The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty

by Taraborrelli, J. Randy

  Several credit card companies, including American Express and Diners Club, had begun to flourish in the late 1950s, though it wouldn’t be until the 1960s and ’70s before the general masses began to use them. In 1958, Conrad began to conceptualize the Carte Blanche credit card business. Barron was intrigued enough by the idea to accept his dad’s appointment as president of the company. This would be an opportunity to be a part of the Hilton empire while putting his own stamp on an important new endeavor—he could be his own man, even while working in his father’s domain. Of course, another key factor in his decision to join the ranks was that he wanted to make his father proud. “That was always a running theme with all the sons when it came to Conrad,” said one Hilton relative. “Making Connie proud. It killed them to think that Connie might not be proud of them. I actually think they would have turned on each other if it meant making Dad proud, that’s how important it was to them.”

  “Money has gone out of style,” Barron said at the time. “Credit and convenience are the biggest consumer needs today.”

  However, it was tough going for Barron in his new position. Likely because Carte Blanche was so ahead of its time, it would lose $2 million in the next six years, this even though it was considered to be a more prestigious card than American Express or Diners Club. It had a small base, because, as some argued, the qualifications for the card were so stringent. Soon the board would sack Barron as the company’s president, a big embarrassment to him. But then, as a board member, Barron was still in the position to make a successful sale of the company to Citibank for a profit of $16.5 million in 1965, and, as he would later put it, “all of a sudden I was a hero in the company again.” (Though Hilton would buy it back in 1979, the card would eventually be phased out in the 1980s.)

  Whether working with Carte Blanche or involved in other Hilton business pursuits, from 1958 onward, Barron Hilton would always have an important role in the family business. Eventually, in 1966, he would succeed his father as president of the domestic Hilton Hotels Corporation.

  “He was serious, not a funny or lighthearted person,” said one of Barron’s former employees. “When he walked into a room, it was the same feeling as when his father walked into a room. He commanded respect because of the way he handled himself. He was friendly, don’t misunderstand. But whereas you felt you could talk to Nicky, you didn’t feel that Barron was approachable. He was intimidating. When he was with his wife, it was even more off-putting because, together, they were like royalty. He was tall and good-looking and she was gorgeous and sophisticated, and they carried themselves with a kind of mystery. You felt the Hilton money and power when you were around them. They just looked and acted rich.”

  Nicky’s Fast-Paced Life

  For several years and until the present time, I have clung tenaciously to the hope that my son, Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Jr., would settle down and go to work with the serious purpose of making his own way through life, acquire a gainful occupation and become a useful citizen of this country,” Conrad Hilton wrote in his will of 1955. The will then stipulated that Nicky be given a $500,000 trust fund in the event of Conrad’s death—but with one proviso: “It is not my intention that the provisions made for him in my will be used in a wasteful or extravagant mode of living, but it is my purpose and my profound wish that my said son so conduct himself and order his life that he may, if he chooses, enjoy to the fullest extent the provisions I had made for him in my will. Therefore, I hereby commit to my trustees absolute discretion to and full power over the accumulation and application of all income and principal of the Trust Estate created in my will for Conrad Nicholson Hilton, Jr.” In other words, if Nicky did not live up to his father’s expectations, the trustees of his estate could choose to withhold his trust—or perhaps not even allow him to have it at all. Even in death, Conrad would have the final word over whether or not Nicky had lived up to his fullest potential.

  In 1956, Nicky was named vice president in charge of the Inns Division of the Hilton Corporation, responsible for the management of three airport-adjacent Hilton-owned hotels, in San Francisco, New Orleans, and El Paso.

  Always the visionary with an eye toward expanding his vast empire, Conrad had the foresight to realize that as more people began to travel by air, there would grow to be a huge need for quick, sometimes just overnight accommodations. He began to invest heavily in a chain of establishments near airports that many would have considered modestly priced motels rather than superior hotels. However, Conrad loathed the word “motel,” because it suggested low-quality accommodations—thus his usage of the word “inn.” Starting with the San Francisco Airport Hilton, the venture would be wildly successful. That these properties weren’t of the same ilk as the glorious Hilton hotels found around the world didn’t make them any less important to the Hilton Corporation’s bottom line.

