The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty Read online

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  For my family

  PROLOGUE

  It was Monday morning, June 11, 1979. “Conrad Hilton is rolling over in his grave right now,” Zsa Zsa Gabor was saying to the attorney Myron Harpole. The two were on the telephone, discussing the details of a sworn deposition Zsa Zsa was to give later that week about her relationship with her late husband, the international business pioneer and hotel magnate. “Oh, how he would love to be able to control what I say about him,” she observed wryly.

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” Myron said carefully. He had been Conrad’s attorney for more than thirty years, and even now, six months after his client’s death, was still protective of him.

  “Oh, Myron,” she said, laughing. “You know that if Conrad could be there, sitting right behind me and whispering in my ear, he’d love it.”

  It was true that throughout his lifetime Conrad Hilton had been a man used to being in complete control—of himself and, some might argue, everyone around him. As one of the most successful businessmen in the world, he had made hundreds of millions of dollars, with hotels around the world bearing his name. He certainly didn’t carve out such a niche by allowing others to impose their will upon him. Generally speaking, though, he was well liked and had a stellar reputation among his colleagues. He was a good man, known as much for his philanthropy as for his hotel empire. Privately, though, he did have his eccentricities, not the least of which was his stringent attitude about his wealth and the manner in which it should be distributed to immediate family members.

  It had long been Conrad’s belief that merely being related to him should not guarantee his heirs a carefree, privileged life. He had made his money in what he called “the good, old-fashioned way,” meaning he had earned it. A product of the Great Depression, he wanted his relatives to inherit his work ethic, not his money. A loan might be given from time to time to one of his four children, but failure to pay it back would result in a breach of trust not easily remedied.

  Now that Conrad was gone, some of his family members had serious reservations regarding his last will and testament. With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, the stakes were high. There were hurt feelings, many questions. A legal effort to redress some of these grievances was the reason Zsa Zsa was now being compelled to share her private memories of Conrad with a battery of attorneys.

  “Tell me, Myron, will you be at the interview?” Zsa Zsa asked.

  “We’ll see,” Myron answered. “And, by the way, it’s a deposition, my dear,” he reminded her. “Not an interview.”

  “Well, when people ask me questions,” Zsa Zsa said, “I give them answers. For me, that’s an interview.” Indeed, for the last three decades, she had been a staple on television talk shows, flamboyantly chatting it up with Merv Griffin and Jack Paar, Steve Allen and Johnny Carson about her life and times, often embellishing the truth for the sake of a good laugh. Zsa Zsa was flippant, irreverent, and entertaining, her thick Hungarian accent and uncommon beauty distinguishing her almost as much as her rapier wit.

  “But, remember, you will be under oath this time,” Myron said.

  “Myron, please! You know me,” she responded. “I always tell the truth!”

  Three days later, at noon on Thursday, June 14, Zsa Zsa Gabor walked briskly past the front desk of the Beverly Hills Hotel, her head held high. Wearing a billowing red-and-gold-striped caftan and matching spiked heels, she tried to act oblivious to the stares of everyone she passed. She would have to admit that she loved the attention, though, and she didn’t have to work hard to generate it. At sixty-two, she was still quite beautiful. Her skin was flawless, full of health and vitality, her teased hair a light ash blonde. Her steely and determined blue eyes were hidden behind oversized celebrity sunglasses. As she walked, her gait was one of real purpose, as if nothing could ever get in her way. Of course, this had always been her story.

  Since arriving on the SS President Grant, overcrowded with refugees such as herself from Hungary, almost forty years earlier, Zsa Zsa had always known exactly what she wanted out of life: success, happiness, wealth… the so-called American dream, in all of its red-white-and-blue splendor. She would do a lot to get it, too, as she would prove many times along the way, even if that meant marrying for prosperity—which she did more than a few times. Including Conrad Hilton, seven times, to be exact. So far.

  Zsa Zsa’s footsteps echoed sharply as she marched across the marble foyer of the Beverly Hills Hotel. She nodded at the concierge; he touched his cap in recognition. She then walked quickly down the red-carpeted hallway, past the famous Polo Lounge restaurant, out a pair of French doors, and then through a lovely flower garden in the direction of a nearby bungalow. As she entered the bungalow where her deposition was to be conducted, she immediately switched on her stage persona and played to the audience at hand. “My God! Just look at all of these gorgeous men!” she marveled as she swept grandly into the room. Four attorneys and a male court reporter stood before her with big smiles. “I love being surrounded by gorgeous men,” she enthused. “Everyone knows that about me by now.”

  “Zsa Zsa, how wonderful to see you,” said Myron Harpole as he emerged from the group to greet her. A solid Harvard Law School graduate in a fastidiously neat dark suit, he extended his hand to shake hers, but she brushed it aside and embraced him. “Myron, can you believe that we are here?” she asked, looking around. “Why, my Connie used to own this hotel!” A tangle of gold bracelets on each wrist made clinking noises every time she used her hands to express herself, which was often.

  “No, my dear, actually he didn’t,” corrected the lawyer. “He owned the Beverly Hilton Hotel, not the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

  She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “No, I think he owned this one, too,” she insisted.

