Eva Gabor Proves She Has a Head--and Hair--for Business

First you notice the eyes. Next the smooth skin and the cloud of golden hair. And then there is that voice, like silk.

“Dah-ling,” says Eva Gabor. “Have some tea. Have a crumpet.”

Gabor, it appears, wouldn’t dream of talking business before she gets to know you.

It is a strategy that has served this canny, Hungarian-born actress well during her 40-year career in films, stage and television.

Eva Gabor plays an equally challenging, though less visible, role as chairman of her own company--Eva Gabor International, the world’s largest wig maker.

Wanted to Do One Thing

“I wanted to do only one thing, and do it well,” she says, sipping tea in a San Francisco hotel during a recent visit.

When Gabor was approached one day by a businessman with the idea of starting a wig company, she was ready to listen.

“I had done a lot of movies and plays with costumes and wigs, and they used to be ghastly,” Gabor says. “They used to weigh tons.”

Sixteen years ago, long before Elizabeth Taylor began pushing perfume, Eva Gabor began selling her trademark--a mop of golden curls, sometimes upswept into a boudoir look. Her company’s line of Eva Gabor-inspired wigs, Gabor says, remains its “bread and butter” model.

“We started (the company) and we almost got broke,” she says, laughing. Gabor sold part of the company, dropped the idea of selling franchises and focused on making wigs for salons and others who would resell them to the public.

‘We’re the Biggest’

“We got bigger and bigger, and now we are just the biggest,” producing about 1.3 million wigs a year, Gabor says.

Although Gabor won’t divulge her company’s revenues, industry sources put them at about $30 million a year. Wig sales in the United States, including imports, are estimated to reach an annual $550 million.

Eva Gabor International is now based in Los Angeles with offices throughout the United States and Europe and production plants in Korea, and China, where the company expects to open a second plant in September.

Gabor’s wigs, which sell for $35 to $110, are modeled on a “capless” design in which strands of synthetic, hairlike fibers are sewn to lace bands, resulting in a wig that conforms closely to the scalp and weighs less than 2 ounces.

Gabor boasts that the wigs can be washed with everyday shampoo and blow-dried in minutes.

Not Too Expensive

“They’re very fine wigs . . . very nice quality, not too expensive,” confirms Aida Grey, owner of a cosmetic company in Beverly Hills.

Wig sales at Chicago-based retailer Marshall Field are up substantially since March, when the store began stocking Gabor wigs, an executive says.

“Her wigs range from the inexpensive to the better wigs, so she’s reaching out to a variety of people and incomes,” says Corinne Ardisana, a beauty salon buyer.

With sales up 40% in the first half, “we should have a very good wig year,” Ardisana says.

Buying a wig in a department store, easy to do a generation ago, is now the exception to the rule. Only half of Gabor’s wigs are sold that way, the rest through beauty salons and by mail order.

Wig makers have come up with trendy new products, such as braids and ponytails that blend in with existing hair, in an effort to woo younger customers. But the bulk of their customers remain those who use wigs to cover hair loss due to age or illness, such as cancer.

‘Saved My Life’

This is where the wig business “makes one feel extremely good and grateful,” Gabor says.

“I was lecturing and I saw a beautiful blond girl in the front row, and she was crying. And I got off the stage and I said, ‘I’m so sorry. Did I say something to upset you?’ And she said, ‘No, but I wanted you to know that you saved my life.’ ”

The girl, who had undergone chemotherapy, had lost her hair. “I had sent her one of the wigs, and she was reborn,” Gabor says. “And I couldn’t tell that she was wearing it.”

The glamorous Gabor, who is 67, drums up business by making personal appearances at stores around the world. She also keeps an eye on new designs, including celebrity knockoffs inspired by Princess Diana and First Lady Nancy Reagan.

“I am extremely involved,” Gabor says, but “not day to day. I have a president and vice presidents. You couldn’t possibly just do (business) if you’re an actress too. But I know everything, and I put my two bits into everything. I know what direction we go and what we have to do. I work very hard.”

Followed by Sisters

Gabor was born Feb. 11, 1921, in Budapest, Hungary, the third daughter of Jolie and Vilmos Gabor. After attending schools in Hungary and Switzerland, she immigrated to the United States, followed by her sisters Magda and Zsa Zsa.

Gabor made her Broadway debut in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Happy Time” and went on to act in a score of films and plays, including “Gigi,” “The Trouble With Women,” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

But Gabor is perhaps best known for her role on television’s barnyard farce, “Green Acres,” where she played the dizzy but sophisticated wife of the pompous city slicker who opts for farm living.

With typical understatement, she describes the now-syndicated series as “the most glorious time. I had the best six years of my life. I adored every minute of it.”

Animal Friends

Gabor is not above tattling on her fellow actors--including one of her favorites, Arnold, the pig.

“It was adorable. It loved me. Except that it wasn’t a he--it was a she,” Gabor says, then confides: “You cannot train a ‘he’ pig. A ‘he’ pig is so stubborn that there is nothing you can do with it.”

Eleanor, the cow, was so allergic to Gabor’s perfume that a stage hand, armed with a shovel, acted as the unseen extra in most of their scenes.

“It’s one in a million,” Gabor says, shaking with laughter. “Everybody loved being with us.”

Is business that much fun?

“Business can be great fun too,” she answers. “It all depends how you do it. . . . I have never done anything as a job. I enjoy everything I do.”

Her nonchalance notwithstanding, Gabor keeps to a tight schedule. Between corporate meetings, work on a new book, active involvement in hospice and home-care causes and plans for a new television comedy series, Gabor leads a busy life.

Six stepchildren, the legacy of four marriages, keep the now-single Gabor busy entertaining at her Beverly Hills home.

The pace has recently speeded up with negotiations between Gabor’s company and what she will describe only as a “very big (U.S.) firm” that wants to take it over.

Gabor’s company became part of Sears, Roebuck & Co. in April when the Chicago retailer bought Gabor International’s parent, Western Auto Supply, for $400 million.

A Sears spokeswoman would not comment on the takeover talks but noted that Sears has said it might sell any of its recent acquisitions.

Wants Major Role

Gabor says she won’t agree to a sale “unless I could know that (the company) would improve” and that she retains a major role in its operations. She still hopes to take her company public in a few years.