The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (20 page)

“Sorry, son,” Conrad said, holding his ground. “I can’t help you,” he concluded, standing up as well. The two men shook hands. As Barron turned to walk away, Conrad added, “If you think you can make a thousand dollars a month, go right ahead. But if you ever come back down to earth,” he concluded, “come see me and we can always talk again.”

“Sure,” Barron said, seeming miffed.

As Barron left, Conrad sat back into his chair and smiled to himself. “Well,” he later remembered thinking, “I guess you can’t blame the kid for trying.”

But Barron did exactly what he said he was going to do—he ended up making at least a thousand dollars a month, and usually much more, by going into the citrus products business with a friend and their Vita-Pakt Citrus Products Co. (The company is still in business today, though Barron long ago sold his interest in it.) It didn’t take Barron long to go into that business, either. “Conrad was bowled over by Barron’s success,” recalled one Hilton relative. “He just always assumed that both boys would be in the hotel business at some point, and for Barron to make his own way like that, well, Conrad’s admiration for him shot straight up through the ceiling.” Or as Conrad once wrote, “I was pleased to think that if he and his wife had set out to better my own mother’s and father’s record, he had at least inherited some of Gus’s ingenuity and business sense.”

Not surprisingly, Nicky wasn’t quite sure what to think of Barron’s sudden success. Yes, he’d gotten what he wanted, which was Barron out of the hotel business. However, his brother was now his own man in more ways than one, and also making more money than Nicky. In the process, he’d earned even more respect from Conrad for making his own way and not relying on his father’s largesse. Nicky wanted the best for Barron; he couldn’t help it, he loved him. But still, the competition between the two brothers had just been ratcheted up to a whole new level.

The Question of Francesca

I
t was July 1947. Newlyweds Barron and Marilyn Hilton were in New York staying at the Roosevelt Hotel when the telephone rang in their suite. According to what Barron would later recall under oath, the caller asked for “Mr. Hilton,” and when told that he had Mr. Hilton on the line, he began to talk about an investigation he had been conducting. “As you instructed, sir, I’ve been looking into the matter we discussed,” said the caller.

Investigation? At first, Barron was confused. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“The investigation, sir,” the caller said. “You know, the investigation I am doing into your divorce.”

“Oh, wait,” Barron said. “Hold on. You must want to talk to my father. Not me. I’m
Barron
Hilton.”

“This isn’t Conrad Hilton?”

“No, this is his son Barron.”

“Oh,” said the caller. “I’m terribly sorry.” With that, he abruptly hung up.

After Barron put the receiver down, he sat staring at it for a moment. He was clearly disturbed. Marilyn had been quietly listening to the conversation. Noticing his confused expression, she came over and sat next to her husband on the bed. “What was that about, dear?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Barron said, his brow furrowed. “Apparently, Dad has a detective investigating certain things regarding his divorce from Zsa Zsa.”

“Really?” Marilyn said, looking perplexed. Perhaps it wasn’t that unusual for a spouse to hire a detective during a divorce, but after one? And why would he keep the investigation a secret? “I wonder what’s going on?” Marilyn asked.

“I don’t know,” Barron answered. “I cut the guy off. He thought he was talking to
Conrad
Hilton.”

Marilyn collected her thoughts and sat quietly next to Barron for a long moment before speaking. “Do you think this has something to do with Francesca?” she asked delicately. It was as if her woman’s intuition had just kicked in at that moment.

Barron shook his head. “No, it can’t.” Then, after a pause, he added, “I mean…
can it
?” It could not have been lost on him, nor on Marilyn, that Francesca had been conceived while Conrad and Zsa Zsa Gabor were in the middle of an acrimonious divorce, living apart and most of the time barely acting civil toward each other.

“I just don’t know,” Marilyn said. “But maybe you should talk to Conrad about it.”

“Maybe,” Barron said. He didn’t, however, seem eager to do so. The subject of what had gone on behind closed doors during the end of his father’s second marriage was an extremely uncomfortable one. There was no way he could ever imagine discussing sexual timelines and possible affairs with his devoutly Catholic parent.

