The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty

by Taraborrelli, J. Randy

  The first order of personal business for Conrad in the new year of 1950 was to focus on his family life, namely the future of Nicky. Conrad was still not convinced of the wisdom of Nicky’s decision to marry Elizabeth Taylor, but he realized there wasn’t much he could do about it. “Definitely, Dad would have preferred for Nick to lead a more stable life than the movie star experience he had with Zsa Zsa,” his brother Eric would say many years later. “But Nick was an individualist. Just like children today, you can guide them and tell them what you want, but they’re going to do what they want to do, especially if they’re strong-willed like Nick.”

  It was clear to everyone that Elizabeth’s mother, Sara Taylor, was excited about the prospect of her family being linked to the much-respected and upwardly mobile Hiltons. It wasn’t as if the Taylors didn’t have their own money, either. They were quite well-off, and had always been so even before relocating to the States from England. However, Sara Taylor was nothing if not ambitious for herself and her daughter. She loved the idea of successful American capitalism. If Elizabeth could marry well in the States, she would certainly not be opposed to it.

  “As you know, Elizabeth is in the middle of filming a picture called Father of the Bride,” she explained during a dinner at the Hilton mansion to plan the nuptials. She said that the studio wanted the wedding to take place in conjunction with the release of the movie and asked Conrad if he had a problem with that strategy. Conrad was so taken aback by this revelation that he was at a rare loss for words. He asked Nicky what he thought. Nicky shrugged and downed another shot of Johnnie Walker Black, his drink of choice. Elizabeth also had no comment on the subject. It was Barron who blurted what was on his mind. “Why, that’s the craziest thing I have ever heard,” he said, chuckling.

  Sara wasn’t about to dignify what she considered an uninformed remark with a comment. Instead she turned to Conrad. “Mr. Hilton, you understand business,” she said curtly. “Perhaps you should school your son on the ways of the Hollywood picture system.” Elizabeth, she added, had a lucrative contract with the studio, and if MGM wanted to use the wedding as a vehicle to promote their picture, it was their prerogative. “I’m sure you, a businessman, have no problem with this. Do you, Mr. Hilton?”

  “Well, I’m not the one getting married,” Conrad answered, certainly not one to be cowed by Sara Taylor. “This is above my grade anyway,” he said, using a slang of the times for “Don’t ask me.” He turned to his son. “Again, what do you think, Nicky?” he asked. Nicky gave his standard response in conveying indifference: a casual shrug.

  Before the Taylors left the Hilton home, everyone agreed that they would allow MGM to do whatever it wished with the wedding. The parents of the bride were to pay for the wedding anyway, and since Nicky had no opinion one way or another, the Hiltons felt their only choice was to keep their input to a minimum. What they didn’t know, though, was that the Taylors wouldn’t be paying for the nuptials, either. In what they considered a fantastic advertising coup for their next Elizabeth Taylor vehicle Father of the Bride, MGM would foot the entire bill. Not to be outdone, Conrad would offer to pay for what promised to be a wedding reception to beat all receptions at the Bel-Air Country Club. (There would end up being more than seven hundred guests at this gala, with a receiving line that was so long it would take guests six hours to get from the end of the line to the front in order to greet the newlyweds.) Conrad also generously offered to pay for the couple’s honeymoon, which was to be an extended cruise on the Queen Mary and a tour of Europe. In the end, the Taylors got away with not paying for anything.

  Shortly after that planning dinner, Conrad discovered something about Elizabeth that he found somewhat alarming. It was actually Olive Wakeman who brought the matter to his attention. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that this girl is just seventeen and already has one broken engagement?” she asked him.

  Apparently, as Olive explained, just five months before she met Nicky, Elizabeth Taylor had been engaged to a man named William Pawley, who was ten years her senior. “It was in all of the papers,” Olive told Conrad. “I’m surprised you didn’t know!” Because of everything that had been going on lately with the consuming New York and Puerto Rico businesses, Conrad said he was too busy to read entertainment-related articles in the press. He asked Olive to find out what she could about the engagement. It didn’t take long for his trusty assistant to come back with the information that the engagement between Taylor and Pawley had ended on September 17, 1949, which—coincidentally enough—was the exact same date she met Nicky at the Mocambo! Pawley had been with Elizabeth at Jane Powell’s wedding that same afternoon. He left Los Angeles that night when Elizabeth broke off their engagement, which was how she ended up going to the Mocambo alone. Once there, she met Nicky.

