The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty

by Taraborrelli, J. Randy

  The Francesca Factor

  The foundation is trying to wear me down,” Barron Hilton complained. He and his wife, Marilyn, were having a meeting with two business associates at the Hilton home in Bel-Air. It was the end of 1984. By this time, Conrad Hilton had been gone for five years, and the matter of his will was still not resolved. Barron was now fifty-seven, but looked older than his years, the lengthy legal battle over his father’s estate having taken its toll.

  “I don’t understand how these people who have known you since you were a kid could do this to you,” Marilyn said. She was hurt, and those close to Barron felt she had good reason. After all, the foundation was comprised of people who had known Hilton for decades, such as Olive Wakeman; Spearl “Red” Ellison, the former bellboy who had once loaned Conrad $500 and who then worked his way up the ranks of the organization; Vernon Herndon, Robert Groves, and Thomas Wilcox, all longtime Hilton Hotels Corporation executives; Robert Buckley, the former doctor of Conrad’s son Nicky; and even Barron’s brother Eric. All were dedicated to preserving what they believed to be Conrad’s wishes. That said, none really had the power of Donald Hubbs and James E. Bates. For instance, most certainly if Eric had had his way, the present disagreement would have been quickly resolved, and likely in favor of his brother.

  “Well, as they say, it’s just business,” Barron remarked wearily.

  “But how dare they try to impose their will on your father?” she continued. She said that he, of all people, would know what Conrad had intended with the will.

  “Jim Bates has it in his head that he knows better than me,” Barron said.

  “The nerve!” Marilyn exclaimed.

  One of the more interesting aspects of the present conflict over Conrad’s will was that it pitted longtime allies against each other. For instance, Myron Harpole had long represented Barron (and had just done so in the case filed by Francesca), but now he was representing the foundation against Barron. Not only that, but James E. Bates had also represented Barron Hilton for many years, was a close personal friend, and, along with Barron, was coexecutor of the estate. The battle over Conrad’s stock now also pitted him against Barron. Many people long associated with the foundation were longtime associates and friends of Conrad’s and Barron’s—such as Conrad’s tax adviser and now the president of the foundation, Donald Hubbs. Because of their positions with the foundation, however, they were all forced to align themselves against Barron. (Despite these tense times, Hubbs remained Barron Hilton’s business partner in Eastridge Development Co., a $19 million real estate venture, split 80/20 between Hilton and Hubbs. Hubbs was still also involved in Hilton’s Vita-Pakt Citrus Products company.)

  “They act like my dad didn’t know what he was doing,” Barron added. He further stated that Conrad was obviously a very smart man and must have realized that there was a good chance the stock he provided with the option would appreciate. One of the associates, according to his memory of the meeting, brought up the fact that for a time after Conrad died, the stock actually plummeted, and that if the stock had continued to depreciate, Barron would have taken a big hit. “It’s the nature of the stock market,” he said. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.” Marilyn then made the point that the reason the stock had appreciated was solely because of Barron’s management skills. She added that since Conrad’s death, no one associated with the foundation had contributed in any way whatsoever to the continued success of the Hilton hotel business. It was all because of Barron’s efforts that the stock now had such excellent value, at least in her estimation. “They should be thanking you,” she said, “not punishing you.”

  “You know, this is really the result of the Francesca Factor, don’t you?” one of the other associates offered.

  “Interesting,” Barron said, nodding his head.

  “The Francesca Factor” is what the Hilton camp had begun to term Francesca Hilton’s impact on the dispensation of the estate. Because Barron’s fight was not about the wealth that Conrad had accumulated, but about the post-death appreciation of a large portion of stock, some observers felt that Francesca had actually done Barron a huge favor. After all, it was because of the delay she had caused that the stock had so much time to appreciate. But the truth, as Barron saw it, was that had he been able to exercise his option and buy the stock in January 1979, immediately after Conrad’s death, it would have appreciated under his stewardship anyway, and the profit would have been his without question. “The Francesca Factor did us no favors here,” said the associate. With a chuckle, Barron remarked that if Francesca only knew of the chaos she had caused, she would be “just a little bit delighted.” He actually had no beef with her, though. She had fought for what she believed was right, and she gave a good fight, too. That’s what Hiltons do; Barron said he respected her for it.

