LOS ANGELES, July 4 -- Film and television actress Eva Gabor, best known for her role in the 1960s series 'Green Acres,' died Tuesday from complications of pneumonia at a Los Angeles hospital. She was 74. Gabor was surrounded by her family when she died Tuesday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, hospital spokesman Ron Wise said. The actress had been hospitalized since June 21 after falling and breaking her hip while vacationing in Mexico. She was diagnosed with pneumonia upon being admitted to the hospital, and her condition had sharply declined in the past few days, Wise said. Gabor, youngest of the glamorous Gabor sisters, had built a movie, television and stage career, married five times and turned successfully to business as head of Eva Gabor International, the world's largest maker of wigs. Gabor arrived in the United States from the family's native Hungary in the late 1930s, ahead of her sisters Magda and Zsa Zsa. The blond cabaret singer and ice skater found work in a number of Hollywood pictures, including 'A Royal Scandal' in 1945. But fame arrived in 1950 when she starred on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'The Happy Time.' In the late 1960s the television comedy series 'Green Acres' made her a household name. Gabor is probably best known for her role on the barnyard farce, in which she played the dizzy but sophisticated wife of a pompous city slicker (Eddie Albert) who opts for farm living in the country. Gabor and Eddie Arnold appeared together on Broadway in 1983 in a revival of 'You Can't Take It With You.'
Her films included 'Forced Landing' (1941), 'The Wife of Monte Cristo' (1946), 'Song of Surrender' (1949), 'The Mad Magician' (1954), 'The Last Time I Saw Paris' (1954), 'The Truth About Women' (1956), 'My Man Godfrey' (1957), 'Don't Go Near the Water' (1957), 'Gigi' (1958), 'It Started With a Kiss' (1959), 'A New Kind of Love' (1963) and 'Young Blood Hawke' (1964). Her distinctively accented voice also was heard on the soundtracks of the animated Disney films 'The Aristocats' (1970) and 'The Rescuers' (1977). Gabor took on a less visible role as chairwoman of her own company -- Eva Gabor International. 'I wanted to do only one thing, and do it well,' she said, explaining her virtual disappearance from show business. 'To be an actor, it's the most wonderful thing in the world, but you cannot rely on it all your life,' she once said. 'Because even if you are at the very top, you can't work all the time. You'll burn yourself out.' Gabor said she was approached by a businessman with the idea of starting a wig company, and was ready to listen. 'I had done a lot of movies and plays with costumes and wigs, and they used to be ghastly,' Gabor told an interviewer in 1988. 'They used to weigh tons.' In 1972 Gabor began selling her trademark mop of golden curls, sometimes upswept into a boudoir look. Eva Gabor International produced some 1.3 million wigs a year. Although Gabor would not divulge the company's revenues, industry sources put them at about $30 million a year. Gabor's company became part of Sears, Roebuck and Co. in April 1988 when the Chicago retailer bought Gabor International's parent, Western Auto Supply, for $400 million. Gabor married her first husband Eric Drimmer, in 1939. They divorced in 1942, and she married Charles Isaacs, a real estate millionaire. Surgeon John E. Williams became her third husband in 1956, and Richard Brown became No. 4 in 1959. Her fifth marriage was to aeronautics tycoon Frank Jamieson in 1973. She had no children of her own but was a stepmother to six. Gabor published an autobiography, 'Orchids and Salami,' in 1954. She was born on Feb. 11, 1921, in Budapest, Hungary, the third daughter of Jolie and Vilmos Gabor. After attending schools in Hungary and Switzerland, she emigrated to the United States, followed by her two sisters and her mother, who also became a successful businesswoman.