Barron never would discuss the call with Conrad, other than to tell him that a private investigator had telephoned and began speaking to him erroneously. Barron would later say, “I assumed at that point that this could be the question, as to whether Francesca’s birth would be a part of that investigation. However, it was just an assumption at that time. My father never did discuss this matter with me.”

PART FIVE

Elizabeth

Beautiful Dreamer

J
ust look at this girl, Pop,” Nicky Hilton said. It was the summer of 1949 and Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr. and his father, Conrad, were sitting in the study of their Bel-Air estate, Conrad holding court behind his large agarwood desk, Nicky sitting on the other side of it in a heavily upholstered leather chair. “I have to meet her,” the twenty-three-year-old heir said as he handed his father a picture he had neatly clipped from a newspaper.

Conrad took the cutting from his son and examined it. “Yes, she’s a real beauty, all right,” he said, according to his later memory of the conversation. “Elizabeth Taylor, eh?” He handed the clipping back to his son. “Well, I’ll bet you can’t even get close to her,” he said with a good-natured grin, “let alone meet her. I mean, she’s a movie star. Come on, Nicky! How are you going to meet her?”

Nicky sat back in his chair and, staring at the photo, smiled to himself. “I’ll bet I meet her, Pop,” he said. “I’ll just bet you that I do.”

Conrad laughed. “Okay,” he said, chuckling, “it’s a bet, then.” When Nicky left the study, Conrad sank back into his chair and smiled. “My Nicky, the beautiful dreamer,” he said to himself.

As the months turned into years, an interesting dynamic had begun to develop between Conrad and Nicky. As much as he admired Barron’s determination, and as flattered as he was that those traits mirrored characteristics of his own, there was something different and special about Nicky that appealed to him too.

Nicky was carefree and fun-loving, a real ladies’ man. By the time he was twenty-one, he was living the kind of life Conrad had always wanted for himself but never had the nerve—or the personality—to make his own. After all, Conrad had worked from the time he was a young man. Now, at sixty-two, when he looked back on his life, he was of course proud of his business achievements, but he did have certain regrets. He realized that with all he’d accomplished he’d never had one of the most cherished things life had to offer: fun. His greatest source of entertainment had always been trafficking in big business, making deals, courting some grand hotel, and finally acquiring her and making her his own. However, in retrospect he felt a great sadness, a feeling of having missed out. For instance, he hadn’t had a lot of women. He simply didn’t have the time nor the inclination for romance other than the fleeting kind. When he did feel passion, it usually wasn’t of the sexual nature. He had been married to one of the most sensationally beautiful women in the world in Zsa Zsa Gabor, yet when she wanted to make love he usually balked. Part of this could be ascribed to his religious convictions, of course. However, deep down, as he would later confide, he had to wonder if that was just an excuse, if he had simply lost interest in his wife after finally “acquiring” her. Why, he sometimes wondered, couldn’t he be more like Nicky? Would Nicky have ever turned away someone like Zsa Zsa? Not likely.

As surprising as it would have been to Nicky had he known it, Conrad couldn’t help but be just a little envious of him. “Nick was like a cat in heat,” said a Hilton family friend. “Every gal he took out he screwed, and all were great beauties.” Nicky was out on the town every night, getting into mischief with the opposite sex and spending his money wildly with no sense of responsibility. While it was sometimes maddening for Conrad to bear witness to Nick’s lifestyle, he couldn’t help but feel that Nicky lived fearlessly, and he had to admire him for it.

“If only I had just a little of whatever it is Nicky has that makes his life such a good time for him,” Conrad told his attorney Myron Harpole, “I think maybe I would have been happier.” When Myron commented that Conrad didn’t seem to be particularly unhappy, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, it’s too late now to worry about it. But I have to confess, I do wish I’d had more fun. If you don’t mind me saying so, maybe even some more romance. Does that make me sound like an old fool?” he asked. Myron smiled at him. “Yes, it does,” he told Conrad. “An old fool, just like the rest of us.”

