The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty

by Taraborrelli, J. Randy

  In June 1978, the editors of People magazine heard that Francesca was attempting to launch a career as a photographer. This news seemed to present an opportunity for the magazine to finally obtain photographs of Conrad and his new wife, Frances—none had been published up until that time. The magazine’s editors told Francesca that if she could take those pictures, they would be interested in purchasing them. It was an exciting proposition. Not only could it launch Francesca’s career with a reputable publication, but she would be paid more than $500 and would have money left over after paying back her father. Francesca made the trek up to Casa Encantada to present the idea to Conrad.

  The two sat in Conrad’s study as she made the pitch. “This would be a great way for me to break into the business, Dad,” she enthused, according to her later testimony. She explained that she cared about him much more than any other photographer who would just come in and take pictures for the money. She promised that they would be wonderful photographs, and assured him that he would have full approval not only over each shot but also over any story in which they would appear. She added that she would earn more than enough money to pay back what she owed him. Conrad didn’t have to mull it over long. “Absolutely not,” he decided. Francesca was bewildered: “But why?” Conrad explained that he didn’t feel it was fair for him to have to work in order for her to earn money. Keeping his temper in check, as usual, he said he could think of nothing worse than spending the entire day posing for pictures. In his mind that was definitely work.

  For a moment, Francesca was at a loss. Finally, in her own defense, she reiterated her intention: She was only taking the job in order to pay him back what he had lent her. But as he rose from his chair, he told her to just forget about it. She didn’t have to pay him back at all, he declared.

  “But I’m not trying to get out of paying you back, Dad,” she said. “I’m just…”

  “I understand, and that will be all, Francesca,” Conrad announced formally, as if ending a Hilton board meeting. “Good day, my dear,” he added, as he patted her on the shoulder and then took his leave.

  The Great Adventure of His Life

  In the fall of 1978, Conrad and Frances Hilton began planning their second wedding anniversary party, which would take place at their home in December, shortly after Conrad’s ninety-first birthday. He was in fine spirits and in relatively good health, given his age. He still went into the office six days a week, if only to make a pest of himself to Barron. “He’d rather I only come in a couple times a week,” Conrad told one secretary of his son, “but why make it easy on the boy?” he asked with a wink. “He was actually quite active in the year 1978,” Barron Hilton would recall. “I discussed with him our business on a day-to-day basis. He was particularly interested in what our earnings reports were indicating. He constantly was on the phone with the stockbrokers determining the value of Hilton stock.”

  Though he stayed busy, after a lifetime of work Conrad had slowed down. He was suffering from permanent heart dysrhythmia, for which he was taking a daily dose of digitalis. Sometimes his knees hurt and his ankles would swell. He also had hearing loss. His doctors had a hearing aid made for him, which he tried a couple of times but eventually discarded. “What I don’t hear is probably for the best,” he joked. He was also beginning to lose his sight, recalled his attorney Myron Harpole. “Many a day would pass with Frances just reading to Conrad,” he said. “They both enjoyed it very much.”

  While a renowned nutritional therapist, Patricia Bragg, continued to advise Conrad on diet and exercise, as she had done for the last ten years, there was only so much she could do. At ninety, it was becoming more and more difficult to stave off the effects of aging. Still, when Conrad overheard someone tell Barron, “Your old man looks damn good for his age,” he took offense. “I am not an old man,” Conrad said, bristling. “But you’re right about one thing. I do look damn good for my age.”

  It was also true that as he got older, Conrad became more stubborn, or, as he put it at the time to his brother-in-law, Bill, “I’m too old to care what people think of me. So I say what I feel, and I find it refreshing. Don’t you?”

  One evening in the study at Casa Encantada—the same study in which so many important family meetings had been held over the years—Conrad, along with his sons, Barron and Eric, and his brother-in-law, Bill Kelly, enjoyed a nightcap as they did at the end of many evenings. While they sipped their Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherries, Conrad, who was wearing a comfortable silk robe, twill-striped pajamas, and leather slippers monogrammed with his initials, regaled his family members with stories of his legendary past, details of the great adventure of his life.