  The lawyer smiled patiently and, with a small smile, shook his head no.

  “Well, I can’t blame you for not knowing,” she said with a dismissive wave. “He owned so many hotels, who could keep track?” It was true. Zsa Zsa’s ex-husband had either owned or managed luxury hotels all over the world, most of them—such as the famed Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, which he considered the favorite among his legion—were extraordinary when it came not only to ambiance but also to service. Hilton wanted his guests to be pampered and treated with the utmost respect. For him, it was as much a personal endeavor as it was professional. Therefore, a Hilton hotel would always be a cut above the competition, at least as long as Conrad Hilton had anything to say about it.

  Just as Zsa Zsa and Myron Harpole finished their conversation, another lawyer representing the Hilton estate, Ralph Nutter, entered the bungalow. He would be the one asking most of the questions on this day. He greeted Zsa Zsa and quickly took his seat. After Zsa Zsa was sworn in, the deposition began.

  The first subject raised had to do with the birth of Zsa Zsa’s only daughter, Constance Francesca—known to all as Francesca. In preparation for what she suspected was coming, Zsa Zsa rummaged through a large leather handbag and extracted from it
a copy of Francesca’s birth certificate of March 10, 1947, in New York City. “As you can see, she was named after her father,” she explained as the court reporter took down every word. “That’s where the Constance came from. Conrad.” She then took from her purse a copy of the baptismal certificate: “And she was baptized in her father’s favorite church,” she continued. “St. Patrick’s Cathedral, on May 4, 1947.”

  “So, Mrs. O’Hara, is it your testimony today that Constance Francesca Hilton is Conrad Hilton’s biological daughter?” Ralph Nutter asked, addressing Zsa Zsa by her present married name.

  “Yes, of course,” Zsa Zsa answered quickly. Now she was serious, displaying a no-nonsense demeanor. This was not a frivolous matter, and she knew it.

  “Did Mr. Hilton have reason to doubt that this was true?”

  She paused. A wistful look crossed her face, but then it hardened. “Exactly what is it you are trying to say to me?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “I’ll rephrase,” offered Ralph Nutter. “Mrs. O’Hara, did you have any reason to believe that Mr. Conrad Hilton felt that Francesca Hilton was not his biological daughter?”

  “Well, Mr. Hilton was a complicated man,” Zsa Zsa answered, clearly hedging.

  “That does not answer the question,” Ralph Nutter observed.

  She fixed him with an icy glare. “That is not an easy question to answer,” she remarked, glancing at the court reporter. That her responses were being memorialized seemed to unnerve her.

  Taking a deep breath, Ralph Nutter paused to gather his thoughts. “Okay, Mrs. O’Hara,” he said, beginning anew, “is it your testimony, then, that Conrad Hilton believed Constance Francesca Hilton to be his biological child?”

  “I can only tell you,” Zsa Zsa began, “that never once to my face did Conrad Hilton ever question the paternity of our daughter.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, Mrs. O’Hara? Why are you so certain?”

  She looked him in the eye. “Because if he had, I would have killed him,” she answered.

  The attorney searched her face as if trying to discern if she was joking. He then looked at Myron Harpole for a reaction. Harpole just chuckled to himself.

  “How, then, would you describe your relationship with Mr. Hilton?” Ralph Nutter asked.

  Resurrecting her smile, Zsa Zsa took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “It’s harder for me to talk about this than I thought it would be,” she answered. “Conrad Hilton was not an easy man to understand. So religious. Always with the nuns, the church. Every day going to the church or praying on his knees in the bedroom to a shrine. In some ways, I think it’s the reason why we are here today,” she said, motioning to their surroundings. “He would rather the nuns have his money than his own family. I don’t think he would disagree with my saying it, either.”

  “Mrs. O’Hara, what were your first impressions of Mr. Hilton?”

  “My first impression was that I was meeting someone completely different from other men,” Zsa Zsa Gabor answered. “He was… he was just”—she paused as if reaching for the right word—“I guess you could say he was the most interesting man I had ever met.” Now she seemed to relax into her chair, appearing eager to tell her story. “I had known European royalty before him, do not forget, but this man was special,” she continued. “In some ways, he reminded me of my father—the same strong features, the same color of his eyes, the close-cropped gray mustache. The way he carried himself was big and strong, self-confident and powerful. He was a take-charge kind of man. Someone you sensed would always take care of you. He was so solid… so… American. He seemed to me everything that was American. So, yes,” she decided, “I knew as soon as I met him that never would I be able to forget him. Of all men, I knew that Conrad Hilton would be the one I would remember…”

  “… for the rest of your life?” the attorney asked, finishing her sentence with a smile. Now even he seemed swept away by Zsa Zsa’s memories of the one man who had both enchanted and vexed her for the better part of her days.

  “Yes,” she answered, smiling back at him and nodding. “For the rest of my life.”

