Ailing actress and socialite, Zsa Zsa Gaborhas been in and out of hospital in the recent months and doctors had to amputate part of her right leg last month (Jan11) to stop the spread of gangrene. On Tuesday (01Feb11), the veteran actress was back in hospital after she started spitting up blood at her home in Bel-Air. To take full advantage of the opportunity the folks at Golden Casket, an upscale funeral company, have offered the 93-year old veteran a 24 carat gold casket-despite the fact she is not yet dead.
The company wrote a letter stating, ‘We would like to honor Zsa Zsa Gabor by providing an exquisite, handcrafted, pure 24k gold casket. We believe Zsa Zsa would want to be forever remembered as she has always been in life – beautiful, elegant, uncompromising and completely original.’ The gold coffin is worth $40,000.
The event has angered Zsa Zsa’s husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, 67, who has reportedly said, “I’m going to take the casket and have the gold melted to get a nice ring out of it. These are some f****** sick people!”
But the coffin makers have hit back, saying that their offer was not in poor taste or premature and that Von Anhalt had actually expressed an interest in accepting the coffin after the letter was sent to Gabor’s publicist, John Blanchette.
“It was a heartfelt offer to someone we admire,” said Edward Balfour, head of sales at the Connecticut-based company.
“I don’t know why this has been received so negatively. We know that Zsa Zsa Gabor may not need the coffin for some time, but all our coffins are custom-made so they need to pre-ordered well in advance. If she had accepted the gift, we would have begun to make it. It takes over 200 hours to make each coffin.”
He added: “John Blanchette called us to say the prince is very interested in this casket and he asked that further information be sent to him personally and directly. We have voicemail proof of this call,” said Balfour.
