The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (23 page)

Being in El Paso also gave Nicky a chance to reconnect with his brother Eric, who was as excited as anyone else would have been in El Paso to meet a glamorous movie star. Much to everyone’s disappointment, though, at first Elizabeth didn’t want anything to do with Eric or any of his friends. She wasn’t interested in knowing them. Though Nicky begged her to just try to be nice, she simply couldn’t do it. “If she liked a person and felt she had common ground with that person, Elizabeth could be a terrific conversationalist,” said Nicky’s close friend Bob Neal. “But if she didn’t, well, she could be rather bitchy. Nicky was pretty unhappy with her during that trip. ‘He’s my brother as much as Barron,’ he told Elizabeth. ‘So why aren’t you as nice to him as you are to Barron.’ Elizabeth shot back, ‘
Who said I was ever nice to Barron?
’ ”

“Eric won her over, though,” admitted Eric’s future wife, Pat Skipworth Hilton. “Nick asked Eric to babysit her while he played golf, and he did so. We used to laugh about it. ‘What a terrible babysitting job for you,’ I used to joke. Eric said that she was natural and easy to know, that she had a great sense of humor. I don’t know what it was like at first between them, I just know that they warmed up to each other, and even remained friends for many, many years after.”

When Nicky and Elizabeth returned to Los Angeles, they were besieged by photographers everywhere they went. Even though his father had warned him, Nicky wasn’t prepared for the unrelenting zeal of the photographers. “How in the world do you deal with this bullshit?” he asked Elizabeth one night at the Biltmore Hotel as the media swarmed them. “Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she said with a fixed smile that never wavered.

“I think it’ll be a problem,” Nicky later confessed to Bob Neal over a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbon beers at the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Neal restated the obvious: that if Nicky married a celebrity he would belong not only to her but to her public as well.

“Screw that,” Nicky said.

“You saw what your dad went through with Zsa Zsa,” Bob Neal reminded him, according to his memory of the conversation. “But your father, he handled it with grace.”

“Well, I’m not my father,” Nicky said, his temper rising. He was in no mood to be compared to his father. He had already brushed off Conrad’s warnings and didn’t want anyone to see a connection between his marrying Elizabeth and his dad’s union with Zsa Zsa. “I do things my own way,” he said, jabbing his index finger into Neal’s chest for emphasis.

“Hey, don’t get teed off at me,” Bob Neal said. “Let it slide, Clyde,” he joked. “I got no beef with you.”

A Party to Celebrate the Caribe Hilton

A
bout a week after Nicky returned from Texas, Conrad Hilton hosted a lavish party at his home to celebrate the opening of the new Caribe Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hilton Hotels International’s first acquisition. It was a measure of how important Conrad Hilton had become as the premier American hotelier that the State Department and Department of Commerce had approached him with the idea of establishing American-operated hotels abroad in order to stimulate trade and travel. Coincidentally, at this same time, the Puerto Rico Industrial Company contacted a half dozen American hotel business owners with the idea of opening and operating an American hotel in San Juan. The government would build the hotel and then lease it to an American businessman to operate it, using American technology and know-how. Working with the State Department and the Department of Commerce, Hilton threw his hat in the ring. “My father actually responded to that invitation in Spanish,” Eric Hilton recalled many years later, “and he was the only one who basically did that. I think that so impressed them [the Industrial Company] that they selected him.”

In negotiating with the Puerto Ricans, Conrad said he felt they should not just build the hotel but should also furnish and equip it so that it would truly be theirs and not just another Hilton enterprise. After about a year of planning and construction at a cost of more than $5 million, the luxurious three-hundred-room Caribe Hilton opened on December 9, 1949. Two months later, in February 1950,
Hotel Monthly
magazine featured the Caribe in a splashy twelve-page pictorial, complete with floor plans. Suddenly, everyone in America seemed to want to visit Puerto Rico.

