The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (53 page)

Born Sári Gabor in Budapest on 6 February 1917, the girl who would grow up to be Zsa Zsa began her career aged fifteen, when she took her first stage job in Vienna. Moving on to become Miss Hungary, it wasn’t long before she moved to the United States, where she hoped to carve out a career for herself in the movies. She was successful and, after appearing in her first movie,
Lovely to Look At
(1952), she went on to star in dozens more including
We’re Not Married
, a vehicle which saw her appear on the same bill as Marilyn Monroe, though the two did not actually share any screen time.

Zsa Zsa’s luck in the movies was better than her luck with men, however, and between 1937 and the present day she has been married a staggering nine times, with seven ending in divorce, one annulled after a day, and the final one – to Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt – being the longest, continuing from 1986 to the present day. However, it seems she has never taken her marriage problems seriously, and has often injected her own humour when interviewers have insisted on asking her about them.

“How many husbands have you had?” one is reported to have asked.

“You mean apart from my own?” came the actress’s reply.

By the time 1989 rolled around, Zsa Zsa was seventy-two years old and had been a talk-show and media favourite for many years. She was still in good health, but in spite of that, the year had not started well when she was spotted on a Delta Airlines plane removing her two beloved shih-tzu dogs from their travel compartments so they could sit with her in the cabin. Passengers quickly complained at seeing the dogs free from their cages, and cabin crew asked the actress to return the dogs to their crates.

She refused point blank to do as she was told, which forced the now impatient crew to drag the captain into the proceedings in a bid to get her to obey the rules. When even he could not persuade the actress to re-crate the dogs, a Delta agent came on board but was apparently met by a stream of insults and a firm refusal. This turned out to be the last straw for the crew on board and they called in the police, who quickly escorted Zsa Zsa from the aircraft, dogs in tow.

“He screamed at me like I was some criminal,” Zsa Zsa later complained about the Delta agent before adding that even if she lived to be 100, she would never understand why five policemen had been sent to take her off the plane. But while Zsa Zsa was appalled at her treatment by both the crew and the police, this would not be her last brush with the law during 1989.

It all started on 14 July when the actress was driving on Los Angeles’s La Cienega Boulevard in a Rolls-Royce belonging to her husband, Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt. She was trying to run an urgent errand, but instead found herself pulled over by Officer Paul Kramer, who told her the registration plate on her car had expired. The actress explained that she believed it had been renewed earlier that year, so the policeman asked her to present her driver’s licence. Unfortunately, she soon realized that her new licence was at home in her handbag, so instead Zsa Zsa showed him an old one she kept in the glove compartment. This, of course, had also expired. The officer’s patience was beginning to wear thin and he went to his car to check out the situation with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Zsa Zsa later told television interviewer Arsenio Hall that she sat in the car for some time, boiling in the heat and unable to turn on the air conditioning for fear of overheating the engine. She then decided to exit the car and make her way to the policeman, who was still on the telephone. According to Zsa Zsa, the following alleged conversation then transpired:

“Officer, can I go?” asked the actress.

“F-off,” replied the officer.

The confused Zsa Zsa took that to mean she could now leave the scene, started the Rolls-Royce and headed off down the road. Meanwhile, Officer Kramer was shocked to discover Ms Gabor taking off in the Rolls-Royce, and quickly drove after her.

The policeman finally caught up with her at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Le Doux Road, where he ordered the actress out of the car. She did not understand what she had done wrong, apparently, and according to Zsa Zsa, Kramer then allegedly grabbed her and pulled her out of the car, causing her to bruise her arm in the process. “I used to like men who spanked me but not like this!” she later joked to Arsenio Hall.

The actress responded to this abrupt exit by slapping Officer Kramer in the face. The Beverly Hills policeman was understandably shocked by the outburst, cuffed Zsa Zsa’s hands behind her back, and then sprawled her on to the bonnet of her car. At this point, according to later comments by the actress, her main concern was the fact that her short dress was rising higher and higher up her legs.

