Sunday, April 29, 2012

KNITTING FOR CELEBRITIES OR EVEN ZSA ZSA GABOR


The phone rings.  You answer it. An unknown yet slightly familiar voice speaks.

“Hi.  This is __________ (A-list celebrity).  I was at an airport and I saw this ___________ (scarf, sweater, shawl, etc.) that I absolutely fell in love with.  I approached the person wearing it and asked them where they purchased it and they informed me that you knit it for them.  I was wondering if you would be able to knit the same thing for me.  Money is no object.”

So after you verify that it truly is George Clooney or Queen Elizabeth II or Riccardo Muti, you pick your jaw off the floor and you make arrangements to actually knit something for Brad Pitt or Oprah Winfrey or Paul McCartney.  Then when the check arrives from Meryl Streep or Bill Clinton or Tiger Woods, you never cash it but frame it and hang it proudly on the wall opposite from where you usually knit so it will forever remind you that you are officially a knitter for the stars.

Well not me!  Nosiree!  Too many things can go wrong.  Dealing with celebrities has to be a royal pain.  And I’m not just referring to Queen Elizabeth II.  These A-listers, I just envision them being really picky and fussy and demanding and the pressure of getting the project just right gets to you and the next thing you know, your hands begin to shake, and once your hands begin to shake, there’s no more knitting and then you can’t feed yourself anymore and you begin to shrink to a shadow of your former self.  No thanks!

And then there’s Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I’m not quite sure when it started, but for most of my life I have been endlessly fascinated by this woman.  I must have been five or six years old when I first heard her name and that was it!  I was hooked.  It was the sheer sound of her name that got to me first.  Zsa Zsa.  What a name!.  Zsa Zsa!  So simple yet so exotic.  The Gabor part was just icing on the cake.  Zsa Zsa Gabor.  What poetry!  And then when I was older and I became aware of her life story, …  well, … how can one not be slightly bewildered by this woman.  Her film career is negligible but her real life story?  Wow!  I mean nine husbands?  Really?  Nine husbands?  Nine divorce settlements?  This woman was a force of nature in her day.  She was beautiful (Miss Hungary 1936) and she was smart and she was blessed with remarkable charm and a biting wit.  Who is comparable to her in this day and age?  The Kardashians?  Please.  Paris Hilton?  Be serious.  Though how curious that Zsa Zsa was once married to Paris Hilton’s great-grandfather, Conrad Hilton. 

For many years I paid homage to Zsa Zsa in a most unusual way.  I used to make up stories for my children when they were growing up.  These stories had recurring characters so it was an ongoing series of rather unusual adventures.  One of the characters was Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I regret now that I never wrote these episodes down.  The many chapters in that ongoing saga are too faint now for me to try and reconstruct.  A shame.

Zsa Zsa is still alive.  She is 95 but she has had terrible luck with her health, the one thing money cannot buy.  So if I were to get a call saying that Zsa Zsa Gabor would like me to knit something for her, I would not hesitate to say yes.  Whatever she wanted.  She could ask for socks and I would gladly do it, even though double pointed needles and I do not get along.  And no, I would not cash her check and yes, I would indeed have it framed and have it hanging in a most visible and cherished place.

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A handful of correctly completed crossword puzzles from my previous blog have already been turned in.  There is still a lot of time.  So get those pencils out and get those puzzles in before May 17.  First Prize is already set.  A pair of Knitter’s Pride Cubics Needles, a brand Cathy has just recently started carrying.  Second and third place prizes are still to be determined, but they will be doozies, I’m sure.  Maybe for a fourth place prize an 8x10 photgraph of Zsa Zsa Gabor?

5 comments:

  1. She is certainly the most well-known Hungarian in the US:)

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    1. I believe I read once that one of Jerry Seinfeld's parents was Hungarian. But as he was born in America he doesn't count. And then there's Georg Solti but he passed away. So Zsa Zsa it is then.

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  2. Well, well. I've just found your blog, mostly due to its being sent me by a friend.
    Very nicely begun! What fun!
    I went back and read it all from the beginning - good thing there wasn't reams and reams of past post dates - and have an ill-timed comment to offer.
    Famous Knitting Men should also include Edward III. You know, the one who abdicated so we could have George VI, that fabulous man. After his abdication he was reported to be knitting a blue jumper for Wallis Simpson. This impressed me because it implies that along the way, someone thought it important to teach the heir apparent to knit.
    Unless, of course, he took it up in his retirement.
    Looking forward to more fun reading. -

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    1. Somehow the thought of Edward knitting anything for Wallis doesn't surprise me. I'm not suggesting that when she said jump, he jumped, but she did seem to have a rather dominant affect on his life. I'm all for a new Bio-film of the two. Jude Law as the almost-King and I'm not quite sure who for Wallis Simpson. Kristen Wiig, perhaps?

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  3. Yes, that is a must-see for me, too. And I have very few of those.
    Edward was rather smitten with Wallis. Perhaps that's an understatement. But after giving up one's life and family for a girl, one might feel it best to continue jumping, if only to justify the first and worst jump.
    I wonder if it wasn't also divine providence for the country (and perhaps other countries as well), to have been able to get George for the War.
    (and I'm totally hopeless for actors' names, so I won't even guess)

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