Now that the hotel was well off the ground, Conrad wanted to host a gala affair at his home to celebrate it with people who had not been able to make the junket down to Puerto Rico for the opening there. Dozens of Hilton Hotels International employees all dressed in formal wear mingled about in the spacious outdoors of the Hilton estate under heat lamps as uniformed waiters and waitresses served cocktails and foods popular in Puerto Rico. There was an atmosphere of jubilance not only because the Puerto Rican project seemed destined for success—and in three years’ time it would recover the government’s $9 million investment—but because it was thought that the Caribe Hilton would inspire developers around the world to seek out Hilton expertise in opening their hotels in other countries.

When Conrad, who had been in San Francisco for a meeting, finally showed up at his party a little later than expected, Zsa Zsa Gabor cracked, “Yes, well, he no doubt saw a hotel he liked along the way and decided to buy it. He doesn’t mind making people wait for him, as I found out the hard way.” She could not resist being cynical about Conrad. However, because she was considered “family”—and also because she was so entertaining to have at a party—Zsa Zsa was almost always on the guest list. “Look around you,” Nicky told his former stepmother as he gently wrapped his arms around her slim, sequined waist from behind. In a photograph taken that night, Nicky looked as dapper as ever in a white shirt and jacket, an untied silk bow tie, black slacks, and glossy alligator shoes. “We’re on top of the whole goddamn world, Zsa Zsa!” he said to her. “Why not just enjoy the view?” Her face lit up when she realized it was him. “Oh, Nicky, I am just
joking
,” she said. “Now, you know Zsa Zsa loves a good joke, don’t you? Come, do the cha-cha with me,” she said, turning around and pulling him out onto the dance floor. “Let’s make everyone here incredibly jealous of our beauty!”

Along with Zsa Zsa, other attendees of the black-tie party included dancer Ann Miller, actor Jimmy Stewart, and actress Natalie Wood—but not Elizabeth Taylor. However, Elizabeth’s mother, Sara, showed up—but on the arm of someone other than her husband, Francis. No one knew quite what to make of that other than to think it an interesting development. When at one point Conrad noticed Sara and Zsa Zsa comparing notes, all he could do was look to the heavens and shake his head. He turned to one of his staff members and said, “Do me a big favor, Dave. Get me a Dewar’s neat, will you? And fast.”

Watching Conrad interact with his employees was always fascinating. He had such an incredible memory; he was somehow able to remember the names of people he had met only once or twice along the way. If someone told him a story, it would be long remembered. Hilton would often approach an employee to ask how a personal problem that had been shared with him months or even years earlier had been resolved. The staff members of all of his hotels had great respect and even love for him because they knew him to be reasonable and fair. Thus it was easy to understand why the applause was so deafening when, toward the end of this celebratory evening, Nicky Hilton introduced his father. Conrad strode proudly onto a stage that had been constructed for a vocalist and full orchestra. Taking the microphone, the distinguished entrepreneur began to address the crowd by first thanking them for coming to his “humble home” to celebrate the occasion.

“The world is changing,” Conrad told his guests, “and we in this country at this time are fortunate enough to be able to bear witness to it.” He then talked a bit about the booming airline industry and how it had made travel so easy. “When I was a boy, we would take a train from Texas to New York and it would take days,” he said. “Now? Hours on a plane. Yes, my friends, the world is shrinking,” he concluded. “The happy result of the ease by which Americans can now travel is that the hotel business has benefited greatly. More travelers equal more business,” he continued, “not just for our Hilton hotels, but for the entire industry. We are not an island,” he reminded his employees and friends, “we are a part of a bigger system, and if that system profits, I promise you, we shall all profit.”

He then spoke a little about the new hotel in Puerto Rico and his hopes that its success would help to further develop tourism there, “a safe haven for travelers from all parts of the world.” He concluded by saying, “Hilton Hotels International is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Hilton Hotels Corporation, and long may it prosper for all of us and all of America.” As the crowd cheered, he added, “I can promise you that we have but just begun!” (With the passing of time, Hilton Hotels International would soon open hotels in Madrid, Cairo, Rome, London, and Istanbul.) Conrad then called his sons Barron and Nicky to the stage, both of whom took a bow. After walking offstage, the three Hilton men sequestered themselves in a corner to enjoy three celebratory snifters of a good French brandy. Conrad was seen patting Nicky on the back and laughing heartily, likely at one of his jokes.

