The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (82 page)

Legal documents referenced: “Codicil to Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (April 1, 1947); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad Nicholson Hilton” (June 3, 1955); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad Nicholson Hilton” (October 21, 1960); miscellaneous file notes from
Zsa Gabor Plaintiff vs. Fawcett Publications, Inc.
(November 1960); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad Nicholson Hilton” (January 27, 1967); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (October 31, 1973); “Contestant Constance Francesca Hilton’s Responses to Defendants William Barron Hilton and James E. Bates Interrogatories” (July 20, 1979); “Deposition of Zsa Zsa Gabor O’Hara” (June 14, 1979; July 9, 1979; July 10, 1979); “Deposition of William Barron Hilton” (September 24, 1979).

Note: The conversation between Zsa Zsa Gabor and Gregson Bautzer was reconstructed using the exact quotes provided by Zsa Zsa in her deposition of June 14, 1979. “That’s when I first heard, ever, about this idiotic remark,” she further testified, referring to Bautzer’s telling her that Conrad sometimes questioned his paternity of Francesca. She added that after Bautzer told her of Conrad’s doubts, she decided not to discuss it with Conrad. She testified that she never talked to
anyone
about it, “because, to me, it seemed so ridiculous.”

Natalie Wood’s Advice/Trish/“The Woman to Give My Children Life”/Nicky and Trish Marry

Interviews conducted: Bob Neal (March 1, 1998); Carole Wells Doheny (March 8, 2012; March 12, 2012; June 15, 2012); Patricia McClintock Hilton (April 2, 2012; April 8, 2012; April 16, 2012; April 20, 2012); Noreen Nash Siegel (April 2, 2012; April 3, 2012; April 10, 2012); Robert Wentworth (June 11, 2012).

Volumes referenced:
Natasha: Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour
by Marti Rylli and Dennis Davern;
Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood
by Suzanne Finstad;
Natalie Wood
by Gavin Lambert;
Natasha: A Memoir by Her Sister
by Lana Wood;
Natalie Wood: A Biography in Photographs
by Christopher Nickens;
Pieces of My Heart: A Life
by Robert Wagner;
The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson
by Robert Hofler;
Past Imperfect
by Joan Collins.

Articles referenced: “Press Release from Arthur Foristall & Co.—Hilton Hotels,” November 30, 1956; Louella Parsons, “Cupid to Merge Oil, Hotel Fortunes,” Hedda Hopper Papers, October 28, 1958; Elaine St. Johns, “A Day in the Life of a Credit Card,”
Chicago Tribune Magazine
, May 25, 1958.

Note: All conversations between Trish Hilton and Natalie Wood and Patricia McClintock Hilton and Nicky Hilton were reconstructed from Trish Hilton’s first-person accounts.

PART EIGHT. FOR LOVE OR MONEY

Zsa Zsa Is Not Wanted/“The Most Beautiful Woman”/Zsa Zsa Teaches Trish About the Hiltons

Interviews conducted: Bob Neal (June 1, 2005; August 4, 2005); Jason Lederer (October 1, 2011); Timothy Long (October 4, 2011); Doris Roberts (January 4, 2012); Ed Lozzi (March 2, 2012); Patricia McClintock Hilton (April 2, 2012); Noreen Nash Siegel (April 3, 2012); Carole Wells Doheny (June 15, 2012); Steven D’Orio (September 4, 2012).

Volumes referenced:
Jolie Gabor
by Cindy Adams;
One Lifetime Is Not Enough
by Zsa Zsa Gabor;
Zsa Zsa Gabor: My Story
by Zsa Zsa Gabor and Gerold Frank;
A Dreadful Man: A Personal, Intimate Book About George Sanders
by Brian Aherne.

Articles referenced: Joan Winchell, “Hilton Trinidad Opening,” Hedda Hopper Collection, June 27, 1962; Leslie Bennetts, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Zsa Zsa World,”
Vanity Fair
, September 2007.

Legal documents referenced: Miscellaneous file notes from:
Zsa Gabor Plaintiff vs. Fawcett Publications, Inc.
(November 1960); “Deposition of Zsa Zsa Gabor O’Hara,” (June 14, 1979; July 9, 1979; July 10, 1979); “Contestant Constance Francesca Hilton’s Responses to Defendants William Barron Hilton and James E. Bates Interrogatories” (July 20, 1979); “Deposition of William Barron Hilton” (September 24, 1979); “Deposition of Constance Francesca Hilton” (September 12, 1979; September 13, 1979; September 14, 1979).

