--- title: Zsa Zsa Gabor: Rare Photos of the Actress in 1951 description: LIFE.com presents a series of rare photos of the actress from 1951, when she was still a relative unknown. canonical: https://time.com/3684326/zsa-zsa-gabor-rare-photos/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-02-05T17:01:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T14:53:32.000Z og:title: Zsa Zsa Gabor: Rare Photos of the Actress in 1951 og:description: LIFE.com presents a series of rare photos of the actress from 1951, when she was still a relative unknown. og:url: https://time.com/3684326/zsa-zsa-gabor-rare-photos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta271673941a847f6/69877c2da988ca4dd16ac20d/150127-zsa-zsa-gabor-10.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Zsa Zsa Gabor 1951 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Zsa Zsa Gabor: Rare Photos of the Actress in 1951 twitter:description: LIFE.com presents a series of rare photos of the actress from 1951, when she was still a relative unknown. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta271673941a847f6/69877c2da988ca4dd16ac20d/150127-zsa-zsa-gabor-10.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # LIFE With Zsa Zsa Gabor: Rare Photos, 1951 by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:53 PM UTCPublished: Feb 5, 2013 5:01 PM UTC  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Farouk, California, 1951. Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Farouk, California, 1951.Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:53 PM UTCPublished: Feb 5, 2013 5:01 PM UTC Anyone who has lived to be almost 100 likely has a few outlandish tales to tell. At least, one _hopes_ they have tales to tell; it’s simply too awful to think of someone living through ten decades without one adventure, one great passion, one scandal worthy of relating over and over again. What’s the point of living a long life, after all, if one can’t look back with some complacency and pleasure at the glorious, memorable mistakes one made along the way? With that in mind, we turn our attention to the one and only Zsa Zsa Gabor. Born Sári Gábor on Feb. 6, 1917, in Budapest, the middle sister of a middle-class Hungarian family — between younger sister Eva (1919 – 1995) and older sister Magda (1915 – 1997) — Zsa Zsa lived in the public eye for more than six decades, before [her death at 99 in 2016.](http://time.com/4605880/zsa-zsa-gabor-dies-obituary/) Beautiful, glamorous and disarmingly funny; married nine times, divorced seven (one marriage was annulled); friend and lover to the famous; accused traffic cop-slapper (remember _that_ weirdness back in 1989?); Bernie Madoff victim to the tune of something like $10 million; best-selling author; actress with scores of movies and TV appearances to her name — one could argue that Zsa Zsa was, in fact, the very last of those outrageous, celebrated Hollywood figures (like her late friend, Liz Taylor) who routinely and unrepentantly provided scandal sheets and gossip columnists with fodder in the middle part of the last century. Quotations attributed to her through the years, meanwhile, suggest a lively intelligence and a savvy, off-hand and charming worldliness behind her seemingly soft facade: “A man in love is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.” “_Macho_ does not prove _mucho_.” “I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.” “Husbands are like fires. They go out if unattended.” “To a smart girl men are no problem. They’re the answer.” Time, alas, was not kind to Gabor. Late in her life, she suffered strokes, was confined to a wheelchair and had her right leg amputated above the knee to combat an aggressive infection. Her obituary was written and prepped — and then shelved — several times in the past few years by media outlets, as she fought on against mounting odds, diminished but far from forgotten. Here, LIFE.com recalls the younger Zsa Zsa with a series of photos — many of which never ran in LIFE — from 1951, when she was barely known outside of California, but was quickly becoming as famous as her sister, Eva (who, incidentally, only married five times). In its October 15, 1951, issue LIFE magazine introduced the 34-year-old Zsa Zsa to its millions of readers thus: --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- ![A 25-carat glow is shed by her ring as Zsa Zsa Gabor takes daughter \[Francesca, by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton\] walking at their Bel Air home.](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt89cd90ac9929da2f/69877c2a524fc0b9dfdec27f/150127-zsa-zsa-gabor-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp) Caption from LIFE. A 25-carat glow is shed by her ring as Zsa Zsa Gabor takes daughter \[Francesca, by hotel magnate Conrad Hilton\] walking at their Bel Air home. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her daughter Francesca, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor painting, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor painting, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor at lunch with French actress Denise Darcel, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. For her film role in Lovely to Look At, Zsa Zsa takes lesson at M-G-M studio with Betsy von Furstenberg (right), also a LIFE cover girl (Jan. 29, 1951). Betsy is engaged to Nicky Hilton, son of Zsa Zsa's second husband. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with Betsy von Furstenberg, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Harvey Hilton, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Farouk, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Farouk, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dog, Farouk, California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor with her dogs, Harvey Hilton (grey) and Farouk (black), California, 1951. Ed Clark—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Zsa Zsa Gabor, California, 1951. 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