The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (54 page)

To share their happiness

And celebrate that special day

When Fran to Con said, Yes!

A third page set forth the date for “our anniversary day”—December 21, 1977—and an invitation to a “cocktail buffet” from 6:30 to 9:30 at Casa Encantada, 10644 Bellagio Road, Bel-Air.

This amusing invitation certainly said a great deal about Frances’s no-frills personality and the sort of informality she brought to Conrad Hilton’s life. “All of that was her idea,” recalled her personal secretary, Phyllis Bradley. “It was in sharp contrast to everything around us. She wanted to bring as much simplicity to the formal environment as possible.”

The invitation was homespun, but the party really was anything but. It was, as usual at the estate, Old World formal. As guests entered the mansion, their coats and wraps were immediately whisked away by two maids. Then, as music by a four-piece string ensemble played softly in the background, Hugo Mentz, the butler, stationed in the entryway, informed the newcomers that “Mr. and Mrs. Hilton are receiving in the foyer.” Once in the foyer, the guests found a receiving line. At the end of the line, under the long, winding staircase that led to the second floor, stood Conrad and Frances. Frances looked lovely in a diaphanous, cream-colored silk cocktail dress with a pearl choker fastened at her neck; Conrad wore a brown silk suit with a red handkerchief in his vest pocket. The Hiltons had positioned themselves in front of an oblong glass entry table that rested on an enormous pedestal of dual marble horse figurines. On top of that table sat a large, colorful floral arrangement. There, the couple—Frances’s right arm entwined with Conrad’s left—graciously greeted each partygoer, enjoying a moment or two of small talk with every person. In many cases, this minute or so would be the only time a guest might actually have with the hosts.

The last of the receiving line guests had just walked away from the Hiltons when one of the security guards who regularly patrolled the premises made his way to Frances and discreetly whispered something in her ear. “Excuse me, darling,” she told Conrad. He smiled at her and then turned to talk to someone else. From Frances’s cool demeanor, no one could have guessed that trouble was brewing.

Frances followed the guard through the parlor to the entryway and then out the front doors, headed to the valet station, which was down at the bottom of the long, winding driveway. It took her a couple of minutes to get down there, that’s how far the walk was from the front door. Once there, Frances found an extremely agitated Zsa Zsa Gabor arguing with Hugo Mentz and a woman who was holding a clipboard. She watched critically as the scene unfolded. “Why,
I’m
the one who hired you,” Zsa Zsa was saying to Hugo, “and
this
is how you treat me?” (For the record, Conrad hired Hugo Mentz in 1959, thirteen years after his divorce from Zsa Zsa; she actually had nothing at all to do with it.)

“Thank you, but I will handle this, Hugo,” Frances said as she approached.

“That’s quite all right, Mrs. Hilton,” the haughty majordomo told her. Everything was under control, he said. Like many long-term employees, he had a system in place for how to handle things.

“No,” Frances insisted sternly. “
I will handle it, Hugo
,” she said, raising her tone in response to his insubordination. “Now, please go back up to the house.”

Hugo looked startled at this new voice of authority. He then did as he was told.

Anna Fragatos’s mother, Evelyn, who was one of Frances’s more affluent friends, happened to be pulling up in her turquoise Corvette convertible just as the scene was unfolding. The following day, she recounted it in detail to her daughter.

With Frances now at her side, Zsa Zsa told the girl holding the clipboard that it didn’t matter whether or not her name was on the guest list. “Don’t you know that I was married to Conrad Hilton?” she asked. “We are
family
. We have a
child
together!”

As soon as Frances Hilton realized the volatile nature of what was occurring, she didn’t waste a second attempting to contain it. In full view of Evelyn Fragatos, the third Mrs. Hilton walked directly to the staff member in charge of the guest list and told her that there was no mistake, that Zsa Zsa was not on the list by design. “Why don’t you and I go and have a little chat,” Frances said, turning to Zsa Zsa.

