Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor asked for a priest to read her the last rites on Sunday as she remained in an extremely serious condition in hospital.
The 93-year-old Hollywood legend, who married nine times, was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital on Friday due to complications from hip surgery and underwent surgery on Saturday to remove two blood clots.
Gabor, perhaps more famous for her string of wealthy husbands than her film roles, was visited by a priest at the Ronald Reagan UCLA medical centre, according to her husband, Frederic Prinz von Anhalt.
She was able to speak “very little”, though she was conscious, according to publicist John Blanchette.
The actress broke her hip on 17 July when she fell out of bed while watching the television game show Jeopardy. She was discharged last Wednesday but readmitted just two days later due to complications.
“Her health has been up and down ever since,” said Blanchette.
Gabor was born on 6 February 1917 as Sari Gabor in Budapest, where she was brought up with her older and younger sisters, Magda and Eva.
Her cult status was assured by 1950s B-movies, including Queen of Outer Space in which she plays a rebel Venusian in a slit skirt who falls in love with four Earthmen her man-hating queen wants to destroy.
Although she appeared in more than 30 films, Gabor became the embodiment of the phrase “famous for being famous”. Her husbands include Jack Ryan, the inventor of the Barbie doll, and, most recently, Von Anhalt, the Duke of Saxony in 1986, making her a princess.
“I don’t believe in living in sin, so I always got married,” she said.
Her 1993 exercise video – It’s Simple, Darling – in which she appears with two hulking Lycra-clad personal trainers has become cult viewing on YouTube. — guardian.co.uk