Zsa Zsa Settles Up

Mon., Mar. 7, 2005 1:35 PM PST by Julie Keller

Zsa Zsa has just gone cha-ching.

The 86-year-old professional celebrity has scored $2 million for injuries sustained in a 2002 car crash.

Jason Millard, Gabor's former hairstylist and the man behind the wheel when the car carrying her smashed into a utility pole Nov. 27 2002, agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by his former boss.

Millard says he is pleased with the agreement, which was made just one week before the scheduled trial date, according to Gabor's lawyer Ronald Jason Palieri.

"I would never have put Zsa Zsa through a trial," Millard told Los Angeles' City News Service. "She knows that I will always love her and, more than anything, I wanted her to have some solace in this case being behind her."

Gabor suffered extreme complications from the crash, which knocked her unconscious and caused long-term injuries. After months at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, she never fully recovered and remains partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair, according to her attorney.

"The accident was a devastating blow to a vital and beautiful woman," Palmieri said in a statement.

The actress and her husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, filed suit Nov. 19, 2003. And, in spite of what Millard's attorney Paul N. Phllips implies was a contentious relationship between the Gabor camp and his client, the stylist/driver says he hopes his relationship with the actress will be on the mend following the settlement.

"I still hope and pray every day that the people around her will let us rebuild the friendship we both know is at the heart of us," Millard said. "She is an incredible and inspiring woman, and I wish her only the very best."

Gabor will bank $1.75 million from the settlement, while her husband will net $250,000 for the loss of companionship of his wife.

"The amount of the settlement only reflects Ms. Gabor's desire to end this matter in a private manner and not a public forum," said Palmieri. "There is no amount of money that will ever compensate her for what she has suffered."

The Paris Hilton of her era, Gabor is a former Miss Hungary who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and gained fame more for being a scenester with a long romantic record--i.e., her eight marriages--than her 1950s B-movie career, whose highlights included the original Moulin Rouge and Orson Welles' classic Touch of Evil.

She is also the last surviving Gabor sister. Younger sis Eva, of Green Acres fame, died in 1995, and older sibling Magda, who like Zsa Zsa was once wed to actor George Sanders, died in 1997.