Hollywood legend Zsa Zsa Gabor dies at 99

Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Hungarian-born Hollywood actress, perhaps better known for her prodigious love life than her movie credits, died Sunday after suffering a heart attack, her husband said. She was 99.

An emotional Frederic von Anhalt told the AFP news agency his wife had passed away at home, surrounded by her friends and family.

"Everybody was there. She didn't die alone," he told AFP by telephone, choking back sobs.

The pair married in 1986, making it her longest marriage.

“We tried everything, but her heart just stopped and that was it,” he said. “Even the ambulance tried very hard to get her back, but there was no way.”

Gabor suffered a series of illnesses in recent years and had to have her leg partially amputated in January due to poor circulation. She suffered a stroke in 2005, three years after a car accident had left her partially paralysed.

In 2010 she reportedly asked a priest to administer the last rites after surgery to remove two blood clots; the following year she had a leg amputated. The last stage of her life was reported to have been spent suffering from dementia.

This spell of ill-health was said to have begun after she was sent to hospital suffering from grief and anxiety over the death of Elizabeth Taylor in March 2011. Her then publicist John Blanchette (who died in 2014) revealed that Gabor suffered dangerously high blood pressure watching TV coverage of the news of Taylor’s death, saying: “Oh, Jane Russell and Liz Taylor – I’m next.”

Born in Hungary, she acted on stage in Vienna in her youth before emigrating to the United States in 1941 and made her Hollywood debut in 1952. Her first starring role was in Moulin Rouge, directed by John Huston.

She attained cult figure status starring in 1950s B-movies, including Queen of Outer Space, in which she played a rebel Venusian who falls in love with four Earthmen whom her man-hating queen wants to destroy.

Later, she maintained her profile with film and TV cameos. She made one such appearance in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), featuring in a scene that appeared to make fun of her real-life conviction for slapping a police officer in a traffic incident.

She appeared in dozens of films, but these achievements were arguably overshadowed later on by public interest in her extravagant style and fondness for wealthy husbands. She married nine times and her spouses included Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton hotel chain, and Barbie doll creator Jack Ryan.