast of This Is Your Life, Quayle died of liver cancer. The date was October 20, 1989. [Bigredbook.info editor: The programme was produced by Thames Television, not the BBC and was broadcast on 29 November 1989]

Scriptwriter Roy Bottomley recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is Your Life: The Story of Television's Famous Big Red Book...

The mansion at One Thousand and One Bel Air Road was once owned by Elvis Presley, has a nightclub on the roof and had a Hollywood legend by the pool having tea on the afternoon of Sunday 19 November 1989.

'She's a lady who's created more worldwide headlines than anybody even in this town,' said Michael Aspel, before a nervous knock on the door.

He added he hoped she was in receptive mood because 'this lady packs a punch'.

Courtroom pictures of her and the Beverley Hills cop she was said to have slapped had just been flashed around the world. Who else but Zsa Zsa Gabor? Our worry was that by the time of the programme she would be serving a few days' gaol sentence for slapping burly officer Paul Kramer, who had booked her for driving with an out-of-date licence. But all was well.

Associate producer John Graham had the star's husband, Prince Frederic Von Anhalt of Saxony, on his side. John was in the Gabor Rolls-Royce with the prince when they spotted Officer Kramer signing autographs in Rodeo Drive, the most expensive shopping street in the world.

And John got the best hotel service of his life when he had lunch with Zsa Zsa's daughter, Francesca, at the Beverley Hilton. Her father was Conrad Hilton.

Mother Jolie and older sister Magda, with long-time family friend, former 'Tarzan' John Frederick, were there. But younger sister Eva refused to come; she and Zsa Zsa, who had arrived in America together from Budapest in 1940, were having a spat.

Someone else who wasn't there was Officer Kramer. I had the idea that we should finish the show with him coming on to bury the hatchet. But the Beverley Hill's police department buried the idea.

For a character like Zsa Zsa, we needed an 'impact' ending. In 1984, at the opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, she had ridden her world champion Arab stallion Silver Fox. We managed to smuggle Silver Fox into the studios, and I waited backstage with a pretty young lady researcher. When the horse heard the name of Zsa Zsa the result was physically apparent and increasing by the second.

The wide-eyed researcher mused, 'Is that the effect she's always had on men?'

Series 30 subjects