  At this point, one of the associates present then took a leap and posed what was by now an unpopular thesis among those in Barron Hilton’s close-knit circle. “Is it possible that James Bates just screwed this whole goddamn thing up?” he asked. “Is it possible that Conrad never intended for you to make a profit like this?”

  Barron didn’t explode; that wasn’t like him, anyway, just like it was never like his father to lose his temper. He mulled over the question. “I’m not sure it matters,” he said, his tone level. He said that his father taught him to take advantage of every situation that could potentially provide a profit. They now had a big opportunity to do just that, and they had no choice but to take advantage of it. “I, for one, believe that my father fully intended it,” he concluded. “But it doesn’t matter one way or the other. I’m not walking away from it.”

  They then all started talking about Conrad, sharing their memories of him. It was clear that everyone still missed him terribly. “I was maybe thirteen,” Barron recalled with a soft smile, “and, you know, my dad was a very busy man. But Nick and I had this lemonade stand with which we planned to make a fortune,” he said with a laugh. Barron then explained that he and Nick offered Conrad the opportunity to share in the potential profits of their exciting new venture. They would give him a third of every ten cents made. However, he would have to be the one to actually make the lemonade. Conrad decided it would be a good investment. “So, as busy as he was, there was my old man, in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to make a decent lemonade. Finally he came out with a pitcher. He proudly poured the lemonade into a glass and handed it to me. I took a sip. I spat it out. I looked up at him. And I said, ‘Boy, that’s really lousy.’ ” Everyone had a good laugh. “Yes, those were the days,” Barron said wistfully. “Those were certainly the days.”

  Each Other

  I did the best I could,” Francesca Hilton said. “Now I have to just put it behind me.”

  It was the fall of 1984, almost two years after her appeal was denied, but it was still sometimes on her mind, as it was on her mother’s. Francesca was speaking to Zsa Zsa over dinner at a restaurant in West Hollywood. Zsa Zsa, now sixty-seven, had just come from a fitting and photo session related to an upcoming event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Therefore she was in full Zsa Zsa Gabor regalia—an expertly tailored pink bugle-beaded pantsuit, her hair, now more platinum than blonde, perfectly coiffed, lots of expensive jewelry. Diners at other tables couldn’t take their eyes off her.

  Zsa Zsa’s most recent marriage—her eighth—to character actor Felipe de Alba a year earlier, had been annulled just twenty-four hours after the ceremony because she didn’t know that her union to husband number seven, Michael O’Hara, hadn’t been legally terminated. “It’s so sad about Felipe,” she remarked with a twinkle in her eye. “Do you know how many men I will have to sleep with just to get over him?” It seemed that there would always be some sort of high-stakes drama unfolding in the life of Zsa Zsa Gabor—and she would always have a great line to go along with it.

  Though Zsa Zsa managed to thrive no matter the circumstances, recent years had been difficult for Francesca. In the end, though, it could be
said that Francesca proved herself to be as much a Hilton as anyone else in the family, just by virtue of the tenacity and persistence she demonstrated in her quest for acknowledgment. In that regard, Conrad might have been proud of her. True, he never would have approved of her taking legal action against his estate, but he probably wouldn’t have begrudged her right to fight for what she believed was hers. After all, he was always a man of his own convictions, whether in business or in his personal life. As far as Francesca was concerned, she was still—and always would be—the daughter of Conrad Hilton. It had never been proven otherwise, had it?

  Also at the table with Zsa Zsa and Francesca was Zsa Zsa’s new personal assistant, a young man named Timothy Barrows. “If you don’t mind me asking, exactly how much did your father leave you, Francesca?” Barrows asked.

  Francesca shot him an irritated look. “Excuse me,” she said, “but… who are you, again?”