  “Fast worker, that one, isn’t she?” Conrad said of the young Miss Taylor. “Is Nick aware of this?” Olive said she didn’t know. Conrad then summoned Nicky and told him what he had learned. It was all news to him. He couldn’t believe Elizabeth hadn’t disclosed the previous engagement, especially since it had ended the same day he met her! “But she’s only seventeen,” Nicky said. “When did she have time to be engaged to someone else? No,” he decided. “I’m not going to doubt her. I just want to believe in her.”

  “Well, if you ask me, I think it’s a little suspect,” Conrad told his son. “A word to the wise…,” he said, not finishing his sentence.

  Nicky nodded. “Quite right, Pop. It is a little weird. I’ll ask her about it.”

  When Nicky finally confronted Elizabeth, she said that she hadn’t purposely kept anything from him. It had been in all of the newspapers, after all. “It’s not like I can ever have secrets,” she told him. He was relieved that she hadn’t lied to him. “I just knew you wouldn’t lie to me,” he told her. “I would never do it,” she told him. “I love you, Nicky!”

  Though comforted by the knowledge that she hadn’t purposely withheld information from him, the news of Elizabeth’s previous engagement at such an early age made Nicky wonder if perhaps the real reason she was marrying him was because she was looking for liberation, and that any man who could provide it to her would be an acceptable husband. Many years later, in 1987, Elizabeth would admit, “I was desperate to live a life independent of my mother.” She often told Nicky that once she was Mrs. Conrad Hilton, Sara would have less to say about how she lived. Nicky didn’t find this information at all reassuring.

  Moreover, Elizabeth had a strained relationship with her father, Francis. He was a weak man who could never stand up to his wife and was not exactly a strong influence. In some respects, Elizabeth seemed to be looking for a father figure.

  Also, as it happened, Elizabeth was fighting another battle, this with her own natural adolescent urges. As she put it, “The morality I learned at home required marriage. I couldn’t just have an affair. I was ready for love and I was ready for lovemaking.” Nicky wasn’t thrilled with that logic either. He wanted to believe that Elizabeth truly loved him and wanted more than just to get away from her parents and have sex, but he had to admit that he wasn’t really sure.

  In other words, a lot of reasons began to present themselves as to why she wanted to marry Nicky Hilton—and her actually being in love with him seemed pretty far down the list.

  Nicky loved Elizabeth, though, for certain he knew that much. She was sweet to him, laughed at his jokes, seemed to want to be with him… and happily accepted the $10,000 four-carat diamond engagement ring he presented her. However, he couldn’t shake the feeling that if not him, someone else… anyone else.

  Nicky Takes Elizabeth to Texas

  While Nicky had legitimate concerns when it came to marrying Elizabeth—and his father most certainly agreed that they were all potential problems—Conrad also had another worry. He was just recently out of a mixed marriage with Zsa Zsa Gabor and therefore all too familiar with the complications such a situation posed for any practicing Catholic. Elizabeth wasn’t
Catholic either. Her mother was a practicing Christian Scientist and she was intent on passing that religion down to her daughter. Conrad didn’t want any more problems with the Catholic Church, and he wanted Nick to be married in the church. Therefore he told Nick that Elizabeth must take the religious classes necessary for her to marry in the church. He also wanted her to sign a document stating that she would agree to raise any Hilton child as a Catholic. It was the only way a marriage ceremony between her and Nick could occur in the church anyway. “I’m not sure I can do that, Pop,” Nicky said when his father proposed the idea. “She’s not going to like it.” Conrad said he would take it up with Sara Taylor if he had to, so Nick knew that the best course of action would be for him to just convince Elizabeth.

