Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband triggers baby row

LOS ANGELES– Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband triggered a row with the ailing actress’s only daughter Thursday by saying he wants his wife to become a mother again using his sperm and an egg donor.
Prinz Frederik von Anhalt, the 94-year-old Hungarian-born former star’s ninth husband, said he went to a Beverly Hills clinic this week and gave sperm and blood samples.
Anhalt, who wants a surrogate mother to give birth using a donated egg, said the couple had always wanted a baby and discussed the matter again when his wife had her leg partially amputated in January.
“We talked about it, saying ‘Remember, we always wanted a baby, and now it’s too late.’ And I said to her, ‘Well maybe it’s not too late’,” he told AFP, adding that the whole process should cost about $100,000.
“Now my wife is in bad shape. I don’t know how long she’s going to be with me … I would like her to see the baby, I would like her to hear the baby screaming, to touch the baby’s hair.
“If she dies before me then I’ve nothing to live for,” he added.
But Gabor’s only child Francesca Hilton, the product of her second marriage to hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, issued a statement via her publicist denouncing the baby plans as a publicity stunt.
“Francesca is shocked but not surprised that Von Anhalt (sic) continually creates publicity for himself at the expense of the legacy of her mother Zsa Zsa Gabor,” said the 64-year-old’s spokesman Edward Lozzi.
“We are still trying to get over his wish to have Zsa Zsa’s body preserved and displayed. What’s next from von Anhalt? Zsa Zsa clones?” he added.
Gabor’s husband and daughter have long had strained relations, and have occasionally given differing accounts of the ageing actress’s various health woes, which included having part of a leg amputated in January.
Von Anhalt rejected Hilton’s charges that it was a publicity stunt.
“She doesn’t know anything. She’s not involved in the family, she doesn’t know what’s going on,” he said, adding: “Whatever she says, I really don’t give a damn.”
Gabor, a platinum blonde actress known for her flamboyant lifestyle, legal troubles and multiple marriages, was briefly hospitalized last month after Elizabeth Taylor died, declaring she feared she would be next to go.
Her long career included spots in a dozen films and TV series, including John Huston’s 1952 “Moulin Rouge” and the 1958 film noir “Touch of Evil” by Orson Welles. She also lent her voice to several animated films and TV series.