  “Oh, he’s my new secretary,” Zsa Zsa answered for Barrows. She explained that he was her fourth in just six weeks; she was having “terrible luck with the help.” Then, turning to him, she snapped, “Mind your own business. Just sit there and be quiet!”

  “Well, look, it was his money and his right to do whatever he wanted with it,” Francesca said, trying to be objective about situation, all of this according to Barrows’s memory. “What’s done is done.”

  “Well, I for one am not satisfied,” Zsa Zsa said. “I still think there must be something we can do…”

  Francesca shook her head. “You know, life doesn’t always have to be a battle, Mother,” she said. “A war to be won.” Though she was trying to be positive, Barrows would remember that the expression of sadness on Francesca’s face suggested that the pain of this conflict was still deeply embedded in her heart.

  Zsa Zsa nodded. “Maybe you’re right, Francie,” she concluded, now seeming a little defeated. Then, after a beat—“I’d like to make a proposal to you,” she said, taking her daughter’s hand. “Let’s make a promise to never fight again.” From the sincere expression on her face, Zsa Zsa seemed to genuinely mean it. She added that she was “just too old and tired” to argue with her own daughter these days. “You and I, we belong to each other,” she concluded, her eyes filled with sudden warmth. “We’re all we have, Francie. So, what do you say?”

  Francesca looked at her mother with mock astonishment. “I would say you have had way too much to drink,” she shot back with a cackle. “And I would say, woman, you are dreaming!”

  “And I would say… cheers to that,” Zsa Zsa Gabor exclaimed, raising her glass of wine.

  Mother and daughter then shared a hearty laugh. Yes, they’d been through an awful lot together. But they still had each other.

  Eric and Pat Divorce

  By 1985, six years had passed since the death of Conrad Nicholson Hilton. During that time, his son Eric was divorced from Pat after twenty-nine years of marriage and four children; the divorce was finalized in 1983. “We grew apart,” is all Patricia Skipworth Hilton wishes to say about the breakup of her marriage. “Eric is a wonderful man and I would never have a negative thing to say about him, ever. I admit, though, that it was sad. The end of a long marriage is always difficult, but what can one do? Life does go on.”

  Pat Hilton remains single and lives in Houston. “I have a very happy life,” she says. “The days as a Hilton wife are far behind me, but I have fond memories of my sisters-in-law, Marilyn and Trish, and my brothers-in-law, Barron and Nicky. Oh yes, we were at the center of everything, or at least that’s the way it felt to us at the time. These days, I’m happy to have a much more quiet life here in Texas.

  “Eric and I are still friendly,” she allows. “After all, we have children, and family is important to the Hiltons. So we have always made a genuine effort for the children.”

  Today, Eric Michael Hilton, who is eighty-one, sits as a director of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. In March 1997, he retired as Hilton Hotels Corporation vice chairman. “Eric’s contribution to the success of Hilton Hotels Corporation is significant,” said Barron at the time. “His accomplishments in the areas of domestic and international strategic planning and property development have been important to the continued growth of the company our father, Conrad N. Hilton, founded more than seventy-five years ago. Eric was involved in many of the corporation’s major transactions throughout his career, including Hilton’s reentry into the international market when the luxury Conrad International brand was introduced in 1985.”

  Eric also serves on the advisory board of the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. Presently, he is married to Bitten “Bibi” Hilton. Eric also remains close to his four children by his marriage to Pat: Eric Jr., Beverly, Linda, and Brad, all of whom lead lives outside of the public arena.

  Barron Is Denied

  By the mid-1980s, Barron Hilton—who remained happily married to Marilyn—had begun to make quite an impact on the gambling business with the Hilton hotels. Whereas in 1970 gambling had accounted for none of the company’s operating income, by 1985 it was almost 50 percent, thanks largely to its Las Vegas holdings, the Las Vegas Hilton and the Flamingo Hilton. Recently, though, to add to his ongoing troubles with his father’s estate, Barron faced a major public embarrassment.

