The same source.
But one employee did, the result being that within weeks of working for Zsa Zsa, I found myself saving her life. Had I not stepped in, she would have been lying dead in a bloody heap, her head smashed in.
Zsa Zsa went through domestic staff — housekeepers, cooks, maids — like most people go through tissues. They either quit, unable to face her daily dose of insults and scorn, or she would find some pathetic reason to fire them. In this case, she had just hired an enormous black lady as a maid, who had incurred the wrath of Gabor over some petty misunderstanding.
From my desk, I heard raised voices. Then Zsa Zsa stormed into my office, and yelled: ‘Tell that f*****g n***** b*tch she’s fired!’
With that, she turned and flounced off. But the maid wasn’t going to take that racist insult lying down.
I heard heavy footsteps pounding from the kitchen down the hall, towards my office.
Stepping out, nothing could have prepared me for the bizarre sight I was to see.
To my left, Zsa Zsa was once again hurling hurtful profanities at the maid. To the right, the maid was charging towards her, a massive glass ashtray held high above her head.
I was right in the middle of what looked like a lethal collision course. In a gesture of foolish gallantry, I stood fast in front of the maid, held out an upturned hand and said, *quietly but firmly: ‘Think what you’re doing. This could change your life for ever.’
Still panting from her effort, the maid stopped in her tracks and backed off. Within minutes, she was off the property. Zsa Zsa retired to her boudoir. I had just saved her life, and she couldn’t even say ‘thank you’.
I don’t know if she ever told her *husband what happened. If she had, he was equally unforthcoming, although I don’t expect he’d have been too worked up, for theirs was a true Hollywood marriage — one of mutual convenience.
The first time I took a phone call from him, I informed Zsa Zsa her *husband was on the phone, which provoked a tongue-lashing. I was never, ever, under any circumstances, to refer to him as ‘her husband.’ He was always to be called ‘Mr O’Hara’.
But, as I discovered, this show of surface respect was a mere sheen to garnish the gaping emotional vacuum which was their life together.
For all her coquettish public *pronouncements about how wives should please their mates — *‘Husbands are like fires. They go out when unattended’ — these two not only had separate bedrooms, but, to all intents and purposes, *separate lives.
O’Hara had a strict evening *routine. Returning from work, he’d go to his gym, then down an *enormous vodka and grapefruit juice before disappearing into ‘his’ section of the house. He had a fierce temper, once smashing his hand in a rage against a wall.
But at least he wasn’t as tight-fisted as his wife, who would cancel cheques for unpaid bills whenever she sensed she could save a few dollars.
There came a point when I could no longer explain to people she regarded as mere minions why their payments had been stopped, why she had deliberately written a cheque wrongly so it could not be cashed, or why she was just plain not going to pay at all.
In one instance, a delightfully innocent young Irish nurse had been hired, and thought she was doing fine. Behind her back, though, Zsa Zsa would bad-mouth her, and, in a moment of spite, called the bank to stop her final cheque when she had been let go.
The girl was depending on it to pay her rent, and wound up crying her eyes out on the phone to me, begging for an *explanation. Behind me a Hungarian voice was saying: ‘Just tell her to f*** off. She’s fired.’
As for that PR executive who had offered me a guarded warning when I took the job: she was disabled, and while well aware of Gabor’s devastating rants, even she could never have guessed the disdain in which Zsa Zsa held her. Gabor regularly told me to:
‘Get that f*****g Jewish cripple on the phone!’
Not even Zsa Zsa’s supposedly beloved pet shih tzus were safe.
Her faithful retainer was a trusty and rather likeable Alsatian dog, but the woman who told the world how much she adored animals also had an addiction to these little fluffy dogs.
The Alsatian decided there was nothing more entertaining than to pick these yapping balls of fur up by the scruff of their necks and deposit them in the swimming pool. The trouble was, the water in the pool was a foot below the edge, so once the Alsatian had had its fun, the *little *darlings disappeared from sight and were condemned to a watery grave.
