Every Disney Hero Has a Voice
The Aristocats
Duchess Shared A Voice with The Rescuers ~ Bianca
Eva Gabor
Duchess & Bianca
February 11th, 1919 – July 4th, 1995
Éva Gábor (11
February 1919 – 4 July 1995) was a Hungarian-born American socialite and
actress. She was widely known for her role on the 1965 to 1971 television
sitcom, Green Acres as Lisa Douglas, the wife of Eddie Albert's
character, Oliver Wendell Douglas. She portrayed Duchess in the 1970 Disney
film The Aristocats, and Miss Bianca in Disney's The Rescuers and
The Rescuers Down Under. Gábor had success as an actress in film,
Broadway and television; she was also successful in business, marketing wigs,
clothing, and beauty products. Her older sisters, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Magda Gabor,
were also American actresses and socialites.
Biography
Early life & career
Born in Budapest of Jewish descent, Gábor was the third
and last daughter of Vilmos Gábor (1884–1962), a soldier, and Jolie Gábor
(1894–1997), a jeweler. She was the first Gábor sister to emigrate to the
United States. She moved with her first husband, a Swedish osteopath, Eric V.
Drimmer in 1939, shortly after they married in London. Her first movie role was
in the United States, a bit part in Forced Landing at Paramount Pictures.
She acted in movies and on the stage throughout the 1950s.
During the 1950s, she appeared in several
"A"-movies including The Last Time I Saw Paris, starring Elizabeth
Taylor, and Artists and Models, which featured Dean Martin and Jerry
Lewis. These roles were again bit parts. In 1953 she was given her own
television talk show, The Eva Gabor Show. It ran for one season
(1953–54).
Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, she
appeared on television and in movies. She appeared in one episode of the TV
series Justice, and was on the game show What's My Line?, as the
"mystery challenger". Her film appearances during this era included a
remake of My Man Godfrey, Gigi, and It Started with a Kiss.
A 2007 article in the American magazine Vanity Fair
called Gábor "a game performer with a wholesome, even cheerful sensuality
that can undercut the Continental sophistication that was supposedly her
calling card—she can come across like Sally Field doing a party impression of Marlene
Dietrich. You can see the effort. She was probably at her best on television in
Green Acres, playing a cross between Gracie Allen and herself."
Green Acres
In 1965, Gábor began the role for which she is
best-remembered, Lisa Douglas, whose attorney husband (Oliver Wendell Douglas,
played by Eddie Albert), decides to leave the city. They buy and run a farm in
a rural community, forcing Lisa to leave her beloved New York City, in the Paul
Henning situation comedy-sitcom Green Acres, which aired on CBS.
Gábor's role of Lisa was that of a rich, somewhat
spoiled, and pampered socialite, who disapproves of farm life. However, she
learns to live with it, trying to become a cook and a good housewife, while
Oliver runs the farm. Lisa has a great deal of love for her chickens, naming
one Henrietta and another Alice. She does not appear in casual clothing, always
wearing glamorous, designer frocks around the farm. She does dress more
circumspectly, however, when appearing in public with her husband. She
constitutes the polite interface with the local "personalities",
whose backward ways usually provoke Oliver to anger or petty frustration. Green
Acres was located in Hooterville,
the same scenery for Petticoat Junction (1963–1970) and would
occasionally crossovers with its sister sitcom.
Proving to be a ratings hit, staying in the top twenty
for its first four seasons, Green Acres as was its other sister show, The
Beverly Hillbillies, was itself cancelled in 1971 owing to the CBS
network's "rural purge", an attempt to attract a younger viewer
demographic; most viewers of the series were at least 40 years old.
Later years
Gábor did voice-over work for Disney movies, providing
the European-accented voices of Duchess in The Aristocats, Miss Bianca
in The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under, and the Queen of
Time in the Sanrio film, Nutcracker Fantasy.
From 1983–84 she reunited with Albert on Broadway as Olga
in You Can't Take It with You.
Gabor toured post-Communist Hungary on an episode of Lifestyles
of the Rich and Famous after a forty year absence.
Businesses
In 1972, Gábor launched the Eva Gabor fashion collection;
the clothes were the work of Luis Estevez, a Cuban-born, Coty-award-winning
fashion designer.
Marriages
The three Gábor sisters were known for their numerous
marriages. Eva Gábor was married 5 times:
- Eric
Valdemar Drimmer, a Swedish-born masseur turned osteopath and psychologist,
whose patients included Greta Garbo and Signe Hasso. They married in
London in June 1939 and divorced in Los Angeles, California, on 25
February 1942 (it was finalized on 6 March); Gabor claimed cruelty,
saying, "I wanted to have babies and lead a simple family life but my
husband objected to my having children". They had no children.
- Charles
Isaacs, an American investment broker. They married on 27 September 1943
and were divorced on 2 April 1949. They had no children.
- John
Elbert Williams, M.D., a plastic surgeon. They married on 8 April 1956 and
were divorced on 20 March 1957. They had no children.
- Richard
Brown, a textile manufacturer, who later became a writer and director.
They married at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 4 October 1959
and were divorced in Santa Monica, California, in June 1973. During this
marriage, Gábor was "pistolwhipped" (January 1965) by thieves
who took and sold her diamond wedding ring. They had no children.
- Frank
Gard Jameson, Sr., an aerospace executive and former vice president of Rockwell
International. They married in the Vivien Webb Chapel of The Webb School
of California, in Claremont, California, on 21 September 1973; they were
divorced in 1983. By this marriage Gabor became stepmother to four Jameson
children.
Gábor also had affairs with Frank Sinatra, Glenn Ford,
and Tyrone Power.
Death
Gábor died in Los Angeles on 4 July 1995 due to
respiratory failure and pneumonia, following a fall in the bathtub. The fall
occurred in Mexico, where she had been on vacation.
Although the youngest of the three sisters, she was the first to die, and she also predeceased her mother. Her mother, Jolie, died on 1 April 1997, and her sister, Magda, died on 6 June 1997. As of 2012, Zsa Zsa Gabor is still living.
Interment
Gábor is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park
Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. She is buried near Eddie Albert,
who died on 26 May 2005 (age 99).
Stage work
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Plays
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Opening Date
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Closing Date
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Title
|
Role
|
Theatre
|
|
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24 January
1950
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14 July 1951
|
The
Happy Time
|
Mignonette
|
Plymouth
|
|
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26 March
1956
|
31 March
1956
|
Little
Glass Clock
|
Gabrielle
|
John Golden
|
|
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31 January
1958
|
8 February
1958
|
Present
Laughter
|
Joanna
Lyppiatt
|
Belasco
|
|
|
18 March
1963
|
9 November
1963
|
Tovarich
|
Tatiana
|
Broadway
Majestic Winter Garden |
|
|
4 April
1983
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1 January
1984
|
You
Can't Take It with You
|
Olga
|
Plymouth
Royale |
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Select filmography
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|
Television work
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http://en.wikipedia.org
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