Prologue

Jolie

It was four o’clock on a dull gray February afternoon in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. The year was 1924. Behind the wheel of her Mercedes, painted a battleship gray, Jolie Gabor was rolling down Andrassy út, known as “The Fifth Avenue of Budapest.”

In those days, only six ladies of Budapest owned and drove their own cars.

In the seat beside her sat her beloved daughters—nicknamed “Magdika,” age 9; “Zsazsilka,” 7; and “Evika,” 5.

Suddenly the sun broke through for the first time that day, adding at extra sparkle to Jolie’s diamonds. While getting dressed, she’d told her beautiful daughters, “These are my daytime diamonds. For the evening, I really dazzle. That’s when a woman should bring out the king’s ransom stones.”

She wanted to make a spectacular appearance that afternoon at tea. Both Jolie and her daughters wore scarlet-colored dresses that matched the upholstery of the Mercedes. The clothing had been designed by Jeanne Lanvin, who also designed matching gray coats for each of the Gabors, which duplicated the exact color of the vehicle itself.

The fashion-conscious Jolie preferred the French designer because she was celebrated for her mother-and-daughter outfits and exquisite robes de style, as well as for her modern and global approach to fashion. Before heading out, Jolie had also doused her daughter in the fragrance Arpège, which Lanvin had created in 1927. “No female of any age should ever leave her domicile without the scent of Arpège, which Lanvinhad created in 1927. That advice would be religiously observed by each of the Gabor sisters throughout the rest of their lives.

Arriving at the Café Gerbeaud, the Gabors were greeted by a doorman in a puce-colored uniform. Starched, gloved, and beribboned, the daughters emerged first onto the sidewalk.

Franz Lutsky was the manager of the Café Gerbeaud, on Vörösmartytér, which had been founded in 1858 by Swiss confectioner Emile Gerbeaud. It was Jolie’s favorite rendezvous. He always reserved the best table for her. Privately he referred to her as “This Magyar mother hen with her three beautiful spring chickens.”

Although the café was bustling at that time of day, nearly all of the patrons stopped to take note of the new customers making such a glamorous entrance.

Later, Magda would recall, “Everything that mother did in those days was to teach us a lesson. That day at the café, the lesson involved how to make an entrance. Her forever advice was, ‘When you arrive in town, don’t keep it a secret.”

The Gaborswere about to embark on a life so glamorous Jolie often said in later years, “No one would believe it!”

As designer Donald F. Reuter put it: “The early lives of the Gabors is a fascinating tale that reads like a cross between Doctor Zhivago and Gypsy, with a generous sprinkling of Fiddler on the Roof and Auntie Mame thrown in for good measure.”

With a grand flourish, the maître d’hotel guided Jolie, followed by her “three vonderful wimmen” down the long railroad-style layout of the café until they arrived at one of the sitting areas, decorated in a tone of scarlet that matched their dresses. The aging waiter, who had been born in 1854, knew what to bring to table. The aromatic coffee had been dispensed from a cafetière whose perimeter was sheathed in hand-painted panels of Herend porcelain—one of only three on Earth, and the confection he brought was the celebrated chocolate-and-marzipan royal torte. “It’s positively sinful,” Jolie told her daughters. “But a woman born into a man’s world must be sinful to advance herself.”

Away from her domineering husband, Vilmos Gabor, Jolie always seized the opportunity to lecture her daughters about the future roles they’d play.

“Dahlinks, each of you will grow up to become a fabled Hungarian beauty. But you must never become a delicate porcelain figure. The blood of Attila the Hun flows through your veins, the blood of Genghis Khan. You were meant to conquer as the daughters of a once-great empire. Your homeland is a nation of powerful warriors and passionate lovers. Each of you will grow up to marry a king…or at least a prince.”

“A few months ago, in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel here in Budapest, I was stunned to encounter the handsome, charming,and very rich Prince of Wales—with his entourage—parading through. Last week,I sent him a letter acknowledging our meeting, along with that gorgeous photograph of you, ZsaZsa. I told him that you were growing more beautiful every day, and that in just a few years, you’d be one of the most dazzling beauties of Europe, fit to sit on his throne as Queen of England when he becomes King.”

Zsa Zsa wasn’t embarrassed or intimated by Jolie’s behavior and point of view. In fact, she amplified her mother’s idea with: “I’d be a queen and rule over all the British colonies—and I’d also become the Empress of India.”