In her first year of marriage to Conrad, Frances had only had limited exposure to Zsa Zsa. The first time they met was in November 1976. That was when Zsa Zsa burst into the kitchen while Conrad, Frances, and members of their family were eating breakfast. Frances appeared particularly prim and proper that morning in her finely tailored skirt and white jacket with conservative blue-and-white polka-dot blouse buttoned all the way to the top. Zsa Zsa, of course, was dressed much more theatrically in a red-and-white polka-dot blouse and enormous white picture hat. She stood directly in front of the seated Frances. “You must be
her
, then,” Zsa Zsa said, as she took in Frances’s outfit from head to toe. “Tell me. Is that from the new
Paris
line?” she asked, her tone dripping with judgment. Conrad bolted up, took Zsa Zsa by the elbow, and pulled her out of the room before she could say something truly hurtful. After that morning, when Zsa Zsa would come to Casa Encantada to meet with Conrad, she would be generally cordial to Frances whenever she saw her passing through. However, on the evening of the anniversary party, Zsa Zsa seemed as if she were looking for trouble.

Frances took Zsa Zsa by the hand to an area farther away from onlookers. Once there and out of earshot of witnesses, the two women engaged in what appeared to be an animated conversation. Judging by the way Zsa Zsa’s arms were flailing about, it was clear that she was arguing with Frances. Meanwhile, Frances seemed relatively calm in the face of Zsa Zsa’s temper. Finally, loudly enough for everyone to hear, Zsa Zsa screamed out, “
Enough!
I have had enough of your insulting behavior!” She then turned and bolted away from Frances and back to her car, which was still parked at the valet station. Meanwhile, Frances—still accompanied by the security guard, who was now holding her arm and steadying her—calmly began to make the long walk back up the driveway toward the main house and finally to its large, eight-foot-high oak front doors.

“Who does she think she is?” Zsa Zsa said as the valet opened the door to her Bentley. “She is a very thin and very withered creature, that’s who she is,” the buxom Zsa Zsa fumed. “What could he possibly see in her? She looks like, like…” Zsa Zsa hesitated, fumbling for the perfect words. Then she called out for all to hear, “…
spoiled fruit!
” For a moment, while Zsa Zsa simmered in her anger, it looked as though she didn’t want to get into her vehicle; it appeared as if she were considering following Frances up to the house. Thinking better of it, she announced her intentions. “I will return with my daughter,” she told the valet, who had nothing to do with barring her entrance. “I will come back with Francesca,” she declared, “and you
will
let me in!” She then got into her vehicle and screeched away.

Clearing the Air

Z
sa Zsa did not return to the party with Francesca, as promised. Conrad had no idea of the scene that had been caused by her, either. The next day, when Frances finally told him about it, he was upset but not surprised. In fact, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he was at least partly responsible.

Back in 1919, when Conrad bought his first hotel, the ramshackle Mobley, he had authored a code of living for his employees, one tenant of which was, “Assume your full share of responsibility in the world.” But had he done that when it came to his problems with his second wife? He was elderly now, maybe approaching the end of his life. No longer young and naïve, he had vast experience—he’d been married, divorced, raised children—and he felt he should now know better how to deal with this truly maddening person in his family.

What was at the root of all of this familial turmoil? Conrad was certain that it was simply that Zsa Zsa wanted money from him. But what he didn’t seem to understand was that, as much as she would not have rejected anything he might have offered her, it was her daughter’s inheritance about which Zsa Zsa was most concerned.

Conrad thought that he should finally have a heart-to-heart talk with Zsa Zsa. Therefore, the day after the party, he telephoned her and suggested that she come by his office so that they could clear the air. The next morning Zsa Zsa appeared, bright and early. She sat across from him at his desk, next to Conrad’s attorney, Myron Harpole. After she settled in, she asked why Harpole was still present. “I’ve decided that he shall be my witness,” Conrad said sternly. Zsa Zsa rolled her eyes. “And they say
I’m
dramatic,” she remarked.