  Because he was so honored that his father had finally seen the best in him and offered him the Inns position, Nicky took the job seriously. “I think it did him a world of good in terms of his self-esteem,” said Wyatt Montgomery, who worked as an assistant to Nicky in the Los Angeles Inns Division office. “I found him to be efficient, Hilton-like in his demeanor, professional,” recalled Montgomery. “But he did drink too much, there was little doubt about that. He tried to make sure it didn’t interfere with his job, but I have to say that there were more than a few days there when he dragged himself in to work.

  “When Conrad went to Monaco to personally represent President Eisenhower at the wedding of Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier, Nicky took advantage of the time his father was gone to lay back and not do much,” added Montgomery. “He was single, he was young and handsome, his dad was golfing buddies with the president of the United States… I think he just felt entitled.”

  Actress Carole Wells Doheny became a close friend of Nicky’s and recalled the first time she met him. “It was at La Rue’s restaurant in Beverly Hills,” she said, “and present were Bob Neal, the actor Peter Lawford, and hotelier Henry Crown, who had backed Conrad in his early ventures and was a key player in Conrad’s success. Nicky was smart, handsome, and I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, what a great catch.’ He had a zest for life. I knew he had a reputation as a heartbreaker and when I met him I thought, ‘Okay, I get it. I definitely get it.’ I had also heard that his family—worried about the image of the Hilton hotels—was keeping a close eye on him.”

  Wyatt Montgomery recalled a day in January 1957 when Marilyn Hilton came to visit Nicky in his Los Angeles office without an appointment, explaining that she happened to be shopping for hats in the neighborhood and thought it might be fun to take Nicky to lunch. To some employees, it was starting to seem as if family members were checking in on Nicky. When Wyatt told Marilyn that perhaps she should have called first, she looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Do you know who I am?” she demanded. “Of course I knew who she was—everyone knew who she was,” Wyatt recalled many years later. Marilyn didn’t look up as she tugged on her gloves. “I’ll wait here while you fetch my brother-in-law,” she said with practiced imperiousness. She then took a seat in the small waiting area as Montgomery went down the hall to Nicky’s office.

  Wyatt knocked on Nicky’s door. There was no answer. However, since he knew Nicky was in there, he went to his desk and called his boss’s extension. After several rings, Nicky finally picked up the line sounding out of breath and anxious. “Mrs. Barron Hilton is here to see you,” Wyatt told him. Nicky was flabbergasted. “Oh no! What is she doing here?” he wanted to know.

  A minute later, the door to Nicky’s office burst open and out stumbled a disheveled woman in a fur coat furiously patting down a mussed hairdo with well-manicured hands. “I took a good look at her and, much to my astonishment, it was Natalie Wood,” said Wyatt Montgomery. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.” Natalie had been a star since her childhood appearance in Miracle on 34th Street and had reached iconic status with her role in Rebel Without a Cause opposite James Dean. By 1957, the
nineteen-year-old doe-eyed, dark-haired beauty was instantly recognizable. “I didn’t even know he was dating her!” Montgomery continued. Without saying a word, Natalie rushed by Marilyn, who sat with her mouth wide open. Once she was gone, Marilyn looked at Wyatt Montgomery and asked, “Wasn’t that Natalie Wood?” He shrugged and said, “Sure looked like her to me.”

  In fact, Nicky—ever the eligible bachelor at the age of thirty-two—was seeing both Natalie Wood and Joan Collins at this time.

  Joan Collins had been imported to Hollywood from the United Kingdom in 1954, as 20th Century-Fox’s answer to Elizabeth Taylor. She was immediately put to work in films like The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing and The Opposite Sex, and critics were always quick to point out her arresting good looks. Joan did bear a striking resemblance to Nicky’s former wife, and for decades she would be described as “the poor man’s Elizabeth Taylor”—much to her chagrin. In reality Joan was very much her own person—a striking, fiery, startlingly confident young woman. Years before the sexual revolution, she was known as much for her sexuality as for her beauty and biting wit.

