The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (60 page)

As for Conrad’s relationship with Francesca, Zsa Zsa said, he always treated her like a daughter, making it a point to mark the familial events of her life such as birthdays and graduations. She recalled that when Francesca was a little girl, Conrad would take her by the hand and walk her proudly into L’Escoffier—the stylish French restaurant that for years was on the penthouse level of the Beverly Hilton. Father and daughter would then enjoy a private luncheon. She said that he also took her and Francesca to “a very nice lunch” at the Beverly Hills Hotel on the day of Francesca’s confirmation in 1960. He even sometimes invited Francesca to Christmas Mass with him, following which just the two of them would open his presents, she said. Also, “He was obviously pleased when friends and acquaintances would comment upon the family resemblance between himself and Francesca.” She added that Conrad had always made it clear to her that Francesca was her responsibility, not his, and that she was fine with it.

Regarding Francesca’s allegation that Conrad suffered from an “insane delusion,” Zsa Zsa testified that while Conrad obviously wasn’t insane, he “wasn’t well since at least ’66 or ’67.” Zsa Zsa was never entirely comfortable about linking the notion of “insane delusion” to Francesca’s case against the estate. Privately, she told one of her associates before her deposition, “Of course, Connie was mad. You have to be mad to do what he did with his life, to take the chances he took, the risks he took, especially during the Depression. The worst thing you can be in this insane world is the only sane person in it. People think I’m crazy, and I hope I am! God help me if I wasn’t; I would never have made it here from Hungary!” Still, for the purposes of her daughter’s case, she would go along with the theory. To that end, she said that Conrad had begun to forget people’s names and that his general memory had begun slipping. She then cited the incident that occurred in 1966 when she went to see Conrad in his office to discuss Francesca and she heard Conrad ask, “Zsa Zsa who?”

“That [incident] told me that he was not himself. He wasn’t the same Hilton I used to know. He had never been old, but he became old. He had been such a young man, but no more. He always had a sparkle in his eye, and unfortunately that was gone. Sometimes, he was coherent and sometimes he wasn’t with it. Barron said so, too. Barron Hilton kept telling it to me.”

Eventually, Gabor’s attorney convinced her that the remark should not be stricken if it was true. She said it was true.

At the end of the first four-hour session, Zsa Zsa was exhausted. When told by Ralph Nutter that she would probably have to come back for more questioning, she became annoyed. “But how much more can I tell you?” she asked him. “I have already given you my whole life!” Myron Harpole added that there would likely be just a few more questions. “Fine,” Zsa Zsa decided. “Then I will do what I have to do for my daughter. I don’t care how many more times I have to come down here and answer your embarrassing questions, I will do it,” she concluded. “Connie always thought I was weak. Well, I just hope he is watching me now.”

In the end, Zsa Zsa Gabor would be further deposed on July 9 by attorneys Nutter and Harpole, and then again on July 10 by Harpole alone.

Smoking Gun?

I
n her sworn testimony, Zsa Zsa Gabor claimed that she and Conrad Hilton had engaged in one single night of passion at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in early July 1946, during which her daughter, Francesca, was conceived. Zsa Zsa’s tale of an almost scatterbrained, hurried tryst with Conrad half dressed while in a leg cast had a whiff of the kind of highly amusing anecdote she loved to tell late night talk show hosts. It’s safe to say that no one on the Hilton estate’s side believed a word of it. But then, much to everyone’s astonishment, Francesca Hilton’s team of attorneys located a gentleman named Willard Kramer, an insurance man who was able to testify to at least some of the specifics of Zsa Zsa’s unusual story. Kramer had been a golfing buddy of Conrad Hilton’s in the 1940s. His testimony—at least the way Francesca’s lawyers viewed it—could well help win Francesca’s case. Willard Kramer was deposed by Robert D. Walker of the firm Belcher, Henzie & Biegenzahn on July 1, 1979.

According to his testimony, the morning they arrived—which would have been Easter Sunday—they rose and went to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “It had been the only reason we flew to New York,” he said. “Connie’s custom was to attend Easter Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s. He was very excited about it. We went by taxicab because of the cast on his leg, and then by taxicab back to the hotel.”

Just as it seemed Kramer’s testimony might go a long way toward helping to prove some of Zsa Zsa’s claims, the case took yet another surprising turn.

Willard Kramer’s testimony that Conrad Hilton was never alone with Zsa Zsa Gabor substantially weakened his impact as a witness for Francesca. That said, there was an even bigger problem. In 1946, Easter Sunday fell on April 21. But Francesca was born on March 10, 1947, a full eleven months later. Therefore, one of the two witnesses—Kramer or Gabor—was mistaken (or lying) about the date Conrad Hilton was in New York wearing a cast.

To clarify things, Zsa Zsa needed to once again be interrogated at the Beverly Hills Hotel, this time on July 10, 1979. Questioned by both Robert D. Walker for Francesca and Myron Harpole for the estate, Zsa Zsa—more impatient and short-tempered than before—repeated her story of making love to Conrad while he was wearing a cast exactly as she had earlier told it.