Seven Things to Know About Eva Gabor

Embed from Getty Images 1. Contrary to their uncanny resemblance, Eva and Zsa Zsa Gabor are not twins. Eva was two years younger than Zsa Zsa and four years younger than sister Magda. In a 1990 Los Angeles Times article, Eva said that Zsa Zsa was considered the "beauty" in the family and Magda was the "smart sister." As for herself, she sighed: "And while I was the ugly duckling, they used to say I had personality."

2. She was chairperson of the board of Eva Gabor International, one of the largest wig-makers in the world. She started the company in 1972. According to her publicist, her appearances on the Home Shopping Network broke sales records. And, yes, one of the wigs looked like her own blonde curls.

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

3. Eva Gabor called playing the role of Lisa Douglas "the best six years of my life...I adored every minute of it." Of course, there was a good deal of Eva in her TV character. When Eva met President Lyndon B. Johnson in real life, she replied: "Hello, Mr. President, darling."

4. Eva was married five times, although she once said she was married "4 1/2 times, because one was on the rebound." Her longest marriage was 13 years to fourth husband, textile millionaire Richard Brown. Although they had known each other for nine months, they decided to get married two hours after Richard proposed. It was such short notice that neither of Eva's sisters could attend. Red Buttons gave away the 33-year-old bride and the wedding took place at the Hotel Flamingo in Las Vegas. After her last marriage ended in divorce in 1983, Eva became the frequent companion of Merv Griffin. She once said of him: "We’ve never been lovers, but we are great, great friends."

5. In a 1990 interview in the Chicago Tribune, she said of her role as a mother: "The other day I was having dinner with Merv and a couple of people, and we were talking about children, and I said, 'Well, my stepchildren love me more than my own.' And Merv said, 'But you don`t have any children of your own,' and I said, 'I don't?'" (Indeed, Eva Gabor never had any children.)

6. Following the cancellation of Green Acres, Eva Gabor only made sporadic appearances in the entertainment field. She was a panelist on The Match Game for a year. She played a matchmaker in a pilot for a TV series in 1990 called Close Encounters, but the show wasn't picked up. She teamed up with Eddie Albert again in the made-for-TV movie Return to Green Acres (1990). Eva and Eddie Albert had previously reunited on Broadway in 1983 in a revival of You Can't Take It With You.

7. In 1995, Eva Gabor broke her hip while traveling in Mexico. When she was admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles, she was found to also be suffering from pneumonia. She died from respiratory failure on July 4th. Both her sisters survived her.

Gene Rayburn and "The Match Game"

Gene Rayburn and his telescoping mike.

The latest revival of The Match Game--this time as a summer TV series hosted by Alec Baldwin--comes 54 years after the debut of the original. Frank Wayne, who later executive produced The Price Is Right for many years, created The Match Game for Mark Goodson/Bill Todman Productions. It premiered on NBC as a daytime quiz show in 1962 (it aired at 4:00 where I lived).

The show's format was simple. There were two teams, each consisting of two celebrities and one contestant. Teammates tried to match each other's answers to a fill-in-the-blank statement like: "John gave Mary a shiny new ____ for her birthday." A team earned 25 points if two teammates had a match and 50 points if all three had the same answer. The first team to score 100 points won the game.

The winning team then played "audience match," in which they won money for matching answers given by the studio audience in an earlier survey. This part of The Match Game was very similar to the later (even more successful) game show, The Family Feud.

The original version with Gene flanked by two celebrities.

Gene Rayburn hosted The Match Game and it was his personality, along the humorous and later risque questions, that made the quiz show a hit. Rayburn had worked in radio, television, and theater since the 1940s. He began as a page at NBC and attended its "announcer's school" before serving in the Army as a pilot during World War II. After the war, he found success on WNEW radio in New York City, teaming with Dee Finch on the show Rayburn and Finch. During this time, Rayburn popularized the novelty hit The Hop Scotch Polka and even received a co-composer credit with Carl Sigman and William Whitlock (the origin of this song could be the subject of an entire post.)

When The Tonight Show was launched with Steve Allen as the host in 1954, Gene Rayburn became the announcer and Allen's second banana (even appearing in skits). Rayburn's national exposure sealed his fame in the entertainment business and he subsequently guest-starred in TV series (Robert Montgomery Presents, The Love Boat), hosted several games shows, and even replaced Dick Van Dyke in Bye, Bye Birdie on Broadway.

Yet, Gene Rayburn is best remembered for The Match Game. The popular quiz show had a good run on NBC from 1962 to 1969. However, it might have been forgotten if not for the CBS revival, intially dubbed Match Game '73, that first appeared in--you guessed it--1973. The number of celebrities was expanded to six and the format was tweaked so that two contestants competed against each other by trying to match answers with the six-member panel. In addition to more celebrities, the naughtiness also increased, with questions such as: "You could tell by the way she was dressed that she was a ________" (the most common celebrity answers were "swinger" and "hooker").

Gene joking with Joan Collins, Richard Dawson, and _____.

Regular panelists on the new Match Game included Richard Dawson, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Brett Somers (who was recommended by her husband Jack Klugman). Other celebrities that appeared frequently were: Betty White, Dick Martin, MacLean Stevenson, Elaine Joyce, Marcia Wallace, Fannie Flagg, Gary Burghoff, Bert Convy, and Joyce Bulifant.

A syndicated nighttime version called March Game PM, also hosted by Rayburn, aired from 1975-1981. And when CBS canceled the daytime version in 1978, it continued in syndication for another three years. There have been various revivals over the years. The format has also been exported to other countries under the title Blankety Blanks (in Australia, for example, it was called Graham Kennedy's Blankety Blanks).

When TV Guide ranked the Top 60 Game Shows of All Time in 2013, The Match Game came in at No. 4, right behind Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Family Feud. And when TIME Magazine listed the 15 Best Game Show Hosts, who was it in the No. 4 slot following Bob Barker, Groucho Marx, and Gary Moore? That's an easy match: Gene Rayburn.