Though Conrad Hilton couldn’t turn back the hands of time, he could at least live vicariously through his namesake. How he loved hearing Nicky’s wild tales! His stories were the source of hours of laughter and bonding between himself and his firstborn. Olive Wakeman would tell Myron Harpole, “You can always tell which of his sons is in his study with him behind closed doors. If the tone of the conversation is subdued and serious-sounding, it’s between Conrad and Barron. But if raucous laughter and good-natured ribbing is heard, for certain the banter is between Conrad and Nicky.”

Even though Conrad had bet Nicky he wouldn’t be able to get near Elizabeth Taylor, let alone meet her, he would have to admit that, in his heart of hearts, he figured Nicky would win that bet. He rather hoped he would.

Enter: Elizabeth Taylor

I
t didn’t take Nicky Hilton long to prove his father wrong. Once he set his mind to doing something, he usually did it. As it happened, Nicky knew a friend who knew another person well connected in the movie business, and before he knew it, he was invited to actress Jane Powell’s wedding party at the Mocambo nightclub on Sunset Boulevard (the same nightspot at which his dad had given Zsa Zsa Gabor her engagement ring). And there he found himself sitting shoulder to shoulder with the one and only Elizabeth Taylor. It was September 17, 1949, an evening Nicky would never forget.

Many years later
Vanity Fair
would call Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor “a real-life Helen of Troy.” At just seventeen, she was ripe and ready to launch the first of her many thousand ships. She was already an accomplished actress, having appeared in more than a dozen major films, mostly for MGM, such as
Cynthia
,
A Date with Judy
,
Julia Misbehaves
, and
The Big Hangover
. By 1949, pretty much everyone in America knew the name Elizabeth Taylor, and it wasn’t just her acting career that singled her out for acclamation, it was her rare, almost unparalleled beauty. Although she certainly wasn’t statuesque, standing only a little above five feet tall in her stocking feet (her height would be exaggerated throughout her career), she had a regal bearing and a well-shaped body with full breasts and a tiny waist that she enjoyed showing off with plunging necklines and tight belts. She also had an inherent sexuality that even as a teenager she exuded effortlessly. Her beautiful face, while certainly one of the most photogenic in the history of motion pictures, was even more stunning in person, and made her truly ravishing. Women around the world would turn themselves into cut-rate Elizabeth Taylors in a futile attempt to duplicate her special allure: the jet black hair, flawless skin, pouty red lips, and perfectly sculpted eyebrows. But it was her bewitching, violet-blue eyes, so darkly lashed and blazing with a startling range of emotions, that really set her apart from mere mortals. It is now legend that when the still teenage Elizabeth would walk into the MGM commissary, everyone, even the most jaded stars, would stop eating, turn to look at her, and gasp. Then a hush would fall over the room as she made her way to a table, all eyes following her. That was the reaction Elizabeth Taylor elicited whenever she entered any room. It certainly was the reaction she elicited from Nicky Hilton the night he finally met her.

Elizabeth had been working since she was a young girl, with her stage mother, Sara Taylor (herself a frustrated actress), constantly critiquing and fine-tuning her to almost mechanical proficiency. As a result, she felt that she had missed out on her childhood and teen years. At seventeen, she thought she wanted nothing more than to break away from the mother who dominated not only her but also her brother, Howard, and their father, Francis, and start living a real, genuine life—not just one that was documented on film. However, when she told her mother that she wanted to stop making movies, Sara said it was impossible. “You have a responsibility, Elizabeth,” she told her. “Not just to this family, but to the country now, the whole world.”

It’s safe to say that there was more than a little resentment and anger building in young Elizabeth by the time she met Nicky Hilton. She had just finished filming
A Place in the Sun
with Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters, and she was exhausted. Although the film would not be released for almost two years, it would show Elizabeth to the world as an artist who could really act. Portraying the rich, spoiled Angela Vickers, she demonstrated a surprisingly wide range of emotions as she fell in love with a man far beneath her social class (played by Montgomery Clift, for whom she had truly developed feelings). In the movie, she drove Clift’s character, George Eastman, to murder so that he could be free to marry her. It was a role through which the public would see a new depth and maturity in Elizabeth’s acting, and the exhilarating working experience did a lot to build her self-confidence. She was sick and tired of being manipulated by her mother, by the MGM movie studio, by the media, and even by a public that seemed to want to infantilize her forever.