In March 1951, several weeks after Marina Habe’s birth, Hans Habe’s father, Imre Békessy, and his mother, Bianca (née Marton), died by suicide—presumably from a morphine overdose.[4] Imre Békessy had reportedly been addicted to morphine since the 1920s and had attempted suicide with it at least three times before. Hans Habe documented his father’s suicidal tendencies in his 1954 book Ich Stelle Mich: Meine Lebensgeschichte.

Imre Békessy—also known as Emmerich—a prominent journalist and publisher, passed on his passion for the press to his son. In the early 1920s, he became a pioneer of tabloid journalism in Austria, founding one of the country’s first tabloid newspapers: sensational, fast-paced, and irreverent in tone, blending political reporting with semi-nude images in a form of sensationalism designed to captivate readers.

Bold and unapologetic, Békessy was a polarizing figure, often accused of blackmail and unethical tactics. His notoriety eventually led to legal trouble. Facing an extortion investigation, Békessy chose not to return to Vienna after a stay in France. He resettled in Paris in 1926 and then moved to Hungary, where he continued his publishing work throughout the 1930s. As Europe grew increasingly unstable, he fled Hungary in 1938 and went into exile in Geneva.

By 1940, Békessy had emigrated to the United States. After World War II, he returned to Hungary, hoping to revive his career, but the postwar Communist regime left no room for his brand of journalism.

In his memoir, Imre Békessy’s son, Hans, wrote that his father’s notoriety led him to change his name to Hans Habe. Hans is the German equivalent of János, his birth name, and Habe is a created surname derived from the initials of Hans Békessy.