  Conrad talked about his childhood in New Mexico, about his parents, Gus and Mary, and about his early days in the hotel business. He spoke about his first hotel, “a fleabag of a place,” he said with a laugh. “Cost me something like $40,000. But, truth be told, I only had $5,000 to my name.” He recalled that his mother put up the rest, “my first investor,” he said with a smile. He remembered that Mary had always said that Gus was the dreamer, and that she was the more conservative of the two. Had he taken after her, she claimed, Conrad would have been satisfied with just his first couple of acquisitions. He added that when he bought the eighteen-story Spanish baroque Breakers Hotel back in 1938 in Long Beach, California—the eighth hotel in his chain—he and Mary sat in the elegant Sky Room atop the hotel, and as they gazed out at the stunning view, she asked him, “Now that you have hotels in three states, are you satisfied, Connie?” He quickly answered “No, Mother!” She laughed and said, “You see! Your father all over again.”

  He also spoke about Nicky. “That boy could make me madder than a wet hen in a thunderstorm,” he said, laughing. “But how I miss him.” And he talked about his wife—his “bride,” Frances—and how fortunate he was to have found her so late in life. He said that she had brought him “new hopes and new beginnings.” Finally, he concluded, “I have had an amazing life. I pretty much have achieved everything I set out to do, haven’t I?”

  “You certainly have,” Bill offered. “Your boys should be proud.”

  Conrad looked at his “boys,” Barron now fifty-one and Eric forty-five. With a trace of a smile, he wagered that they were probably a bit tired of him by now. “After all, I’ve been around for a long time,” he said. “We Hilton men have been through an awful lot together.”

  “We love you, Dad,” Barron said suddenly. The mood Conrad had set with his storytelling had become so sentimental, Barron was all but swept away by it. He had tears in his eyes. “Every day with you, Dad—every single moment—I have treasured so much,” he blurted out. “You have always been my hero. I love you, Dad.” This was very unusual behavior. Because of Conrad’s Old World formality with them, the sons usually kept these sorts of emotions to themselves. Not tonight, though. “I feel the same way,” Eric piped in, seeming on the verge of tears. “You’re my hero, too, Dad. I love you.”

  Conrad gazed at his sons with an astonished expression. Then, turning to his brother-in-law, he cracked, “What the hell is going on here, Bill? Am I dead?” he asked, laughing. “Is this my eulogy?”

  Understanding Zsa Zsa

  Frances Hilton and Zsa Zsa Gabor were two very different women in many ways. Still, where Frances was concerned, that was no reason some understanding between them could not be reached. The constant emotional upheaval caused by Zsa Zsa was wearing Conrad down, and Frances knew it. She wanted to see if she could do something about it. “Frances wanted to try with Zsa Zsa,” said Anna Fragatos, who remembers a conversation in which Frances said, “People think she’s some sort of shark, and Connie wants me to stay away from her. He told me, ‘Be careful with her. She circles before she attacks.’ But I think I can get through to her. She’s family. I have to try.” Frances set up a luncheon with Zsa Zsa in an effort to get to know her better. “It was to be Zsa Zsa, Frances, my mother, Evelyn, and Marilyn Hilton,” recalled Anna Fragatos. Later, Ev
elyn Fragatos would relay the events of the day to her daughter.

  The four women—Frances, Zsa Zsa, Marilyn, and Evelyn—came together for lunch at the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel sometime in the winter of 1978. Zsa Zsa hadn’t been anxious to go. According to one source, she told her sister Eva, “Hold on to your vig, dah-ling, I am dining with the noble Lady of the House of Hilton and her handmaidens, and believe me, those rich harpies hate me!” Still, she must have felt it important, because she showed up. “Oh, my dears,” Zsa Zsa said when she found the ladies waiting for her in front of the Polo Lounge, “you all look so beautiful.” Eventually, the women repaired to the Polo Lounge, taking a comfortable back booth. Perhaps as a bit of a peace offering, Zsa Zsa then presented Frances with a gift—a pretty, hand-painted silk scarf in tones of magenta and pink. Frances loved it and immediately wrapped it around her slim shoulders.

