Late film star Zsa Zsa Gabor had ties to Palm Springs

Film star Zsa Zsa Gabor, the last of three Gabor sisters who held prominent positions in Palm Springs society, died Sunday at the age of 99 in Los Angeles.

Gabor’s mother, Jolie, owned a pearl shop in what is now the Village Green in downtown Palm Springs and reigned as a leading society maven in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Zsa Zsa’s younger sister, Eva, had an interior design store on East Palm Canyon Drive and was the regular companion of entertainment mogul Merv Griffin until her death in 1995. Elder sister Magda, who married actor George Sanders more than a decade after Zsa Zsa did, was an active Palm Springs socialite until her death in 1997.

Zsa Zsa had a home near Magda on Chino Canyon Road in the late 1960s.

READ MORE: Zsa Zsa Gabor dead at 99

In 1989, Zsa Zsa Gabor was accused of slapping the face of a Beverly Hills police officer who had stopped her on suspicion of a traffic violation. Palm Desert attorney Dale Gribow, who had known her socially for 10 years, was asked to represent the Hungarian actress who called him “Dale Dahlick.”

He said he agreed to do it as long as she canceled a scheduled appearance on the ABC morning TV show, “A.M. L.A.” and agreed to let him do all the talking at a press conference.

When Gabor agreed to his terms, Gribow said he spent two hours preparing Gabor, her agent and her publicist. Then Gabor spoke up at the media event anyway.

“I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press, we’re here to clarify a misunderstanding between Miss Gabor and the Beverly Hills Police,’ Gribow recalled. “‘Her assistant was supposed to have taken care of the renewal of the tag for her car’ — which she had. ‘Zsa Zsa had been out of town for many months and her husband had been using her car and she didn’t know there was a bottle of Jack Daniels in the compartment in the Rolls.’

“And she nudges me with the camera rolling. ‘No, Dale Dahlick. Everyone knows that a good horse woman has to have a shot of Jack Daniels after riding.’”

Gribow said he withdrew from the case because Gabor accepted an offer from an attorney who agreed to represent her for free in exchange for the publicity. Gabor was convicted of assault, and Gribow said she asked him to represent her again at the sentencing. Gribow refused, and Gabor served three days in the El Segundo Jail. Gribow said she asked him to represent her one more time in an appeal, but Gribow again declined.

“She kept calling and then, as a gift, she took (his wife) Patti and I for lunch at the Beverly Hilton,” Gribow said. “She gave me a piece of china that had a crack in it that she had apparently received from somebody else.

“I still have it just because of the laugh. She was a character.”