The financial wit and wisdom of Zsa Zsa Gabor

Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who has asked for a priest to administer the last rites, may not have looked like a feminist but had robust views about how women should stand up for themselves financially.

Zsa Zsa, 93, married nine times – mostly to very wealthy men – and distilled her wit and wisdom into memorable one-liners.

For example, she once said: “I learned in school that money isn’t everything. It’s happiness that counts. So Momma sent me to a different school.”

Long before comedian Caroline Ahern, in character as Mrs Merton, asked Debbie McGee: “So, Debbie, what attracted first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”, Mrs Gabor observed: “I want a man who is kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?”

She famously preferred divorce to legal separation from her former partners because, she said: “Legal  separation gives the husband time to hide his money.”

And there was more than a grain of truth in her claim: “I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”

When accused of marrying so often it amounted to serial polygamy she observed: “There is nothing wrong with a woman welcoming all men’s advances as long as they are in cash.”

Her other famous quotations:-

A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.


Conrad Hilton was very generous to me in the divorce settlement. He gave me 5000 Gideon Bibles.


Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.


How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?


Husbands are like fires - they go out when unattended.


I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.


I call everyone 'Darling' because I can't remember their names.


I don't remember anybody's name. How do you think the "dahling" thing got started?


I know nothing about sex, because I was always married.


I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.


Macho does not prove mucho.


One of my theories is that men love with their eyes; women love with their ears.


The women's movement hasn't changed my sex life. It wouldn't dare.


Thou shouldst not become presumptuous through much treasure and wealth; for in the end it is necessary for thee to leave all.


To a smart girl men are no problem - they're the answer.


We were both in love with him. I fell out of love with him, but he didn't.


When I'm alone, I can sleep crossways in bed without an argument.


You never really know a man until you have divorced him.