  For the next two hours, over finger sandwiches, scones, and tea, Zsa Zsa presented a different variation of the Gabor mystique. According to Evelyn Fragatos, she only made one joke: “I wasn’t born,” she said, when talking about her early beginnings, “I was ordered from room service!” Other than that one great line, she was quite serious. Her demeanor forced the ladies to take note as she regaled them with fascinating stories about her colorful life and times, the way she had taken her persona and used it to her advantage on television and in movies; her many marriages; how she had never been able to find true happiness; and how—at least according to what she said—every one of her marriages had ended with her having to pursue the ex-husband for money. Now, she said, she was in a loveless marriage to Michael O’Hara. They led separate lives and even had separate bedrooms, she said, which explained why he seemed to never be around. She said that, as a proud woman, it was not easy for her to admit as much, but it was true just the same. “The only thing I’ve ever really wanted was a beautiful love story,” she said, “and I’ve never had one.”

  “She said she was not an unreasonable woman,” according to Anna Fragatos. “She explained that the reason she was fighting so hard for her daughter was because Conrad was getting old and she realized that once he was gone, the Hiltons would likely never have anything to do with her or Francesca ever again. ‘And you know it’s true,’ she said, looking directly into Marilyn’s eyes. She said she could live with it if Conrad didn’t leave her any money, but her heart would break into a million pieces for her daughter if he didn’t make provisions for her. ‘She’s the best thing Connie and I ever did together,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m selfish. So what? I’d like to see my daughter happy. This is why I fight now.’ Then she made an astute comment. She said, ‘It’s just not fair for Connie to take out on Francesca what he feels about me.’ ”

  Frances, Marilyn, and Evelyn listened intently and tried to understand. Caught up in her impassioned plea, they felt the sincerity behind Zsa Zsa’s fervent delivery. Her reasoning made some—though not complete—sense to them. “Of course, Marilyn had heard most of these stories before over the years,” said Anna Fragatos. “My mother said that she suspected perhaps the luncheon performance was a bit of a manipulation on Zsa Zsa’s part. Zsa Zsa had come on a little strong. Not only that, my mother pointed out that Zsa Zsa was an affluent woman with plenty of money of her own with which to take care of Francesca. She was a multimillionaire. Why, then, was she so hell-bent on Conrad’s money? Those reservations were all voiced in the days after the luncheon, though. In the moment itself, I believe that the women were quite moved, especially Frances.”

  Frances suggested that perhaps she and Zsa Zsa could figure out a way to work together so that Zsa Zsa and Connie could have a better relationship. She felt it had to start there, that the two of them had to at least learn to get along if they were ever to have a reasonable discussion about Francesca’s inheritance. “I would like that,” Zsa Zsa said eagerly. “Do you think it’s possible?”

  “I do,” Frances said. “We must remember, we’re all family. But you have to be willing to let go of the past, Zsa Zsa.”

  “Zsa Zsa and Frances then agreed to keep talking in the weeks and months to come in order to, hopefully, find a way to not only coexist in Conrad’s world but to enhance Zsa Zsa’s and Francesca’s relationships with him as well,” said Anna Fragatos. “The women then spent another hour chitchatting, laughing, and getting just a little tipsy smoking cigarettes and drinking pink champagne. ‘All of you are invited to my house for dinner some night soon,’ Zsa Zsa told everyone as they were getting ready to leave. ‘I will cook my famous Hungarian goulash,’ she added. ‘But get there before eight,’ she cautioned, ‘because the maid is always drunk after eight.’ ”

  When the four women parted company, Frances Hilton felt that she had a much better understanding of Zsa Zsa Gabor. “You have really gone beyond the call of duty where this thing is concerned,” her secretary, Phyllis Bradley, told her. “It’s all having to do with ancient history and hurt feelings, isn’t it?”

  Frances agreed. Certainly, all of the melodrama between Conrad, Zsa Zsa, and Francesca predated her time at Casa Encantada, and, yes, it was extremely complicated. “But I am learning that understanding a woman like Zsa Zsa Gabor is like baking a cake from scratch,” Frances Hilton concluded. “It’s very messy.”

