I was touched to learn that the ever-glamourous Eva Gabor, of Green
Acres fame, died July 4 at age 74. In 1981, at the age of 18, I began a
two-year stint as a “techie” in a Houston dinner theatre with a production of
Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, starring Miss Gabor as Elvira. I still
count the experience as one of the most unpleasant of my life.
She was, quite simply, a stupid, silly, spoiled child of a woman. Her
nightly arrival at the theatre sent everyone in the building, from the house
manager to the lowly prop girl (me!), a-scurrying to repent our cruelty and
incompetence toward her. Carpet runners from her dressing room door to the
entrance on the set were unfurled one day. An offending ceiling fan backstage
(“It’s mussing my hair!” she screeched) was snapped off one night, in 95-degree
weather.
Mostly, I was afraid of her, and couldn’t understand why the
older people around me weren’t more clever at pleasing her. One night, Miss
Gabor developed a stomachache, and I was dispatched from the theatre for the
entire first act, scouring every liquor store within a seven-mile radius for a
certain kind of medicinal bitters that she had to have. When a dusty bottle of
the stuff was retrieved from a back room, I nearly wept, I was so grateful.
“Nobody ever asks for this,” the clerk commented. “Yeah, I know,” I
replied.
One night, we attended a cast and crew gathering after the show. Miss Gabor
was slightly more genial off the job, and she had even turned the air
conditioning way down and lit a fire in the fireplace. On the buffet table was
an extra large bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Those white rolls, too. A tiny
smile played across the stage manager’s lips as she surveyed the spread
obtained for us by La Gabor. I still have the snapshot someone took of me
sitting by the fire.
Eva didn’t disappoint the audience, though. She turned in a passable
performance in the play, and she had a curtain speech that went like this:
People often confused her with her sister, Zsa Zsa; and Zsa Zsa often took the
credit for appearing on Green Acres.
“But I got hehr bahck,” she’d trill. “Ven I sunsbathe at my poohl in Pahlm
Shprings, I vear a hat, und gloves, and nuss-sing else, you see? Von day, I was
in my poohl and I notees a man on ze telephone pohl, fixing ze telephone. He
cohld down, `Hi, Eva.’ And I say, `’No, not Eva, dahling. Zsa Zsa!'” She’d
wave, turn on her heel, and exit as the lights came down, and the laughter
would surely roar. – Roseana Auten
This article appears in July 14 • 1995 and July 14 • 1995 (Cover).