All contra games. Zsa Zsa Gabor was born Sari Gabor in Budapest on Feb. 6, 1917, and named for Hungarian actress Sari Fedak. Her father, Vilmos, was a cavalry officer turned diamond merchant, and her mother, Jolie.

Bettmann/GettyIn Hollywood, Zsa Zsa Gabor is considered one of the first celebrities who was famous for being famous. But a new biography about the late Hungarian-born socialite and her famous family, Finding Zsa Zsa: The Gabors Behind the Legend by Sam Staggs, argues that there was more to Zsa Zsa than her numerous husbands, diamonds and sassy quips.Staggs, a Hollywood biographer and family friend of the Gabor’s, delves into Zsa Zsa’s private life and gives an inside look at some of her most headline-worthy scandals, from the implosion of her marriage to hotelier Conrad Hilton, to her stint in a sanitarium. Married nine times and known for her self-deprecating humor (“I’m a great housekeeper,” she once said. “Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.”), Zsa Zsa began captivating audiences as soon as she emigrated to the U.S. From war-ravaged Europe.

She acted in films like Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil and the sci-fi flick Queen of Outer Space and became a fixture on TV talk shows. And her family members—sister Eva (who starred on Green Acres), sister Magda, and match-making mother Jolie— were equally compelling. (After years of health issues, ). (In a phone conversation with PEOPLE, Zsa Zsa’s last husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt denounced the book, calling it “bulls—”.)Here are some of the most glitzy and heart-wrenching highlights from Finding Zsa Zsa. The Gabors were terrorized during World War IIBorn of Jewish ancestry, Zsa Zsa and her family experienced many hardships during World War II. Though Zsa Zsa and Eva were ensconced in the U.S., their family was living in Budapest when the Nazis invaded.

Zsa Zsa had nightmares (“I saw every member of my family tortured,” she once explained) and feared what would happen to them, according to the book. In 1944, the sisters visited influential people in Washington, D.C., looking for “anyone who might offer a shred of hope,” Staggs writes. While their mother, father, and sister survived, other relatives weren’t so lucky. (Jolie and Magda eventually escaped to the U.S.) “According to Zsa Zsa, her grandmother refused to leave Hungary because so many of her relatives were there, and her son Sebastian Tillemann would not depart without her,” Staggs writes. “They were both shot to death.”. Zsa Zsa’s tumultuous marriage to Conrad HiltonHotel magnate Conrad Hilton married Zsa Zsa, who was 30 years his junior, in 1942, “against his better judgment,” Staggs explains. Though Conrad was drawn to her gaiety, they didn’t share the same bedroom and he kept his wife, a lover of the finer things, on a budget, according to the book.

Zsa Zsa, for her part, struggled with depression while awaiting news about her family. Even as she reveled in spending sprees, she wavered in self-confidence because Hilton “had only two passions in life: his religion and Hilton hotels,” according to the book. After their divorce in 1947, Zsa Zsa gave birth to their daughter, Francesca Hilton. In her memoir, Zsa Zsa claimed that Conrad raped her, which resulted in the pregnancy.

Zsa Zsa’s mental health strugglesIn Finding Zsa Zsa, Staggs claims that the actress suffered from bipolar disorder. Her family sent her to a sanitarium, where the insulin shock treatments were akin to torture. “How shall I describe the nightmare of the next weeks, days and nights and horrors that might have been invented by Dante?” Zsa Zsa wrote in her memoir.

“I lived in a world of strait jackets, insulin shock treatments, endless injections—and always the real, terrifying realization that though I saw what went on and I knew and heard and understood the enormity of what was happening, no one would ever listen to me. No one came to visit me: Not Conrad not Eva no one.

I felt rejected, utterly abandoned.”. The actress told her ex-husband to marry her sisterStaggs’ book is rife with details about Zsa Zsa’s husbands and lovers (from a chaste romance with the president of Turkey and an affair with her director, to allegations of abusive boyfriends). But one of the most shocking stories of all is Zsa Zsa’s insistence that her third ex-husband, the actor George Saunders, marry her sister Magda. When Zsa Zsa heard that her ex-turned-roommate was looking for a wife, she thought of the perfect solution because she wanted to “keep George in the family,” Staggs writes. “Magda is rich.

She is terribly lonely, and so are you,” Zsa Zsa reportedly told George, according to the book. “You need each other, you can help each other.” George became Magda’s fifth husband, according to Vanity Fair. Darlene Hammond/Getty Images Zsa Zsa’s last husband and her final daysThe author compares Zsa Zsa’s relationship with her last husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, who was 27 years her junior, to “a Danielle Steel novel or bad TV drama.” According to the book, Frederic alienated Zsa Zsa from her family, and took over control of her estate when she fell ill. Before her daughter’s death, Francesca and Frederic frequently battled over Zsa Zsa’s finances and care.

In 2017, the late socialite’s will was revealed, and according to probate court documents obtained by PEOPLE. Frederic pushed back against the book’s claims, telling PEOPLE that Zsa Zsa married him for “protection.” Zsa Zsa’s ninth husband said that he was the one who looked out for her health and best interests until her death. Frederic also said that Francesca never got along with her mother. (Frederic sued his stepdaughter on behalf of himself and Zsa Zsa, claiming she had forged her mother’s signature to take out a $2 million loan by using Zsa Zsa’s $14 million home as collateral, according to the.

Francesca argued that she had her mother’s permission to take out the loan, with the understanding that the money would be used to refinance the mansion and save it from foreclosure, according to. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed after Zsa Zsa failed to show up to court.).