  Death’s Door

  It was just before his ninety-first birthday on December 25, 1978, that Conrad Hilton first became ill with what the family thought—hoped—was just a chest infection. He was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica for a few days and then released. Still, he wasn’t fully cured. At home, he was still weak and lethargic. The family kept a watchful eye on his condition, but Conrad quickly took a turn for the worse.

  On December 31, doctors readmitted him to St. John’s with a full-blown case of pneumonia. Still, most of the family thought he would recover. After all, he had never really been seriously ill a day in his life. Barron and Eric refused to believe that, even at ninety-one, it was their father’s time. Francesca was also certain that the Hilton patriarch would fight his way back to health. Frances wasn’t so sure, and neither was Zsa Zsa Gabor.

  Zsa Zsa was upset about Conrad Hilton’s illness. Some in the family felt that it wasn’t just his time she saw slipping away, but also her chance at securing something substantial upon his death. Others took a more charitable view and wondered if she didn’t want to make amends with him before it was too late. After all, as Conrad lay in his hospital bed, Zsa Zsa talked to his relatives about the “unfinished family business” she had with him, adding urgently that there was “little time to waste.” Even those aware of how assertive she could be were taken aback by how adamant she was to see Conrad one last time. Everyone seemed to agree, though, that Conrad was in no shape to endure an unpredictable visit from his combative second wife. Therefore, Zsa Zsa was asked to stay away from the hospital and wait until Conrad was released and recuperating at home before seeing him.

  When Zsa Zsa telephoned Frances to ask her for personal permission to visit Conrad, Frances wasn’t sure what to think. She was inclined to give Zsa Zsa the benefit of some doubt, especially after her pleasant luncheon with her a few months earlier. However, she felt that she should acquiesce to what had already been decided by the Hiltons not to allow Zsa Zsa to see Conrad. Frances said that she would talk to the Hiltons and see what she could do. She was likely referring to Barron, Marilyn, and Eric, but it’s also possible that there were members of the Hilton company’s board of directors involved.

  The next day was January 2, 1979. Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, different members of the Hilton family as well as some of Conrad’s close friends solemnly came and went from his room at St. John’s Hospital. He seemed to be getting worse. And then late in the day, a surprise visitor showed up: Zsa Zsa Gabor, carrying with her a small Christmas tree. As usual, she was dressed to the nines. Hair coiffed and makeup fastidious, she was exquisitely bejeweled and sporting a stylish crimson-colored suit. Years later, she would recal
l in her autobiography, One Lifetime Is Not Enough, that she looked into the room and saw Conrad. “His toupee was on but he didn’t have his false teeth in, and seeing him that way—Conrad who had been so big, so strong, and so powerful—was one of the saddest moments of my life,” she wrote. “I thought to myself, It is Christmas,” she continued. “Why should he die in the hospital? Why should he die alone?” The truth, though, is that he was not “alone”—and she never got into his room. (It’s also worth noting that Conrad had stopped wearing a toupee after he began seriously dating Frances. At that time he didn’t feel the need for it any longer. So he likely did not have it on in his hospital room.)

  According to a number of witnesses, Frances happened upon Zsa Zsa just as she was about to enter Conrad’s room, miniature Christmas tree in tow. “Oh my goodness! Zsa Zsa, why are you here?” Frances asked, alarmed by her presence. “I specifically told you I would talk to the Hiltons about you. But you didn’t give me a chance!”

  “But I thought we had an agreement that I could see Connie,” Zsa Zsa said, standing in the hallway and still clutching her little Christmas tree as if it were a party invitation.

  “No, Zsa Zsa. We had no such agreement,” Frances said. Now she was getting upset. The notion of Zsa Zsa trying to push her way into Conrad’s room like an uninvited guest at a show business gala had really unnerved her, especially after she said she would try her best to get her in to see him. Once again, Frances’s tough core—usually hidden under her ladylike exterior—sprang forward, her protective lioness instinct coming to the fore. She stood in front of the door with her arms crossed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “and don’t mean to be unkind,” she continued, “but I simply can not allow you to go into that room.” She met Zsa Zsa’s determined gaze with a steely one of her own. “Not until I have had a chance to talk to the Hiltons, just as we discussed.”