NOTES

The dialogue in “Zsa Zsa Is Not Wanted” is taken directly from Zsa Zsa Gabor’s deposition from: miscellaneous file notes from
Zsa Gabor Plaintiff vs. Fawcett Publications, Inc.
(November 1960). I also used as background Zsa Zsa Gabor’s interviews with Bart Andrews in the summer of 1985 for a proposed autobiography by Andrews and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

All of the dialogue between Patricia McClintock Hilton and Zsa Zsa Gabor and Patricia McClintock Hilton and Nicky Hilton in “Zsa Zsa Teaches Trish About the Hiltons” was drawn directly from the first-person account of Trish Hilton.

Success/Sibling Rivalry on the Rise

Interviews conducted: Bob Neal (May 4, 2005; June 1, 2005; August 4, 2005); Thomas Worthington (September 12, 2011); Everett Long (December 14, 2011; January 15, 2012; March 3, 2012); Carole Wells Doheny (March 8, 2012); Noreen Nash Siegel (April 10, 2012); Terry Moore (April 11, 2012); Robert Wentworth (June 11, 2012; June 12, 2012; June 13, 2012).

Volumes referenced:
Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture
by Annabel Jane Wharton;
The Hiltons
by Jess Oppenheimer;
Hilton Hotels Corporation: A Strategic Analysis
by Bethany Su-Lan Liou.

Articles referenced: “Hilton: The Stuff of a Hotel Man,”
Newsweek
cover story on Conrad Hilton, September 27, 1954; “Hilton Takes New Job,” Associated Press, January 3, 1961; “Hotels: By Golly!,”
Time
cover story on Conrad Hilton, July 19, 1963; Christopher P. Anderson, “The Barron of Las Vegas Is a Buttoned-Down Hilton,”
People
, September 8, 1975; Peter Lester, “When This Hotel Barron Says He’s Staying at the Hilton, That Means He’ll Be at Home,”
People
September 28, 1981; Daniel R. Lee, “How They Started: The Growth of Four Hotel Giants,”
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly
, May 1985; Thomas Moore, “Barron Hilton Fights for Hilton Hotels”
Fortune
May 27, 1985; “Honeymoon Hotelier: Hilton’s Stock Quickly Doubled,”
Financial World
, January 21, 1997; Melanie F. Gibbs, “Hilton Hotels Corp: The Sleeping Giant Awakes,”
National Real Estate Investor
, February 1997; Christina Binkley, “Hilton Shareholders Approve the Spinoff of Gambling Unit,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 25, 1998; Christina Brinkley, “Hilton Agrees to Pay $4 Billion for Promus,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 8, 1999; Bill Dwyre, “Barron Hilton’s Chargers Turned Short Stay into Long-Term Success,”
Los Angeles Times
, November 30, 2009.

Speeches referenced: “The Graduation Address,” University of Detroit, June 9, 1953; “City of Hope Award” address, Los Angeles, October 4, 1953.

Legal documents referenced: “Codicil to Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (April 1, 1947); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (1955); “Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (October 31, 1973).

Television programs referenced:
What’s My Line?
, Conrad Hilton, June 5, 1955;
Person to Person
, interview with Conrad Hilton, 1955;
The Ed Sullivan Show
, Conrad Hilton, April 6, 1958;
Conrad Hilton: Innkeeper to the World
, Arts & Entertainment, 2005;
Larry King Live: Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Dazzling Life
, November 26, 1991;
Biography: Conrad Hilton
, CNBC, 2010.

Francesca’s Summer of Discontent/Olive’s Appeal to Zsa Zsa/“Zsa Zsa Who?”

Volumes referenced:
The Man Who Bought the Waldorf
by Thomas Ewing Dabney;
Conrad N. Hilton, Hotelier
by Mildred Houghton Comfort;
Jolie Gabor
by Cindy Adams;
Zsa Zsa Gabor: My Story
by Zsa Zsa Gabor and Gerold Frank.

Articles referenced: Lloyd Shearer, “He’s Americanizing the World,”
Parade
, July 21, 1963; Dora Jane Hamblin, “In 19 Lands, Instant America: His Hotels Keep Conrad Hilton Hopping,”
Life,
August 30, 1963.

