The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty

by Taraborrelli, J. Randy

  “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Conrad continued, “pray for us sinners—”

  “Now and at the hour of our death,” she added.

  Then, in the spirit of comfortable solidarity, they concluded, “Amen.” At that, they raised their heads and smiled unabashedly at one another. He leaned over to give her a quick peck on the cheek. “It’s going to be a wonderful Sunday, isn’t it?” Conrad asked, smiling.

  “That it is,” she agreed. “That it is.”

  “Keep it down back there, you kids,” admonished Bill from the front seat. He winked at Conrad through the rearview mirror.

  “Well, you know how we youngsters are,” Conrad said. “Incorrigible.” He seemed to enjoy nothing more these days than just being lighthearted. After all of the darkness that had plagued him in recent years, it felt good to be playful once again, especially since he wasn’t really working these days.

  During this period, Conrad Hilton was still involved in many Hilton Corporation decisions, but it was Barron who was really running the company from their three-story office building in Beverly Hills at 9990 Santa Monica Boulevard, across the street from the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “Conrad would come into the office just about every day,” said Virginia “Gini” Tangalakis, who worked as an assistant to Hilton attorney David Johnson from 1973 to 1980. “I remember he would show up in a black Cadillac driven by his butler, Hugo, and always with his fluffy white poodle, Sparky, following him on a leash up to his office on the third floor, where you would also find Barron and Eric. He was always immaculately dressed in a blue business suit, once in a while a gray one, but primarily he wore some shade of blue. He treated the staff so well. Mr. Hilton had a private chef named Wilhelmina, an African American, grandmotherly type, who came in every day to prepare hot lunches for the staff. We would be served every day in an enormous conference room, the food all laid out on a boardroom table buffet style, with linen napkins and porcelain plates, for all of us working in the office. The girls all had a crush on Mr. Hilton, despite his advancing age. He was just so charming. He would walk with a little shuffle through the office and everyone was just in awe of him.”

  The last corporation board meeting where Conrad actually presided had been back on August 14, 1975. As long as he still had an impact on certain aspects of the company’s operation—as corporate chairman, he attended all of the board meetings and was sure to register his views—he was satisfied. He was proud of his son Barron and thought he was doing a terrific job. In 1975, Barron made the decision to sell half the company’s equity in six major hotels to Prudential for $83 million. In what is still viewed as one of the first major management leaseback deals in the business, the Hilton Corporation would run those hotels and in return collect a percentage of the profits. Conrad wholeheartedly approved. He had been using similar leaseback strategies overseas for years, but never to build operations domestically.

  With Barron in charge, Conrad no longer had the constant chaos of the hotel business to keep him occupied. He felt a definite void in his life. Actually it was an emptiness he had experienced for decades. It had just been easier to brush aside when he was the ultimate man in charge. Now it was much more difficult to distract himself from his longings.

  Conrad had obviously achieved a great deal in his life, but it had always frustrated him that both of his attempts at having a fulfilling relationship with a woman had ended in failure. Failure was not something he could easily bear. While he could always plan and strategize his way out of a business dilemma, solutions to the complexities of love and romance had eluded him.

  Hilton family lore has it that Conrad prayed for the void in his life to be filled—and that this was when Frances Kelly came along. She had been a good and trusted friend for at least thirty years. But she had been more a background figure in his life, their friendship solid but quiet. After having known her for so long, he had never viewed her as a romantic partner. “But then they had a few casual dinners and one thing led to another,” recalled Bill Kelly, “and they just sort of tumbled into a relationship. Fran said it felt natural, so much so that they didn’t fight it. They just welcomed it.”

  “They were incredibly happy,” Bill Kelly, who was four years Frances’s junior, would recall. “The perfect match. It took us all by surprise, but Frannie—that’s what we called her, Frannie—was a wonderful woman who, I think, turned out to be a good influence on Conrad at a time when he most needed it.”