  Nicky was right; when he presented Elizabeth with the idea of raising their children as Catholics, she balked. Yet in the end she did sign the agreement—but because she waited until just ten days before the ceremony, there would be more than a little suspense about it. She didn’t hesitate, however, to take the religious courses required for a Catholic wedding. In exchange, Conrad set aside $100,000 for their first child, and he also gave Elizabeth one hundred shares in Hilton stock to show his appreciation for her going along with his suggestion. Moreover, he told her that a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria would always be hers whenever she wanted one. For the moment anyway, everyone was happy.

  On February 21, 1950, Conrad Hilton made the official announcement to gossip columnist Louella Parsons: His son Nicky was going to marry Elizabeth Taylor. The day of the announcement was a busy one. Elizabeth had finished filming Father of the Bride that morning—it was now scheduled to be released within two weeks of the wedding ceremony—and then later that afternoon the Taylors hosted a formal tea at their Elm Drive home in Beverly Hills, inviting all of the Hiltons as well as friends, family members, and, of course, studio executives. Compared to the Old World formality of dinner at the Hilton estate, it was quite a change for Conrad; the Taylors’ Hollywood friends were much more raucous. “It was like going to the circus,” Conrad later said, “there were so many characters. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy myself. I did. But, my goodness, what a bunch!”

  At the end of March 1950, Mary Hilton Saxon, Nicky’s now widowed mother, invited Elizabeth Taylor and her mother down to El Paso for a little get-together.* Nicky accompanied them on the trip, of course. As the three women discussed wedding plans in a suite at the Hilton Hotel, and then went on a shopping spree to Juarez, Nicky played golf at the El Paso Country Club. Mary thought Sara and Elizabeth were both wonderful. “They are just lovely,” she said at the time. As Elizabeth and Nicky later posed for photos, it was clear that they made a striking couple, both with wavy dark hair and well-drawn features, both uncommonly attractive, Nick with his dimples, Elizabeth with those eyes. Except for the fact that the Hilton men thought the Taylors were a little nuts, it all seemed as if it could work.

  Being in El Paso also gave Nicky a chance to reconnect with his brother Eric, who was as excited as anyone else would have been in El Paso to meet a glamorous movie star. Much to everyone’s disappointment, though, at first Elizabeth didn’t want anything to do with Eric or any of his friends. She wasn’t interested in knowing them. Though Nicky begged her to just try to be nice, she simply couldn’t do it. “If she liked a person and felt she had common ground with that person, Elizabeth could be a terrific conversationalist,” said Nicky’s close friend Bob Neal. “But if she didn’t, well, she could be rather bitchy. Nicky was pretty unhappy with her during that trip. ‘He’s my brother as much as Barron,’ he told Elizabeth. ‘So why aren’t you as nice to him as you are to Barron.’ Elizabeth shot back, ‘Who said I was ever nice to Barron?’ ”

  “Eric won her over, though,” admitted Eric’s future wife, Pat Skipworth Hilton. “Nick asked Eric to babysit her while he played golf, and he did so. We used to laugh about it. ‘What a terrible babysitting job for you,’ I used to joke. Eric said that she was natural and easy to know, that she had a great sense of humor. I don’t know what it was like at first between them, I just know that they warmed up to each other, and even remained friends for many, many years after.”

  When Nicky and Elizabeth returned to Los Angeles, they were besieged by photographers everywhere they went. Even though his father had warned him, Nicky wasn’t prepared for the unrelenting zeal of the photographers. “How in the world do you deal with this bullshit?” he asked Elizabeth one night at the Biltmore Hotel as the media swarmed them. “Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she said with a fixed smile that never wavered.

  “I think it’ll be a problem,” Nicky later confessed to Bob Neal over a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbon beers at the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Neal restated the obvious: that if Nicky married a celebrity he would belong not only to her but to her public as well.

  “Screw that,” Nicky said.

  “You saw what your dad went through with Zsa Zsa,” Bob Neal reminded him, according to his memory of the conversation. “But your father, he handled it with grace.”

