Magda Gabor

The eldest daughter of a jeweler, Jolie (1896–1997),[1] and a soldier, Vilmos Gábor (1881–1962), she was born in 1915 in Budapest. Her parents were both from Jewish families.[2][3][4] She is listed in Hungary: Jewish Names from the Central Zionist Archives, under her first married name, as Magda Bychowsky.[5] She stood 5'6" tall with red hair and gray eyes.[6]

During World War II, Gabor was reported to have been the fiancée of the Portuguese ambassador to Hungary, Carlos Sampaio Garrido;[7] another source claims she was his mistress and another claims she was his aide.[8][9][10] 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.[11] 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.[5]

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:

• Jan Bychowsky (m. November 19, 1937 – May 22, 1944; his death), a reputed Polish count and RAF pilot. Gabor gave her name as Magda de Bychowsky and her marital status as divorced on a February 11, 1946 airline passenger manifest, accessed on ancestry.com, December 30, 2011; according to this form, she had left her city of residence (Lisbon, Portugal), where she lived at 17 Buenos Aires, and arrived in New York City to visit her family.
• William M. Rankin (m. December 3, 1946 – August 11, 1947; divorced) an American playwright and screenwriter (The Harvey Girls, among other films); they divorced in Los Angeles in 1947. He was born on March 31, 1900 and died in March 1966.[12]
• Sidney Robert Warren (m. July 14, 1949 – 1950; divorced) an attorney. They married in Riverhead, Long Island, New York in 1949, and divorced the following year.[13]
• Arthur "Tony" Gallucci (m. April 1, 1956 – January 22, 1967; his death), president of Samuel Gallucci & Son, "one of the oldest building contracting concerns in the United States".[14][15][16] They wed in Franklin, New Jersey. He died of cancer in 1967.[17]
• George Sanders (m. December 5, 1970 – January 6, 1971; annulled) a British actor, who had previously been married to her sister Zsa Zsa. They married in Riverside, California.[18]
• Tibor R. Heltai (m. August 5, 1972 – 1975; divorced) an economic consultant who became a real-estate broker. They married in Southampton, New York in 1972, separated in June 1973 and divorced two years later in 1975.[18]

Magda Gabor died on June 6, 1997, five days before her 82nd birthday and two months after the death of her mother.[19] The cause was kidney failure. She was interred in Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California.[20][21]

• Gabor sisters

• Turtu, Anthony; Reuter, Donald F. (2001). Gaborabilia: An Illustrated Celebration of the Fabulous, Legendary Gabor Sisters. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80759-5.

• Magda Gabor on IMDb