Details of the subsequent meeting would be recalled years later not only by Zsa Zsa Gabor—in a sworn deposition—but also by Myron Harpole.

“I want you to understand that the Hilton Company is a large corporation run by a board of directors and by stockholders,” Conrad told Zsa Zsa. Hilton said that it wasn’t just him sitting behind a big desk with an adding machine, counting the millions being made by his hotels around the world. “So, just barging in and screaming, ‘
I want money
,’ isn’t going to get you money,” he told her.

“But I have never done that,” Zsa Zsa protested. “Never have I barged in here and screamed that I want money from you.” But as his ex-wife and the mother of his daughter, she hastened to add, some might feel that she did deserve some measure of generosity. At the very least, she concluded, Francesca deserved it. “I just want what’s best for our daughter,” she said, “and maybe for me, too. Do you remember how much you gave me in our divorce?” Zsa Zsa asked. “Well, I do,” she answered for Conrad. “Only $35,000. You said sign here, I signed. And that was that. Now I just want what’s coming to me.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, my dear,” he said, showing a bit of an edge. “You will get exactly what is coming to you.”

After a little more discussion about the past, Conrad shifted the conversation to the present. There were serious problems all over the world, he told Zsa Zsa, and the corporation had found many good ways to help assist the poor and disenfranchised. Perhaps she might consider contributing something for the betterment of others, Conrad suggested, and possibly use the Hilton name as a vehicle in that regard. The last time he had mentioned such a thing to Zsa Zsa was almost thirty-five years earlier in 1944 when they were married. At that time, he had suggested that she volunteer at a homeless shelter. Because she wasn’t interested, the subject was dropped. Why, knowing her as well as he did, Conrad would pick this time to once again try to convince her to be philanthropic was a bit of a mystery. Perhaps he just thought it was worth a try, that he had nothing to lose and that maybe Zsa Zsa would have everything to gain in terms of satisfaction and fulfillment. “I am just telling you this,” he told her, “because I care… Georgia.”

It was the first time Conrad had called Zsa Zsa “Georgia” in probably thirty years. According to Myron Harpole, she appeared to be moved by his use of the sobriquet. “I forgot that this was your name for me,” she said, suddenly looking very sad. “It was so long ago, Connie. My God. What happened to us?”

“We still have time,” he said, smiling at her. “We can try. Maybe start a charity yourself. Maybe that could be the first step…”

Zsa Zsa didn’t answer. She just stared at him, lost in thought, as if caught between the past as it had once been with him and the present with all its confusion, anger, and unhappiness.

“Okay. So, what about that charity idea?” Conrad asked, trying to get things back on track. The two were truly at cross-purposes. She wanted money from him. But he wanted her to give of herself. It must have made no sense to her, especially since becoming involved with any Hilton-related charity would likely not provide her any income.

“Obviously, the meeting was not going well,” recalled Myron Harpole. “ ‘Okay, my dear, I guess you have made your point,’ Connie said, now seeming too tired to continue the discussion. As he rose, he said that the meeting was over. ‘I suppose it is,’ Zsa Zsa agreed, also rising. ‘Fine,’ she announced, ‘then we shall discuss this another time.’ She said that she was on her way to Beverly Hills to have a sable coat fitted, so she would take her leave. Besides, she said, she wasn’t quite sure she felt welcomed, anyway. ‘You know, Connie, you could at least apologize for
some
of the things that happened between us,’ she then said. ‘Not
everything
was my fault.’ Connie and I looked at one another, and he raised his eyebrows as if to say to me, ‘Good point, eh?’ He sighed. ‘I
am
sorry, Zsa Zsa,’ he said. ‘For any time I ever hurt you,’ he added, ‘please know that I am truly sorry.’ I felt that he really meant it, too. Somehow, it felt… big.”

After a moment, a surprised Zsa Zsa asked, “Really? Do you really mean that, Connie?”

“I do,” Conrad said. He looked at her wearily as if he was ready for her to go. “I guess no man is rich enough to buy back his past,” he concluded, quoting Oscar Wilde.