  PART ONE

  Conrad

  Curse of the Ambitious

  On a brisk December morning in Los Angeles in 1941, Conrad Hilton stood on the outdoor patio of the master bedroom of his Spanish-style mansion on Bellagio Road in Beverly Hills. As was his morning routine, he gazed out into the distance at the lush landscape of the Bel-Air Country Club and took it all in. It had just stopped raining, the cloud cover having dispersed to reveal a vast, unblemished blue sky over a pristine eighteen-hole golf course. The air smelled fresh and clean. Gently sloping green hills for as far as the eye could see gave way to the skyscrapers of nearby Westwood, standing like sentinels against the horizon. A magnificent three-hundred-foot white suspension bridge that crossed the canyon between the tee and the green glistened in the golden glow of a new morning sun. Such a panoramic view could actually take a person’s breath away, or at the very least pull him into reverie.

  Conrad was a raconteur of the first order, and one of his favorite stories had to do with the time, back in October 1936, that billionaire Howard Hughes landed his airplane on the eighth fairway in order to impress Katharine Hepburn. “Kate was learning to golf right out there with an instructor,” Conrad would say, pointing into the distance. “And sure enough, old Howard just landed his two-seater plane—a Sikorsky amphibian—right on the fairway. Then, as if this was the most normal thing in the world, he jumped from his plane with clubs in hand and walked up to Kate and her instructor and said, ‘Mind a third?’ Doggone if he didn’t join her golf game right then and there for the back nine! How about that?” Conrad would ask, slapping his knee and laughing hard. “Now that’s how you impress a lady!”

  Conrad Hilton was also quite impressive. A lanky New Mexican who spoke with a languid southwestern drawl, he stood over six feet tall, his receding hairline now gray at the temples. With chiseled features, penetrating blue eyes that sometimes appeared green, and a close-cropped gray mustache, he took great pride in the fact that he had managed to retain his good looks even as he approached his fifty-fifth birthday, just weeks away.

  Standing in his maroon velvet robe and matching slippers with insignias, Conrad faced the limestone courtyard to his left and watched as members of his dutiful gardening staff hosed it down. Meanwhile, other household employees descended upon the outdoor furniture with towels, drying off the tables and chairs in case anyone might want to later enjoy the comfort of the patio. Off his right side, he could hear the shouts of his young sons as they played a rowdy game of football with their school chums. The constant ringing of telephones could also be heard from another wing in the house. Since a great deal of Conrad’s growing West Coast business was temporarily being conducted from his home while his new Beverly Hills office was being renovated, the lines of communication usually started ringing early and continued for most of the day. His office staff would arrive at around ten. Until then, there was no one to answer the phones. No matter the cacophony, it was always very formal in the Hilton manse, in a manner that might be considered Old World traditional. On this morning it appeared to be business as usual.

  “Breakfast is served, sir,” announced a voice behind Conrad as his personal maid, Maria, rolled a metal cart into the room. Her full name was Maria Elena Espinoza de Amaté. She and her husband, Juan, had migrated from Spain two years earlier. Maria began working for Conrad shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, supervising the other six maids who took care of the property. Her husband was also employed by Conrad as one of the property’s many groundskeepers. There was something special about Maria’s relationship with Conrad, though. She wasn’t just an employee; he thought of her as a friend. Still, it was always with the proper “Mr. Hilton” or “sir” that she addressed him.

  “Would you like to be served on the patio, sir?” Maria asked. “It’s such a lovely
day.” When Conrad agreed that her suggestion was a good one, Maria quickly set a table for one on the patio, starting with the unfurling of a fresh white organdy tablecloth. Many years later, her daughter, Connie, would recall, “My mother often told me that it was the same thing every day: One plate. One set of utensils. One cup for coffee. One glass for juice. She would put a single rose in a crystal bud vase as a centerpiece. As she would serve his meal, usually something simple like scrambled eggs or pancakes, Mr. Hilton would watch with a grim expression. ‘It’s just you and me, again, Maria,’ he would say to my mom. ‘It’s just you and me.’ They had that kind of relationship.”

  Conrad had been married, back in 1925, to Mary Adelaide Barron in a union that had produced three children: Conrad Jr.—known as Nicky—Barron, and Eric. He and Mary divorced in 1934, almost a year after Eric was born. The marriage ended so badly that some felt Conrad never really got over it. Because he was a devout Roman Catholic, the divorce left him perpetually unsettled, with deep unresolved conflicts of faith. Since then, he had dated a few women, but would always lose interest quickly. No woman ever seemed to have a permanent hold on his heart—not since Mary Barron, anyway.

  To say that Conrad Hilton was a good catch would be an understatement; he was already becoming known as “the Innkeeper to the World.” With a dozen hotels bearing his name having already opened in Texas, California, and New Mexico, he next had his sights set on New York and then… the world.

  Conrad was a new breed of businessman for his times—optimistic when there seemed little reason to be, especially during the war and the Depression. He had faith in America and in her ability to rise once again, to be a nation greater than ever before and to prosper if just given a bit of time to do so. But more than anything, he wanted to be at the forefront of this national renaissance. He was also a firm believer that the eventual expansion of his hotel empire to Europe would stimulate the tourist industry there, and by extension, the travel industry as well, bringing much-needed American dollars to the strife-torn continent.