An English bulldog has died just weeks after winning the 2018 World's Ugliest Dog contest. Floppy-tongued and crooked-toothed, Zsa Zsa was nine years old.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Chiu
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In an ugly world filled with ugly dogs, Zsa Zsa stood out. A nasty underbite showed off a snaggled set of lower choppers, and she just couldn't keep her tongue in her mouth. You might have stared; you might have looked away to avoid making her, or yourself, uncomfortable. The point is that people noticed Zsa Zsa, noticed her enough that the 9-year-old's unique face became famous in June, when she was crowned the World's Ugliest Dog at a pageant in California.
Likely indifferent to the title and annoyed by the hoopla, Zsa Zsa was only able to enjoy her 15 minutes of fame for a little over two weeks before she barked her last. Zsa Zsa died dreaming, her primary human companion, a Minnesotan named Megan Brainard, told US media on Wednesday.
"I'm in shock still," Brainard told the CNN-affiliated broadcaster HLN. "I haven't even processed her winning and fame."
The Pekingese Wild Thang gave Zsa Zsa a run for her money last monthImage: picture-alliance/AP Photo/J. Chiu
Social media users, too, were bummed.
Brainard said Zsa Zsa, named after the sainted cop-slapping Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, never showed much enthusiasm in life, but she added that the bulldog knew that the beauty she was born with stood out in a world of surgical enhancements and cosmetic regimens. And she stood out on a stage with a zitty Dachsund-Chinese crested mix and a Pekingese whose tongue also lolled but who, truth be told, wasn't really all that ugly. Anyway, Zsa Zsa earned her title, which came with a $1,500 (€1,275) check for Brainard.
And just as soon as the world came to know her, she was taken from it, slobbering in her sleep just like a good dog does.
She would've turned 100: the inimitable Zsa Zsa Gabor
A movie star for the ages, the former "Miss Hungary" Zsa Zsa Gabor took on Hollywood after fleeing the Nazis, and lived like an heiress in exile. She died just a few weeks before she would've turned 100, on February 6.
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A countess in exile
Zsa Zsa Gabor won the title of "Miss Hungary" in 1936 and met her first husband, Burhan Belge, a Turkish diplomat, shortly thereafter. She and her family, including sister Eva (pictured here), sister Magda and mother Jolie, had to flee the Nazis ahead of World War II. She met up with Belge in London in June 1939, where she stayed until immigrating to the US in 1941.
Image: picture-alliance/Globe-ZUMA
Dancing to fame in the 50s
Zsa Zsa, the nickname for Sari Gabor, got her film debut in the 1950s. In one of her best-known roles, she played singer and dancer Jane Avril in the filming of painter Toulouse Latrec's biography, "Moulin Rouge." It was, according to critics, her best film - of the more than 60 she took part in.
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'Queen of Outer Space'
With a strong Eastern European accent, Gabor was often cast in roles more focused on her appearance than on her talents as an actress. In 1958, she portrayed a sexy alien on a planet inhabited by scantily clad women in the campy "Queen of Outer Space."
Image: imago/Granata Images
An outsized personality known for her personal life
The B-list movie star had an A-list social life. Even as she made films, Gabor was perhaps better known for the company she kept, including a close friendship with Elizabeth Taylor as well as numerous affairs and at least eight marriages (nine if you count the one day she wed aboard a ship in a ceremony that was later deemed non-binding).
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMAPRESS/Keystone
The men in her life
Known for her extravagant lifestyle, Zsa Zsa Gabor counted numerous wealthy men among her affairs. Among them was hotel heir Conrad Hilton, the great-grandfather of Paris and father to Gabor's only child, Francesca Hilton.
Image: picture-alliance/Globe-ZUMA
'One lifetime is not enough'
A superstar in her own mind, Gabor contributed to the culture in numerous ways that matched the trends of her time. She wrote the book "Zsa Zsa’s Complete Guide to Men" in 1969, followed in 1970 by "How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man." In the 1980s she produced an aerobics video and in 1991 released her autobiography, "One Lifetime Is Not Enough."
In 1986, Gabor married the man she would spend the rest of her life with - Frederic von Anhalt, a man who took on the adoptive title of German Prince. The pair moved into a former mansion of Elvis Presley's in Bel Air, where Gabor was confined in recent years after medical issues left her bed-ridden. She died on December 18, 2016 - just a few weeks before she would've turned 100, on February 6.
