Zsa Zsa Gabor

Long before Anna Nicole Smith or Kim Kardashian, the life and career of Zsa Zsa Gabor personified that of a celebrity whose ascent to fame was due more to grabbing headlines than for any particular talent. Sister to "Green Acres" television star Eva Gabor, the future diva did pursue her own acting career and racked up a fairly impressive list of film and television credits, but she shone brightest on talk shows or within tabloid gossip pages where she delivered juicy stories about her many marriages and romantic encounters in her heavily accented and much imitated purr. She was still making news in her seventh and eighth decades - most notably for spending three days in jail after slapping a Beverly Hills traffic cop in 1989 - when she suddenly disappeared off the radar. Except for the occasional tabloid photo of a wheelchair-bound Gabor, her husband, "Prince" Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, spoke publicly on her behalf, while he made tabloid headlines of his own. Despite living a rather unorthodox life and sustaining a level of fame many felt was unjustified, Gabor sparkled brightly for over 60 years as a symbol of continental glamour and mystery, and her death on December 18. 2016 at the age of 99 was news around the globe.