  By this time, legalized gambling had taken off in Atlantic City, with most of Nevada’s major hotels—Caesars, Bally, Sands, Harrah’s, and the Golden Nugget—doing profitable business at the shore. To get in on the action, Barron spent $320 million building a majestic 614-room hotel and 60,000-square-foot casino on an eight-acre site in Atlantic City. It was the biggest undertaking in the Hilton Corporation’s history. But on February 28, 1985, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission surprised most industry observers when it denied Barron his application for a license to operate a casino in Atlantic City. It practically never happened that someone of Barron’s stature was turned down by the NJCCC. He was already licensed in Las Vegas, and he promised to bring big business to the city, as well as all of the goodwill of the Hilton name. Therefore it seemed inconceivable that he would be denied. He had to have the approval of four commissioners, and though he won a majority of three to two in his favor, it was still a loss, and an embarrassing one, too. Barron issued a statement saying he was “shocked and stunned.”

  “This was a bitter pill for him to swallow,” said Tim Applegate, senior vice president and general counsel for the Hilton Corporation. “It was a surprise, hard to accept. Not a good moment for Barron… for any of us.”

  “You have to remember that, for Barron, everything he ever did was measured by whether or not Conrad would approve of it,” said another of Hilton’s associates. “It was always about honoring his father. No matter how successful he became with it, it was still Conrad’s company, at least as far as he was concerned. Therefore, he felt a responsibility to keep it operating smoothly and to keep clean its image. When he and I met the day after his license was denied, Conrad’s name kept coming up.”

  Barron and his associate were at Barron’s home on Brooklawn Drive in Bel-Air having breakfast with Marilyn and some other family members and a few others. Barron seemed disheartened, which was unusual for him. No matter how difficult things became in his life, he always managed to at least appear unruffled. But lately it had just been one challenge after another. Between his battles with the foundation over his father’s will and now with the NJCCC over his license in New Jersey, he had a lot on his plate. “We’ve been putting off building in Atlantic City since, what, 1981?” he asked his associate. “High interest rates, an uncertain market… I was just never sure about Atlantic City, was I?”

  “Look, this is still a good idea,” the associate argued. He urged Barron not to doubt himself.

  Barron sat back in his chair, tilted his head back, and stared at the ceiling. “Maybe we were a little too eager,” he said. He said he didn’t think his father would ever have put the cart before the horse. Probab
ly Conrad would have gotten the license first, he mused, then built.

  “Well, your father was a lot more conservative that you are,” the associate argued. He also noted that the competition in Atlantic City was so cutthroat, “you have to get in there quickly and do whatever you’re going to do.” He added that things were now very different in the hotel business. Back in Conrad’s day, the competition was somewhat in alignment with him, he observed. “You didn’t see guys like Henry Crown trying to undercut him,” he added. “Today, these guys are out there nipping at your heels. You got your Donald Trumps, you got your Steve Wynns… Why, it’s a different world.”

  Barron agreed. Still, he said, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Conrad was looking down at them and asking, “What the hell were you guys thinking?”

  Marilyn laughed. “Oh, Conrad would have plenty to say,” she concluded, smiling. Not about her husband either, she said, looking at him warmly, “but about those fools in the Casino Control Commission!”

  The major reason the NJCCC rejected the Hilton Corporation’s application for a gaming license was the company’s relationship with a particular business associate. Conrad and Barron had made it a rule to stay clear of mobsters. It couldn’t always have been easy. After all, gangsters controlled many of the unions, such as those connected to the liquor industry and to other supplies or services the Hiltons needed to entertain guests in their hotels. Once the Hilton Hotels Corporation got into the gambling business, however, avoiding such shady characters would have become even more difficult. In fact, the company had a relationship with a Chicago attorney named Sidney Korshak who apparently had ties to organized crime figures. According to press reports at the time, the Hilton company had been paying Korshak $50,000 a year as a “special labor consultant,” and that’s the reason the NJCCC turned down the request for a gaming license in the Garden State.