About an hour later, dozens of people took to the dance floor as the orchestra played a set of fast-paced, rhythmic Latin songs. It wasn’t long before the crowd moved to the sidelines in order to make room for the host and his MGM star companion. “Oh, my goodness, it’s all just
marvelous
,” Sara Taylor enthused as Conrad Hilton danced across the floor with Ann Miller and everyone around them clapped merrily in time with the music. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she exclaimed. “These Hiltons certainly know how to live, don’t they?”

Nicky and Elizabeth Marry

T
he wedding ceremony honoring Nicky Hilton and Elizabeth Taylor finally took place at the Church of the Good Shepherd on May 6, 1950. It was, as expected since it was orchestrated by the MGM Studios, beautiful and extravagant. Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, Elizabeth’s parents in
Father of the Bride
, seemed almost as happy as Sara and Francis Taylor. The church was filled with celebrities, including Janet Leigh, Rosalind Russell, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and, of course, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Ann Miller. Elizabeth, who had turned eighteen on February 27, looked stunning in her white wedding ensemble (designed for her by MGM’s wardrobe mistress Helen Rose and a virtual replica of the dress she wore in
Father of the Bride
), while Nick was as dashing as ever in his black tuxedo. Even the bridesmaids’ yellow organza gowns were designed and paid for by MGM; Marilyn Hilton, Barron’s wife, was one of the bridesmaids. Everyone seemed so young and filled with joyous naïveté. “I was just enthralled by it all,” said Margaret O’Brien, who was an MGM child star of fourteen at the time and had recently appeared alongside Elizabeth in the studio’s film
Little Women
. “It was absolutely gorgeous and I think every little girl my age hoped to one day have that kind of fairytale wedding.” The church was not only filled with Hollywood dignitaries but also with dozens of Hilton Hotel executives and their spouses. “I was terrified,” Elizabeth later recalled, “and so was Nick. I remember taking out my handkerchief and mopping the sweat off his face during the ceremony. I wanted to run, I was so scared. I really had no idea what was coming.”

After the ceremony, there were so many screaming fans waiting outside the church that there was hardly room for the pressing media. It short, it was a madhouse. Meanwhile, Conrad and his first wife, Mary, who was accompanied by her youngest son, Eric, stood in the receiving line with Sara and Francis Taylor, acknowledging guests and thanking them for coming.

After some of the hoopla died down, Nicky and Elizabeth seemed to relax, their future together seeming more promising than ever. “I remember looking at Elizabeth and Nicky and thinking how lucky they were,” recalled Ann Miller, “and how beautiful it all was, a marriage made in heaven. They were the most gorgeous couple in the world and they had the world by its tail.”

Conrad had to agree; he would later say he had never seen a couple as “handsome” as his son and new daughter-in-law. Over the din, he turned to Mary and, as he would later recall it, said, “They have everything, haven’t they? Youth, looks, position, no need to worry about where their next meal is coming from.”

Mary wasn’t so sure. Leaning into Conrad so that he could hear her over the chaos, she said, “Maybe they have too much. I don’t think it’s going to be easy for them.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Conrad said with a nudge and a gentle smile.

Perhaps he hoped to alleviate his ex-wife’s fears with a jokey remark, but one thing was certain: Conrad had plenty of his own concerns, especially when a couple of days later Sara Taylor called to say that she wasn’t at all happy with the wedding photographs. In the true tradition of a Hollywood agent, she requested that Nicky, Barron, Eric, Conrad, and Mary get dressed in the exact same outfits they wore for the wedding and meet at her home so that photos could be taken again. “Just pretend that it’s last week,” Sara gaily suggested. They did as they were asked, but to say that the Hiltons weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea would be an understatement.

Honeymoon from Hell