Legal documents referenced: “Deposition of Zsa Zsa Gabor O’Hara,” (June 14, 1979; July 9, 1979; July 10, 1979); “Contestant Constance Francesca Hilton’s Responses to Defendants William Barron Hilton and James E. Bates Interrogatories” (July 20, 1979); “Deposition of Olive Wakeman” (September 12, 1979); “Deposition of Constance Francesca Hilton” (September 12, 1979; September 13, 1979; September 14, 1979); “Deposition of Frances Kelly Hilton” (October 19, 1979); “Declaration of Constance Francesca Hilton” (March 24, 1980).

NOTES

The letter from Conrad N. Hilton to Francesca Hilton (signed “Daddy” and undated), as well as the letters from Hilton to Francesca Hilton (April 30, 1966); from Olive Wakeman to Zsa Zsa Gabor (May 5, 1966); and from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Olive Wakeman (no date) were exhibits presented during discovery in the case
Francesca Hilton v. The Estate of Conrad N. Hilton
.

The conversation between Zsa Zsa Gabor and Olive Wakeman was reconstructed using both Gabor’s and Wakeman’s depositions.

The depositions of Olive Wakeman (September 12, 1979) and Frances Kelly Hilton (October 19, 1979) are both incomplete, with some pages having gone missing over the years. For my purposes, I utilized the pages that were available to me.

“He’s Americanizing the World,” by Lloyd Shearer, was a nationally syndicated article in the
Parade
magazine supplement of many newspapers across America on July 21, 1963. In this thorough profile of (and interview with) Conrad, no mention was made of his daughter, Francesca. “He has three sons by his first marriage,” was all the writer had to say about Hilton’s children. This lapse mirrors Conrad’s autobiography,
Be My Guest
, which also doesn’t mention the existence of Francesca, even though it was published in 1957 when Francesca was about ten.

I also referenced “Conrad Hilton Speech—Houston Texas, Groundbreaking for the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management,” October 28, 1969.

The Simple Life/“It’s Going to Be Okay, Brother”

Interviews conducted: Patricia McClintock Hilton (April 2, 2012; April 8, 2012; April 16, 2012; April 20, 2012)

Volumes referenced:
Be My Guest
by Conrad Hilton;
The Silver Spade: The Conrad Hilton Story
by Whitney Bolton;
Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture
by Annabel Jane Wharton.

Legal documents referenced: “Last Will and Testament of Conrad N. Hilton” (October 31, 1973)

All of the dialogue between Patricia McClintock Hilton and Mary Hilton in “The Simple Life,” and later between Trish Hilton and her family members, was drawn from the first-person account of Trish Hilton.

PART NINE. IN HIS FATHER’S HOUSE

Nicky Causing Problems/The TWA Merger/“Tired of Being Misunderstood”/Nothing Personal/Showdown/A Done Deal

Interviews conducted: Bob Neal (March 1, 1998; May 4, 2005; June 1, 2005; August 4, 2005); Patricia Skipworth Hilton (February 27, 2012; February 28, 2012; April 5, 2012); Patricia McClintock Hilton (April 2, 2012); Noreen Nash Siegel (April 10, 2012); Carole Wells Doheny (June 15, 2012); Myron Harpole (August 15, 2012; August 17, 2012; August 20, 2012).

Volumes referenced:
House of Hilton
by Jerry Oppenheimer;
The Man Who Bought the Waldorf
by Thomas Ewing Dabney;
Conrad N. Hilton, Hotelier
by Mildred Houghton Comfort;
Hilton Hotels Corporation: A Strategic Analysis
by Bethany Su-Lan Liou.

Articles referenced: Frank Lee Donoghue, “Hilton to Open Huge Hotel in New York,”
Herald-Examiner
, June 25, 1963; Frank Lee Donoghue, “Boom of Cannon Opens Hilton Hotel,”
Herald-Examiner
, June 26, 1963; Harrison Carroll, “Nicky, Trish Hilton Marriage on the Rocks,” August 6, 1963, Hedda Hopper Papers; Suzy, “Happy Birthday Dear Connie,”
Town & Country
, December 1963; Daryl E. Lembke, “Hilton Opens S.F. Hotel, Vows to Keep Building,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 22, 1964; Daniel R. Lee, “How They Started: The Growth of Four Hotel Giants,”
Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly
, May 1985; “Personal Account: A Hotel Man Remembers,”
New York Times
, December 2, 1990.