by Sheri Poe-Pape

Created on: April 18, 2008   Last Updated: September 07, 2009

With the birth of color television in the mid 1960's, many viewers couldn't wait to tune in weekly to see the latest Nolan Miller designer ensembles on Lisa Douglas, a scatter-brained character not of this planet on CBS's hit series "Green Acres."

Better known as Eva Gabor, who was born on February 11, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, to Vilmos and Jolie Gabor, Eva, who was the youngest of three daughters, shared a close relationship with Magda and Zsa Zsa. Eva, who was also of Jewish descent, had grandparents who died within the Holocaust.

All females within the Gabor clan either became actresses or socialites, but it was Eva that earned the distinction as "the Gabor sister with talent." From the age of four, Eva knew she wanted to be an actress, and several years later performed as a cabaret singer and ice skater in Hungary before being the first of the family to depart for the United States in the 1930's due to the upcoming outbreak of World War II.

At a very petite five feet, two inches, Eva managed to land a few minor roles at the start of her career with such parts in "Forced Landing" (1941) and "Pacific Blackout" (1942), but these seemed to lead her nowhere. Her first big break came in 1950 when she was offered the leading role in the Broadway play "The Happy Time."

Anyone who was anybody in show business finally took notice of Eva. About this time, however, her sister Zsa Zsa transferred to the United States and made it difficult for Eva to get the quality roles she so desired. Supporting roles seemed to be Eva's calling for the next few years, with such performances in Vincent Price's "The Mad Magician" and "Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl" (1954).

Eva's persistence for great roles managed to finally produce two hit movies for her: "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (1954), and "Gigi" (1958). Eva even found time to pen her autobiography entitled "Orchids and Salami" (1954).

Eva was even drawn back to Broadway to perform many plays, including "New Kind of Love." But by the mid 1960's, Broadway was on hold and Eva was selected for the role of Lisa Douglas on a new off-the-wall series called "Green Acres." Eva was not the first pick of the list, though. Instead, Actress Martha Hyer was selected but demanded too high a salary. After much debate between Jay Sommers and Paul Henning, Eva was the chosen one.

One of "Green Acres" objectives was to make the character of Lisa Douglas look extremely dim-witted each week, which Eva Gabor was far from. Examples of the

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