  With Joan, Nicky found a kindred spirit who also enjoyed fast ’50s sports cars with fins, lots of flowing champagne, and intense nightclubbing, followed by heated sexual marathons. When Joan would call the office and demand to see him, Nicky would pretty much drop everything and run to be with her. “She’s a hell of a lot of work,” Nicky told Wyatt Montgomery, “but she’s worth it.”

  In May 1957, Nicky asked Wyatt to send Joan Collins flowers for her twenty-fourth birthday. Wyatt chose an elaborate floral arrangement and signed Nicky’s name to the card. Nicky then sat by the telephone all day, waiting for the payoff: a thank-you call from Joan, and perhaps an invitation to go to her home to help celebrate. Every half hour, he would bolt out of his office and pepper his assistant with questions such as, “Did she call?” and “What did you send?” and “Were they nice flowers?” and “Then why hasn’t she called?” Joan never did call Nicky. Finally, at the end of the workday, Nicky had Wyatt place a call to her. “She came on the line and immediately started bitching him out for not having called her first thing on her birthday,” Wyatt Montgomery recalled. “ ‘But, Joan, I sent flowers,’ he exclaimed. And just before I disconnected from the line I heard her say, ‘Nicholas, do you know how many people send me flowers? It’s not as if I have time to read all the cards. I’m a busy woman!’ After he hung up, he came out of his office smiling and shaking his head. ‘What a bitch,’ he said, laughing. ‘That woman takes the cake!’ He loved it, though. He found her amusing.

  “She came into the office one day, I’ll never forget it. I was at my desk working and Joan Collins swooped right by me without saying a word, looked at me with a superior expression, walked into Nicky’s office, and slammed the door behind her. An hour later, she emerged, head held high, shoulders back, big bosom popping out of her tight black corseted dress. Again, she walked right by me without saying a word. But as she sashayed down the hall, she must have sensed that I was staring at her caboose because, without turning around, she said in her clipped British accent, ‘Enjoy the view. Pity it won’t last forever.’ ”

  It says a lot about Nicky’s appeal that even his first wife, Elizabeth Taylor, who would later claim that he had been physically abusive to her during their marriage, still included him in her life. The two would sometimes meet at the home of Dr. Lee Siegel and his wife, Noreen Nash, especially in the period after her marriage to Michael Wilding, before and during her marriage to Mike Todd and just before the one to Eddie Fisher, which would have been 1957 through 1959. “They would come to the house and sit at the bar, and just be so darling together,” recalled Noreen Nash. “I felt a chemistry between them still. I think it would be safe to say there were no hard feelings there, even though the marriage obviously didn’t work. There was a connection between them neither could deny. If you knew Nicky, you knew there was something so intriguing about him that just kept drawing you in.”

  It was his relationship with his mother, Mary, though, that meant the world to Nicky. “I love all my sons,” Mary told Nicky at a party for one of her grandchildren. “But you and I, we’re not like the others,” she told him. “We have our little flaws, don’t we? And I guess that separates us from the rest, doesn’t it?”

  According to a witness to the conversation, Nicky looked at his mother as if he didn’t know quite how to respond to her astute observation. They didn’t have these kinds of open conversations often. It was as if the occasion of her grandson’s birthday had made Mary feel nostalgic, and maybe even a little wistful. She’d had such a hard life; Nicky’s heart went out to her. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but words failed him.

  Eric: From Out of the Shadows

  It was August 14, 1958, the final day of a week of festivities celebrating Conrad Hilton’s latest acquisition, the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, which had just opened its doors for business. The lobby bustled with people, some checking in to the hotel and others just meandering about with their heads tilted back as they stared at the eye-popping surroundings. In the background could be heard the sound of a full orchestra rehearsing Johnny Mathis’s popular song “Chances Are,” the music drifting out of a nearby banquet room. A young couple dressed in formal attire seemed unable to resist the dreamy melody. They quite literally fell into each other’s arms and began to dance in perfect unison. Enraptured by one another in the moment and oblivious to the stares of onlookers, they swayed together with a delicate but tangible sensuality. It was a spontaneous moment so surreal and so beautiful, onlookers forgot themselves and gawked openly at the sheer magic of it. If anything, this was just the kind of romantic scene Conrad Hilton always wanted to represent his hotels. The strains of pretty music, the flatter of good lighting, the elegance of expert décor, all of it intrinsic to projecting the feeling that staying at a Hilton hotel was a unique and enchanting experience, one with which no other hotel could possibly begin to compete.