Still handcuffed, she was then ordered to sit down at the side of the road to await the arrival of more officers. The actress later laughed at the incident by exclaiming, “The things on my wrists hurt like hell, and they were ugly things – not handsome like diamonds!” Zsa Zsa started to cry for help and people began to notice the furore going on around them. One man – a tourist from Israel – even came over to help her retrieve her sunglasses, which had fallen off during the developments.

When back-up arrived a short time later, the Rolls-Royce was impounded, and the furious actress was arrested and taken to the police station. There she was searched (and allegedly told by a female police officer that she needed to lose weight), and fingerprints and her mug shot were taken. She was then booked for battery of a policeman, evading a policeman, being an unlicensed driver and driving an unlicensed vehicle. To top it all off, they also slapped her with another accusation: that of having an open bottle of alcohol in her car – something to which she took great offence, declaring that it had been in the glove compartment for years.

The police were unfazed, however, and the actress was told to appear at the Beverly Hills Municipal Court on 12 July to answer the charges. She repaid the favour by declaring, “They are stupid . . . uneducated. How can they do that to a lady like me?” She also denied slapping the policeman on purpose, stating that she only hit “this gorgeous, tall policeman” because she felt he was about to break her arm as he pulled her out of the car. Added to that, she also alleged that when the officer had thrown her over the bonnet of the car, he had called her a “whore”.

The day after the episode, Zsa Zsa gave a news conference, during which she showed off bruises on her arm and demanded the return of the car and a brooch, which she stated must have fallen off during the episode. “I want that gorgeous policeman to know that he can’t manhandle women,” she told reporters. “I’m standing up for the battered women of America.”

When Gabor was arraigned on 12 July, she arrived in a large, silver limousine, which set the tone for the entire trial. This was not going to be just any “driving without a licence” trial, and by the time the case properly began in September 1989, the press were on tenterhooks, ready to report every eccentric move Zsa Zsa made. Luckily for them, she did not disappoint.

Arriving with an entourage that included two hairdressers, the actress sauntered past the hundred waiting reporters, with a bright, “Hello darlings!” When she refused to answer media questions, the paparazzi descended on one of her hairdressers for an exclusive interview, reporting afterwards that Zsa Zsa’s hair was styled that morning in its normal way, and that while her hair was being worked on, she had apparently looked innocent enough. It wasn’t exactly tantalizing, but it was all the reporters could get before the entourage crowded its way into the courtroom.

Once there, Zsa Zsa wasted no time in pleading innocent to all charges filed against her: battery of a police officer; disobeying a policeman’s orders; driving with an expired licence; having an expired car registration; and driving with open alcohol in the vehicle. Luckily for Zsa Zsa, one of the said charges – that she was driving with an expired registration – was dropped by Judge Charles G. Rubin when it was found that the car was indeed legally registered.

The day was long and perhaps not as exciting as the press hoped it would be, though on leaving the court Zsa Zsa did say a few words, describing the jury as “charming, every one of them”. This, unfortunately, was all the journalists would get from the actress that day, though they were able to soothe themselves by speaking to a woman who was more than a little annoyed with events going on inside the court house.

Joelle Nelson had won a competition to travel to Los Angeles for the trial, and wearing her “Free Zsa Zsa” badge, she had been ecstatic to find herself riding in the same elevator as the actress herself. Unfortunately for Nelson, however, her handbag was in Zsa Zsa’s way, and the poor woman found herself on the receiving end of a stern word from the impatient actress. “She was very rude,” Nelson said, much to the amusement of the waiting reporters.

The next day Zsa Zsa arrived at the courthouse wearing a leopard-print dress and declaring that she had more than enough clothes to keep her going, regardless of how long the trial continued. Because of a gagging order, however, the number of reporters and fans had fallen considerably from what it had been just a day before, and the most anyone could get out of the actress was how well she had slept the night before, and the tantalizing fact that she believed leopard print was back in fashion.

The entire day was again drawn out and the reporters complained that all that seemed to be going on was the selection of the jury. Fans began to fidget and reporters yawned, but a moment of light relief was served when one admirer suddenly got up and declared, “Sorry, I have to leave to catch a spaceship”, much to the amusement of everyone around him.