  “Well, I’m not my father,” Nicky said, his temper rising. He was in no mood to be compared to his father. He had already brushed off Conrad’s warnings and didn’t want anyone to see a connection between his marrying Elizabeth and his dad’s union with Zsa Zsa. “I do things my own way,” he said, jabbing his index finger into Neal’s chest for emphasis.

  “Hey, don’t get teed off at me,” Bob Neal said. “Let it slide, Clyde,” he joked. “I got no beef with you.”

  A Party to Celebrate the Caribe Hilton

  About a week after Nicky returned from Texas, Conrad Hilton hosted a lavish party at his home to celebrate the opening of the new Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hilton Hotels International’s first acquisition. It was a measure of how important Conrad Hilton had become as the premier American hotelier that the State Department and Department of Commerce had approached him with the idea of establishing American-operated hotels abroad in order to stimulate trade and travel. Coincidentally, at this same time, the Puerto Rico Industrial Company contacted a half dozen American hotel business owners with the idea of opening and operating an American hotel in San Juan. The government would build the hotel and then lease it to an American businessman to operate it, using American technology and know-how. Working with the State Department and the Department of Commerce, Hilton threw his hat in the ring. “My father actually responded to that invitation in Spanish,” Eric Hilton recalled many years later, “and he was the only one who basically did that. I think that so impressed them [the Industrial Company] that they selected him.”

  In negotiating with the Puerto Ricans, Conrad said he felt they should not just build the hotel but should also furnish and equip it so that it would truly be theirs and not just another Hilton enterprise. After about a year of planning and construction at a cost of more than $5 million, the luxurious three-hundred-room Caribe Hilton opened on December 9, 1949. Two months later, in February 1950, Hotel Monthly magazine featured the Caribe in a splashy twelve-page pictorial, complete with floor plans. Suddenly, everyone in America seemed to want to visit Puerto Rico.

  Now that the hotel was well off the ground, Conrad wanted to host a gala affair at his home to celebrate it with people who had not been able to make the junket down to Puerto Rico for the opening there. Dozens of Hilton Hotels International employees all dressed in formal wear mingled about in the spacious outdoors of the Hilton estate under heat lamps as uniformed waiters and waitresses served cocktails and foods popular in Puerto Rico. There was an atmosphere of jubilance not only because the Puerto Rican project seemed destined for success—and in three years’ time it would recover the government’s $9 million investment—but because it was thought that the Caribe Hilton would inspire developers around the world to seek out Hilton expertise in opening their hotels in other countries.

  When Conrad, who had been in San Francisco for a meeting, finally showed up at his party a little later than expe
cted, Zsa Zsa Gabor cracked, “Yes, well, he no doubt saw a hotel he liked along the way and decided to buy it. He doesn’t mind making people wait for him, as I found out the hard way.” She could not resist being cynical about Conrad. However, because she was considered “family”—and also because she was so entertaining to have at a party—Zsa Zsa was almost always on the guest list. “Look around you,” Nicky told his former stepmother as he gently wrapped his arms around her slim, sequined waist from behind. In a photograph taken that night, Nicky looked as dapper as ever in a white shirt and jacket, an untied silk bow tie, black slacks, and glossy alligator shoes. “We’re on top of the whole goddamn world, Zsa Zsa!” he said to her. “Why not just enjoy the view?” Her face lit up when she realized it was him. “Oh, Nicky, I am just joking,” she said. “Now, you know Zsa Zsa loves a good joke, don’t you? Come, do the cha-cha with me,” she said, turning around and pulling him out onto the dance floor. “Let’s make everyone here incredibly jealous of our beauty!”

  Along with Zsa Zsa, other attendees of the black-tie party included dancer Ann Miller, actor Jimmy Stewart, and actress Natalie Wood—but not Elizabeth Taylor. However, Elizabeth’s mother, Sara, showed up—but on the arm of someone other than her husband, Francis. No one knew quite what to make of that other than to think it an interesting development. When at one point Conrad noticed Sara and Zsa Zsa comparing notes, all he could do was look to the heavens and shake his head. He turned to one of his staff members and said, “Do me a big favor, Dave. Get me a Dewar’s neat, will you? And fast.”