  Frannie

  In 1977, Mary Frances Kelly was sixty-one years of age. She was tall and stately, with piercing blue eyes and short, wavy dark hair that was quickly graying. In stark contrast to most of the women in Conrad’s social circle, she favored clothing that was for the most part conservatively tailored: long, straight skirts, and classic button-down blouses. She sometimes accessorized with simple jewelry, but she was by no means flashy or ostentatious. She had a distinct air of breeding about her, a certain dignity that commanded attention and respect. She was soft-spoken, but direct. Though she appeared to be fragile, she actually had a strong, formidable core that often surprised people. When her long-standing friendship with Conrad finally blossomed into romance, she was delighted. She didn’t mind that it had taken so many years for them to “find” each other. Instead, she was just amazed that they had finally discovered their true feelings for one another.

  Frances Kelly was born on January 29, 1915, the daughter of Scottish-born parents, William Patrick Kelly and Christine Crawford, who had immigrated to America in the early 1900s. At the time of his death in 1936, her father was a vice president and comptroller of the International Harvester Company, a successful farm equipment manufacturer, a position also later held by her brother, Bill.

  Raised in tony Highland Park, Illinois, near Evanston, twenty miles outside of Chicago, Frances came from a family that is described by her relatives today as having been “well-to-do.” She attended the Catholic Marywood School for Girls, where she was valedictorian of her class. She then enrolled in the School of Speech at Northwestern University, and afterward attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London with dreams of becoming an actress. When World War II broke out, she and her sister, Patty, volunteered for service in the American Red Cross and served in the South Pacific. After Patty returned to the States, Frances stayed on with the Red Cross and was among the first Red Cross workers stationed in Japan.

  In 1946, Patty married John Rutherford Fawcett Jr., who was still in the Army and stationed in El Paso. Because she suffered from polio as a baby, Patty swam every day as therapy at the El Paso Hilton. At the time, Conrad’s sister Helen Buckley and his mother, Mary Saxon, happened to be living at the El Paso Hilton. Since Helen had also been in the Red Cross, the three women became good friends.

  When Frances’s father died at the age of fifty-two, Frances and her mother, Christine, decided to move from their fifteen-room home in Highland Park, citing the weather as a major factor in their decision. “Patty knew Conrad’s sister, Helen Buckley,” explained Bill Kelly. “So when Helen learned that Frances and Christine were moving to Los Angeles, she said, ‘Well, you really have to meet my brother Connie. He lives there!’ ”

  It was the late 1940s when Frances and her mother finally settled in Los Angeles. Frances became manager of convention sales for United Airlines, her job being to promote and organize conventions for the employees of hotels nationwide. Because her work involved the hotel business, it gave her plenty to talk about when she and Conrad finally met in 1948. It was their easy, unthreatening conversation—free of any agenda—that compelled them to remain fond friends for thirty years before their first date. Conrad was such a staple in Frances’s life that there were many youngsters on her side of the family who called him “Uncle Connie.”

  Frances’s niece and namesake, Frances Kelly Fawcett Peterson (the daughter of Frances’s sister, Patty), recalled, “When I was about six months old, Aunt Frannie took me and my mother with her for a vacation with Uncle Connie at his home in L
ake Arrowhead—and that was around 1960. I also remember that when I was four, we went to Germany and had to leave from New York, so Uncle Connie put us up at the Waldorf. I distinctly remember a huge spray of roses on the mantelpiece in the suite, all bright red, from my Uncle Connie to my mom, Patty. So, yes, he was a good and longtime friend of the family’s.”

  In November 1963, shortly before the country would be staggered by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Frances Kelly received a highly amusing telephone call from Conrad Hilton’s German-born butler, Hugo Mentz. “Please come and take Mr. Hilton to mass,” he pleaded with her. “The poor man can’t even go to Communion without some widow trying to pick him up at the Communion rail!” Frances laughed at Conrad’s “dilemma” and agreed to be his church companion. “So for many years after that, they went to church together,” recalled Frances’s niece.