Day three proved to be more exciting, especially when Zsa Zsa entered the building. At the door of the courthouse, she was inundated with questions. “How are you feeling?” shouted one reporter, to which the actress replied that her mother was deathly worried about her; that she had telephoned that morning to see if she was going to be sent to prison.

“I told her I hoped not,” Gabor was reported to say. “I have claustrophobia and would be very unhappy in jail, and besides, they are all lesbians in jail and I’m so scared of lesbians. Can you imagine being in jail with all those women?” This alleged comment was so astonishing that it would later earn her a letter of complaint from an unnamed gay organization. She told reporters that the letter had been sent to tell her what “lovely people” they were. “But I already know it,” she replied.

Outburst over for one day, Zsa Zsa then entered the courtroom in time to hear Officer Paul Kramer describe how she had slapped him so hard it had bent his sunglasses. “I was very surprised,” he told the jury. An enlarged copy of her driver’s licence was then given to the court, which seemed to show that despite being born in 1917, the actual licence appeared to have been altered to 6 February 1928.

In spite of the fact that she was not supposed to talk to waiting reporters, Zsa Zsa did not do as she was told, and instead seemed happy to respond to at least some of their questions. Outside the courtroom the actress said that she had not noticed before how gorgeous her arresting officer was, though she made it clear that she felt he had lied during proceedings. She then gave a quick plug for her own brand of face cream by telling reporters that the only good thing to come from all this was the fact that the line was now, “selling like hot cakes”.

But the plug came at a price, and the next day the actress found herself reprimanded by the frustrated judge for giving out information to reporters, both on her way to and from the courtroom. “This is my first and last warning,” he told her. “I’m going to ask you to comply and not make any comments to the media. Just say, ‘No comment.’”

“Yes sir,” replied the bemused actress, and then continued to comment to reporters during a break in proceedings.

The case very quickly turned into a circus, and newspaper headlines were dominated by Zsa Zsa’s outbursts in court. One day she burst into tears and tried to run from the room, only to find herself stopped and ordered to return to her seat by the judge. Then on another day during questioning, the actress described the officer as “the toughest, nastiest, rudest person I ever saw in my life. He was like a wild animal.”

When asked how often she is generally pulled over by policemen, she replied, “Very seldom. Usually they want to marry me.” This raised a laugh from the courtroom, but she then went on to confuse everyone by forgetting the exact derogatory names the officer was supposed to have called her and how long she had waited for him to check her licence.

The actress then infuriated just about everyone when she accused the officer, Paul Kramer, of faking a recent motorcycle accident to win sympathy. She even decided that because the officer had not been kind to her, he must clearly be gay. With that in mind she then attempted to “out” him and reportedly told the court, “Don’t you know, a gay man would not like a woman like Zsa Zsa Gabor. Why would he? I marry all the men he would want to have.” Fearing being sued, this comment forced her lawyer, William Grayson, to tell reporters that neither Gabor – nor himself – knew anything about the personal life of Officer Kramer.

Despite being told to never talk to reporters herself, Zsa Zsa continued to entertain them, claiming that she had just received a supportive message from former President Ronald Reagan, telling her to telephone him. Reporters were sceptical so called the Reagan offices themselves, only to be told by a spokesman that he had absolutely not telephoned the woman, and was unlikely to do so in the future.

On day twelve she turned up late, after the policeman at the centre of the slapping incident was slowing down traffic on his speed patrol. “Officer Kramer made me late,” she told waiting reporters. “He stopped the traffic with a radar gun. There he was, looking his gorgeous self, with a radar.”

Despite bringing in witnesses to back up her claims against the policeman, questioning the authenticity of video evidence and weeping on several occasions, by the end of the trial Zsa Zsa Gabor was found guilty of slapping a police officer; possessing alcohol in her car; and driving without a licence. She was, however, acquitted of driving away from the officer, as jurors believed it might have been a result of a miscommunication, rather than a deliberate attempt to “escape”.