  As the scene unfolded, a dashing, robust young man in a crisp white tuxedo and black bow tie stood nearby and spoke in an animated fashion to a small group of people, all of whom seemed enthralled by everything going on around them. Waving his hand in one direction, then another, he said, “As you can see, my father has spared no expense to distinguish this Hilton from the others. We have thirty-three hotels in twenty-seven cities around the world,” he continued proudly. “But you might say that this one is the crown jewel of all Hilton hotels. After all, this one is right here in Los Angeles, the show business capital of the world. You’ll probably see a few celebrities walking around here and there,” he said with a grin. He spoke with confidence and authority. “If so, feel free to ask for their autograph or even a picture. Just tell them my dad, Conrad Hilton, sent you.” Everyone around him nodded and grinned with satisfaction. He was so charming and articulate, it’s likely that none of them could have imagined a better spokesman for the Hilton brand. Then, with supreme timing, an announcement came bellowing over the hotel’s intercom system. “Elizabeth Taylor calling for Eric Hilton,” said the female voice. A mild shock wave was transmitted through the crowd. Then, a few seconds later, again: “Elizabeth Taylor calling for Eric Hilton.”

  The man in the tux smiled at the contingent with whom he was talking and said, “Oh, that’s me. I have to take that call. Would you excuse me, please?” The bewildered crowd began chatting excitedly to each other. “Is that operator sure she has the right Hilton?” one asked as Eric Hilton rushed off to take the call. “That’s odd, isn’t it?” noted another. “No, not really,” remarked a third person, this one a well-dressed brunette with a pearl necklace around her neck and matching earrings. “Just another day in the life of my husband,” concluded Patricia Skipworth Hilton as she ran after her spouse.

  While it may have seemed strange to most outsiders that Elizabeth Taylor would maintain any sort of relationship with Eric Hilton, it wasn’t that unusual to those in the Hilt
ons’ inner circle, especially given that Elizabeth had never stopped communicating with Eric’s brother Nicky. “Eric was like Nicky. He was the kind of man who, once you met him, you wanted to continue knowing,” said his first wife, Patricia—better known as Pat. She explained that after Nicky gave Eric the responsibility of “babysitting” Elizabeth seven years earlier when he first brought her to El Paso, Eric and Elizabeth became fast friends. They decided not to allow her high-profile divorce from Nicky to interfere with that friendship. In years to come, Elizabeth would become legendary for remaining loyal to the people she liked; once you became her friend, you remained her friend for life. “They would see each other whenever Eric was in Los Angeles,” said Pat Hilton. “Elizabeth also called the house [in Texas] quite often. She thought Eric was a riot. They had the same sense of humor. Eric thought she was fun, a lot of laughs. I never met her, though, not once,” Pat allowed. “She was a friend of Eric’s that predated me, not really a friend of mine. I can’t tell you how many people I met over the years who would tell me, ‘Oh, your husband, Eric, is my closest friend,’ and this would be someone I had never heard of in my life! But that was just Eric.”

  There had always been an air of mystery surrounding Eric Michael Hilton, the youngest son of Conrad and Mary Hilton. It was as if he were deliberately being kept in the shadows.

  At about this same time, Conrad named Eric—who was twenty-five in 1958—resident manager of the Shamrock Hilton in Houston. Conrad had picked up the Shamrock four years earlier, a lavish hotel with televisions in every one of its eleven hundred rooms, air-conditioning, Muzak piped into the hallways, and a 165-foot glistening swimming pool. Managing the place was a mammoth undertaking for someone of Eric’s age, but Conrad said that he felt the time had come to slowly ease his youngest son into the family business. (Actually, Nicky had also cut his teeth at the same hotel, as vice president of the Shamrock for a short period of time.) Since the death of Eric’s stepfather, Mack—Mary Hilton Saxon’s second husband—back in May 1949, Conrad seemed to have more of an interest in forging a closer relationship with Eric and his family. In a short time—1960—Eric would receive an even bigger assignment as general manager of the Hilton Hotel in Aurora, Illinois.