  Like Conrad, Frances was a staunch Catholic, and deep-seated faith helped forge the bond between them. She had never met a man with so much faith, a man so devoted to his God. She knew also that his religion had been a constant in his life from the time he was a little boy.

  In the early 1970s, when Frances Kelly Fawcett Peterson was a college student, she would spend many of her summers with her aunt Frannie in Los Angeles. “Every morning before work, my aunt would get up and go to church with her best friend, Helen. Occasionally, Uncle Connie would join them. In addition to that, four nights a week we would go to Uncle Connie’s for dinner. Although it was usually just the three of us, it was a very formal affair; I had to wear a long dress, very Old World and mannerly.” Even with such longtime friends, Conrad insisted on an element of ceremony, regardless that he was hosting small, intimate social occasions. “Dinner was served promptly at eight. I remember that Uncle Connie would fine us twenty-five cents if we were late,” said Frances. “He was determined to keep a schedule. There was always an air of ceremony. For instance, once I went into the kitchen and Hugo the butler and [his wife] Maria [one of the housekeepers] were horrified to see me there. Uncle Connie explained that you just did not go into the kitchen when the staff were working.

  “We would have cocktails in the den, watch the news, and then talk politics and current events. I remember a news story about a man who had shot his wife and five children and then committed suicide. Uncle Connie was upset about it. ‘We just don’t know enough about the human brain,’ he said, ‘and what would cause a person to do something like that.’ He then mentioned that he’d just recently given $10 million to the Mayo Clinic to do research on the human brain. He was always so interesting, so informed and so charming. For me, as a young girl, it was all fascinating, everything he had to say. I hung on his every word. After drinks, we would have dinner in the dining room, which overlooked the grounds [of Casa Encantada]. It was truly a beautiful setting.”

  By 1977, Conrad was quite lonely, as had been apparent to many people in his life, such as his old friend, actress Debbie Reynolds. “I had been to Casa Encantada probably a dozen times for parties in the late sixties and early seventies,” she recalled, “but by the end of the decade, not so often. I just had a sense that something wasn’t right. One day, I was driving my car through Bel-Air and I thought, ‘I wonder how Mr. Hilton is doing?’ I was all dressed up and on my way to a luncheon but I decided to stop at Conrad’s home on an impulse. I drove up to the enormous gates and rang the buzzer and asked for Hugo, on the chance that Conrad might see me. I just felt nostalgic for him.

  “The gates opened and Hugo came out to greet me. I walked into the house and Mr. Hilton yelled down from one of the balconies, ‘I’m up here, Debbie. Ice the champagne, Hugo. We’re going to dance!’ He came down in the elevator, and for the next three hours I sang to him and we just danced, danced, and danced. We had a glorious time. He had such a smile on his face by the time I left, just like the old Conrad. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he told me. ‘This has meant the world to me.’

  “I sensed that, while he was older, he still was hungry for female companionship. I felt that strongly. He still had a lot of life in him, a lot to give to some lucky woman.”

  It was in 1977, then, after many years of good friendship, that Conrad Hilton and Frances Kelly finally began dating. Besides their shared passion for religion, Connie and Frances were also happy to discover they had a great deal more in common. For instance, they loved to dance around the house to the music of varsovienne—music and dance, originating in Warsaw, Poland, that combined elements of waltz, mazurka, and polka. (It was danced in America to the tune of “Put Your Little Foot Right There.”) They also enjoyed reading and were avid golfers. Moreover, Conrad belonged to the Los Angeles Country Club, while Frannie belonged to the Bel-Air Country Club, and they enjoyed taking each other to dinners at their respective clubs (with Frances’s niece and namesake always tagging along). On lazy Sunday afternoons, the couple could think of nothing better than a long drive together through the hills of Brentwood and Bel-Air, with Frances driving because Conrad as he got older didn’t like to get behind the wheel. It was as if the loneliness in their later years had sparked something in both Conrad and Frances and allowed them to view each other through different eyes. This turn of events was a big surprise for everyone on Frances’s side of the family. Stella Kelly, Bill’s wife and thus Frances’s sister-in-law, observes, “I started to notice that whenever Frannie would walk into the room, Connie’s face would absolutely light up. When I saw that, I knew it was love.”