The only time I took a stand against Zsa Zsa and won was when she insisted I went with her on a *publicity trip to Alaska of all places.By this time, I had come to the end of my emotional tether and could stand no more of the almost hourly bile she now dispensed — so I quit.
Returning to my West Hollywood *apartment, I was besieged with phone calls from her ‘friends’ and associates, then a telegram from Zsa Zsa.
Finally, one morning my entry phone rang, and through the *intercom came the disembodied voice of Michael O’Hara. He’d parked his Mercedes, and was *standing forlornly on the street, shouting up at me how important it was to ‘Miss Gabor’ (he never called her Zsa Zsa to me) that I relent and accompany her.
Although I never did go to Alaska, I finally agreed to go back and work for her again after an entreaty from one of her genuine friends, who felt she needed my stabilising influence.
But the rot had set in. Some seven months after I first climbed that elegant driveway, I headed for the last time down the hill, *jobless, but feeling as if a vicious clamp had been removed from my head.
Still her rage had not ceased. I had stupidly agreed to pick my last pay cheque up from her *husband’s office. Finally, after days of delay he told me it was ready, but after I waited an age outside his office, I was curtly informed by his secretary that ‘Miss Gabor’ was withholding payment.
In a later conversation, the PR executive who fixed up the job told me La Gabor said I had lied to her, that I was really Jewish (no problem, but I’m not), that my real name was David Gittelson (don’t ask me why) and that I had stolen her *jewels. Laugh? I nearly did.
Today, 30 years on and in parlous health, Zsa Zsa is on her ninth *husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt. So are they any *happier together than she was with O’Hara?
The PR who introduced me to her all those years ago told me: ‘I think Frederic is just trying to get back at her for all the *torture she’s inflicted on him over the years.
‘He keeps parading her out without make-up, in a wheelchair and leaves her stranded while she rants about affairs he’s *supposedly having.’
As for me, the only satisfaction I draw from all this is that if you ask people to name more than one film Zsa Zsa Gabor starred in . . . you’ll be met with a blank stare.
But one employee did, the result being that within weeks of working for Zsa Zsa, I found myself saving her life. Had I not stepped in, she would have been lying dead in a bloody heap, her head smashed in.
Zsa Zsa went through domestic staff — housekeepers, cooks, maids — like most people go through tissues. They either quit, unable to face her daily dose of insults and scorn, or she would find some pathetic reason to fire them. In this case, she had just hired an enormous black lady as a maid, who had incurred the wrath of Gabor over some petty misunderstanding.
From my desk, I heard raised voices. Then Zsa Zsa stormed into my office, and yelled: ‘Tell that f*****g n***** b*tch she’s fired!’
With that, she turned and flounced off. But the maid wasn’t going to take that racist insult lying down.
I heard heavy footsteps pounding from the kitchen down the hall, towards my office.
Stepping out, nothing could have prepared me for the bizarre sight I was to see.
To my left, Zsa Zsa was once again hurling hurtful profanities at the maid. To the right, the maid was charging towards her, a massive glass ashtray held high above her head.
I was right in the middle of what looked like a lethal collision course. In a gesture of foolish gallantry, I stood fast in front of the maid, held out an upturned hand and said, *quietly but firmly: ‘Think what you’re doing. This could change your life for ever.’
Still panting from her effort, the maid stopped in her tracks and backed off. Within minutes, she was off the property. Zsa Zsa retired to her boudoir. I had just saved her life, and she couldn’t even say ‘thank you’.
I don’t know if she ever told her *husband what happened. If she had, he was equally unforthcoming, although I don’t expect he’d have been too worked up, for theirs was a true Hollywood marriage — one of mutual convenience.
The first time I took a phone call from him, I informed Zsa Zsa her *husband was on the phone, which provoked a tongue-lashing. I was never, ever, under any circumstances, to refer to him as ‘her husband.’ He was always to be called ‘Mr O’Hara’.
But, as I discovered, this show of surface respect was a mere sheen to garnish the gaping emotional vacuum which was their life together.
