Zsa Zsa Gabor: When You Play the Players

Zsa Zsa Gabor was an actress, comedienne, and sex goddess of the 1950s silver screen. She was infamously married nine times and only had one child – who was claimed by her first husband, Conrad Hilton – the OG of the Hilton hotel empire. Though, there’s speculation that her daughter belonged to Conrad’s son from a previous marriage, Nicky – who Zsa Zsa had a scandalous affair with.

Despite being raised as a Hungarian Jew right before the rise of Hilter, Zsa was the definition of glamor. During a TV appearance, when the host asked her about all the jewelry she had on, Zsa Zsa joked back, “Dahling, zese are just my working diamonds.” Artful quips and quick wit were characteristic of Zsa Zsa.

It was this charm that made Zsa Zsa an overnight success in Hollywood. Regardless of the role she was hired to play, she always performed a version of herself. And she was a sexually liberated woman who had countless affairs with high-profile, powerful men. When asked: “How many husbands have you had?” Zsa Zsa joked, “You mean apart from my own?”

Before coming to the US, Zsa Zsa was a beauty queen who was first married to a Turkish government official twice her age (older men would be common in her eight marriages to follow.) Her first husband gave her access to the President of Turkey, with whom she had a passionate affair.

Zsa Zsa said Mr. President “ruined me for every other man I would ever love, or try to love,” when she was older. “He knew exactly how to please a young girl. He was a professional lover, a god, and a king.”

Zsa Zsa came to the United States in 1941, in the heat of WWII. She left with 21 suitcases, traveling across Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq – and by seducing a young sheik to get her safe passage from India to New York. Zsa Zsa learned early that seducing power players could save her life. In fact, her affair with a Portuguese ambassador – who secured her mother, father, and sister passports – saved her family from being murdered in the Holocaust.

In the US, Zsa Zsa found husband number two: Conrad Hilton – one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time. But she suffered from the trauma of knowing her entire hometown was being exterminated by the Nazis. Even her childhood home was burned to the ground with her dog in it. Everyone she knew was tortured and slaughtered. Doctors deemed her as suffering from bipolar disorder, so they heavily medicated her. She went on massive shopping sprees with her husband's money but eventually filed for divorce from Hilton.

But he wasn’t done with her yet: Zsa Zsa’s ex-husband partnered with her younger sister Eva to commit her to an asylum. There, she was given shock therapy and heavy medication against her will. At that time, she found out she was pregnant with her only child.

A few years later, Zsa Zsa fell for and wed British actor George Sanders – but had public affairs with playboys during their marriage. After five years, he filed for divorce, which recked Zsa Zsa. They maintained a friendship for the rest of her life – which somehow wasn’t broken when he married her older sister Madga two decades later. Some speculate that the nuptials were by Zsa Zsa’s design; it was a way to keep him close and in the family.

Her advice was, "The best way to attract a man immediately is to have a magnificent bosom and a half-size brain and let both of them show." She also wrote books such as How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, and How to Get Rid of a Man. Zsa Zsa was famous for playing down her own intelligence and strength. She even said, "Remember—the only place men want depth in their women is in her décolletage."

However, she was highly strategic and strong. She famously slapped a police office who pulled her over in traffic for talking to her like a streetwalker. She also donated heavily to Hungarian revolutionaries during the Cold War.

Though with nine marriages, many view her as a maneater. However, in her era, sex before marriage was extremely looked down upon. So, being a sexually active woman, marriage was the only way she could live out her fantasies.

The alpha that they are often attracted to seeks to control their sexuality and even profit from it. Many goddesses of sex are deemed crazy by the men in their lives – mostly because they are uncontrollable. They weaponize mental health to imprison them. Some women who dealt with the same struggles as Zsa Zsa are Marilyn Monroe, Yoko Ono, and, most recently, Britney Spears. In fiction, Blanche Dubois from Streetcar Named Desire comes to mind.

Zsa Zsa was a friend and ally to other women within her archetype. She maintained a decades-long friendship with Elizabeth Taylor even though they had affairs with the same man. "Being jealous of a beautiful woman is not going to make you more beautiful,” she said, and chose to join forces with them instead.

One of the biggest questions when looking at these women is, “Did they have a good life?”

Though she never found a soulmate, she had long-term friendships. Instead of underselling her intelligence, she should have honed her talents (other than getting money from men.) However, at the end of the day, she died at 99, having had a full, meaningful life with financial independence. On her deathbed, everyone was fighting over fortune – which when you think of it shows how well had done for herself!

In her later affairs, she exchanged her Hollywood access for love with increasingly younger men. However, she still wanted a pedigree – she dated Dominican dictators, princes, and nobles. They were always alpha men and with a good last name at that.