  A Gentle Nudge

  Her excitement practically leapt through the telephone line.

  “You’ll never believe it,” Frances Kelly was saying. She was on the telephone with her brother, Bill, calling him from the main kitchen of Conrad’s estate, Casa Encantada. “Conrad has asked me to marry him.”

  “Well, I’ll be! Congratulations, Frannie,” Bill exclaimed. “That’s great news!” Then, just as suddenly as her joyous proclamation had nearly floored him, her tone changed.

  “But I have my reservations,” she said.

  He couldn’t imagine what such reservations could be. Obviously his sister and Conrad got along; they had a wonderful relationship, at least as far as he could see. It seemed to him that Conrad couldn’t get along without her. Just recently, the siblings, along with Bill’s wife, Stella, had gone on a vacation to Marbella in southern Spain, where they owned a condominium. They didn’t have a telephone in the unit. Yet somehow Conrad managed to get in touch with Frances by tracking her down at a golf course. He told her how much he missed her, and pleaded with her to return to Los Angeles. “Forget it, Frannie,” Bill told her. “We’re here now, and we’re not turning around and going back for anyone!” He knew then that Conrad Hilton would likely never let Frances slip away from him again.

  “You know, he’s one of the wealthiest men in the world,” Frances said, her voice a whisper. “People will think I’m marrying him for his money!”

  Bill had to laugh. Knowing his sister as he did, he realized that nothing could be further from the truth. “Who cares what people think?” he said.

  “I do!” she shot back.

  Frances Kelly had been a single woman her entire life. Of course, she’d had her romances over the years, one with a gentleman from South Carolina almost culminating in marriage. However, when that didn’t work out, she all but gave up hope of finding a husband. She decided then—and this was when she was in her early fifties—that she didn’t necessarily need a spouse, that she was perfectly content with her life as it was. Being single wasn’t so bad. Some were surprised by her status as a spinster, though. She seemed like a good catch for any man.

  Frances had worked most of her adult life and now valued her job with United Airlines. She had her own money, was financially secure, and lived in a small, albeit nicely furnished three-bedroom apartment in Westwood, near UCLA, with her mother. Her life was predictable and safe. But from the time Conrad came into the picture as a possible romantic partner, nothing was the same for her. He made h
er feel alive. He was funny, full of surprises. She was well aware that recent years had been difficult for him, but she would never have known as much based on the way he was when they were together. When Frances was with Conrad, he seemed strong and resilient, not at all fragile. “Everyone breaks,” he told her one day, quoting author Ernest Hemingway, “but most are stronger in the broken places.”

  Although through the years Zsa Zsa Gabor would perpetuate the image of her ex-husband as being stingy, Conrad was by far the most generous man Frances had ever met. He lavished many expensive gifts on her during their courtship, mostly jewelry. There seemed no end to his extravagant gestures. Only a week before proposing to her, he arranged for a fifteen-piece orchestra to play classical music for them as they dined on one of the terraces of Casa Encantada. That experience alone was beyond anything she had ever heard of, or even imagined possible! And although she had lived a comfortable life, the opulence of his mansion was like no home she had ever seen, and it left her speechless. She would never forget the expression on her mother’s face the first time she accompanied her to a cocktail party at Casa Encantada. On the evening of the party, her mother, Christine, went into one of the many well-appointed bathrooms to freshen up. So astonished was she by the many solid gold fixtures in the room, when she exited she joked with Conrad, “When you have trouble in that bathroom, who do you call? A plumber? Or a jeweler?”

  “Frannie, don’t be ridiculous,” Bill told his sister during their phone conversation about Conrad’s marriage proposal. “Just accept it.”