For all her coquettish public *pronouncements about how wives should please their mates — *‘Husbands are like fires. They go out when unattended’ — these two not only had separate bedrooms, but, to all intents and purposes, *separate lives.
O’Hara had a strict evening *routine. Returning from work, he’d go to his gym, then down an *enormous vodka and grapefruit juice before disappearing into ‘his’ section of the house. He had a fierce temper, once smashing his hand in a rage against a wall.
But at least he wasn’t as tight-fisted as his wife, who would cancel cheques for unpaid bills whenever she sensed she could save a few dollars.
There came a point when I could no longer explain to people she regarded as mere minions why their payments had been stopped, why she had deliberately written a cheque wrongly so it could not be cashed, or why she was just plain not going to pay at all.
In one instance, a delightfully innocent young Irish nurse had been hired, and thought she was doing fine. Behind her back, though, Zsa Zsa would bad-mouth her, and, in a moment of spite, called the bank to stop her final cheque when she had been let go.
The girl was depending on it to pay her rent, and wound up crying her eyes out on the phone to me, begging for an *explanation. Behind me a Hungarian voice was saying: ‘Just tell her to f*** off. She’s fired.’
As for that PR executive who had offered me a guarded warning when I took the job: she was disabled, and while well aware of Gabor’s devastating rants, even she could never have guessed the disdain in which Zsa Zsa held her. Gabor regularly told me to:
‘Get that f*****g Jewish cripple on the phone!’
Not even Zsa Zsa’s supposedly beloved pet shih tzus were safe.
Her faithful retainer was a trusty and rather likeable Alsatian dog, but the woman who told the world how much she adored animals also had an addiction to these little fluffy dogs.
The Alsatian decided there was nothing more entertaining than to pick these yapping balls of fur up by the scruff of their necks and deposit them in the swimming pool. The trouble was, the water in the pool was a foot below the edge, so once the Alsatian had had its fun, the *little *darlings disappeared from sight and were condemned to a watery grave.
The only time I took a stand against Zsa Zsa and won was when she insisted I went with her on a *publicity trip to Alaska of all places.By this time, I had come to the end of my emotional tether and could stand no more of the almost hourly bile she now dispensed — so I quit.
Returning to my West Hollywood *apartment, I was besieged with phone calls from her ‘friends’ and associates, then a telegram from Zsa Zsa.
Finally, one morning my entry phone rang, and through the *intercom came the disembodied voice of Michael O’Hara. He’d parked his Mercedes, and was *standing forlornly on the street, shouting up at me how important it was to ‘Miss Gabor’ (he never called her Zsa Zsa to me) that I relent and accompany her.
Although I never did go to Alaska, I finally agreed to go back and work for her again after an entreaty from one of her genuine friends, who felt she needed my stabilising influence.
But the rot had set in. Some seven months after I first climbed that elegant driveway, I headed for the last time down the hill, *jobless, but feeling as if a vicious clamp had been removed from my head.
Still her rage had not ceased. I had stupidly agreed to pick my last pay cheque up from her *husband’s office. Finally, after days of delay he told me it was ready, but after I waited an age outside his office, I was curtly informed by his secretary that ‘Miss Gabor’ was withholding payment.
In a later conversation, the PR executive who fixed up the job told me La Gabor said I had lied to her, that I was really Jewish (no problem, but I’m not), that my real name was David Gittelson (don’t ask me why) and that I had stolen her *jewels. Laugh? I nearly did.
Today, 30 years on and in parlous health, Zsa Zsa is on her ninth *husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt. So are they any *happier together than she was with O’Hara?
The PR who introduced me to her all those years ago told me: ‘I think Frederic is just trying to get back at her for all the *torture she’s inflicted on him over the years.
‘He keeps parading her out without make-up, in a wheelchair and leaves her stranded while she rants about affairs he’s *supposedly having.’
As for me, the only satisfaction I draw from all this is that if you ask people to name more than one film Zsa Zsa Gabor starred in . . . you’ll be met with a blank stare.
