Intro for December 20, 2016

Dear Gossips,

I’ve read a lot of articles about Zsa Zsa Gabor the last couple of days. Had to read Cindy Adams’s post of course because she knew her so well. And I quite enjoyed this one in The Guardian by Suzanne Moore – Zsa Zsa “knew femininity was a performance. She played it perfectly”.

Some would argue that Zsa Zsa is the grandmother of modern celebrity. She would probably hate the word “grandmother” so let’s replace that with “goddess” instead. Zsa Zsa was not an actor. Zsa Zsa was Zsa Zsa. What did she do? What was her job? To be Zsa Zsa. To “perform” as Zsa Zsa. To create and then perform the Zsa Zsa story. It’s obvious then who her successors are. But, as Suzanne Moore argues, and I agree, that’s a simplification of Zsa Zsa’s gifts. Her successors today have so many more resources, can do so much with a simple image, can take a photo in a certain a pose and depend on the internet to do the rest. Back then, in Zsa Zsa’s day though, there was no Instagram, there was no Twitter, there was only Zsa Zsa, and her hair and her tits and her diamonds, but also her intelligence and her wit – expressed through her wonderful way with words. The words – and not just the pictures – were what made headlines. The words shaped the persona, the image, the performance of femininity. It was her quotability, her words, that attracted her fans. Per Suzanne Moore:

My mother and her friends loved Zsa Zsa because at a time when women were meant to be passive and grateful to be married at all, Zsa Zsa was always talking about marrying for money rather than romance: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend and dogs are a man’s best friend. Now you know which sex has more sense.” She married nine times and divorced seven. “I’m a great housekeeper,” she quipped. “Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.”

If it had just been her beauty and her body, Zsa Zsa would not have become ZSA ZSA. Zsa Zsa’s “It” factor was how she expressed herself verbally.

That said, let’s not pretend she was an angel. She could be an angel, sometimes. But she was also an asshole, a lot of the time – a formula for Good Gossip. A celebrity who is good for gossip has to be both an angel and asshole. What many appreciate about Zsa Zsa is that she was never an asshole who fronted like she was an angel. So I go back to this 2007 Vanity Fair profile of her, and her shady ass husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt. By this point, Zsa Zsa is undeniably in decline. And, no doubt, this piece is at times sad and disturbing. It is also hilarious. Like f-cking hysterical. All the crazy business about her real age, and the mystery surrounding just how many times she’s been married – is it 10 or is it 8, no one can account for all the husbands! – and all the times she cheated on husbands with other people’s husbands, the whole thing is insane, and insanely funny. Maybe that makes me an asshole, because she’s no longer with us. But if there was anyone who knew how to laugh at the ridiculous, it was Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey