Full Name Gabor Magdolna Occupation Actress, socialite Cause of death Renal Failure Years active 1937–1991 | Name Magda Gabor Ethnicity Jewish Role Actress | |
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Spouse Tibor Heltai (m. 1972–1975) Similar People | ||
Siblings Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eva Gabor | ||
Magdolna "Magda" Gabor (June 11, 1915 – June 6, 1997) was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite, and the elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.
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Background
The eldest daughter of a jeweler, Jolie (1896–1997), and a soldier, Vilmos Gábor (1881-1962), she was born in 1915 in Budapest. Her parents were both from Jewish families. She is listed in Hungary: Jewish Names from the Central Zionist Archives, under her first married name, as Magda Bychowsky. She stood 5'6" tall with red hair and gray eyes.
During World War II, Gabor was reported to have been the fiancée of the Portuguese ambassador to Hungary, Carlos Sampaio Garrido; another source claims she was his mistress and another claims she was his aide. After she fled to Portugal in 1944, following the Nazi occupation of Hungary, and, with Sampaio's assistance, she was reportedly the mistress of a Spanish nobleman, José Luis de Vilallonga. Gabor arrived in the United States in February 1946, from Natal, Brazil. Within a year of her arrival she married an American citizen, William Rankin, and remained in the country.
Marriages
Gabor married six times. She was widowed twice, divorced three times, and one marriage was annulled. All the unions were childless. Her husbands, in chronological order, were:
Death
Magda Gabor died on June 6, 1997, five days before her 82nd birthday, from renal failure, two months after the death of her mother, and was interred in Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.