The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (46 page)

Though Marilyn was upset with Elizabeth for her treatment of the Hiltons’ domestic staff, she didn’t hold it against the young starlet. In fact, she had a great deal of empathy for her where her marriage was concerned. The two sisters-in-law had many heartfelt conversations about Nicky, and Marilyn—who was only twenty-two herself, four years older than Elizabeth—was always there for Elizabeth with a ready handkerchief to wipe away her tears.

Now, all of these many years later, Elizabeth said she was sorry for the petulant and spoiled way she had acted as a guest in Marilyn’s home. She also regretted dragging Marilyn’s name into the press. She explained that she had been “a silly young girl,” and now realized she’d had no right to be such an ungrateful guest. “I have always remembered how kind you were to me back then,” she said, “and now I would like to help you in any way I can.” For her part, Marilyn said that Elizabeth had already more than returned the favor when in 1950 she hosted a lovely baby shower for her when she was pregnant with her second son, Steven. Indeed, the two women did have some rather warm history between them.

“I just don’t want to hang on to any anger where Nicky is concerned,” Elizabeth said, all of this according to a close friend of Marilyn Hilton’s who was privy to these communications with Elizabeth. “I don’t think it’s good. Maybe one of the reasons Nicky is in so such trouble,” she opined, “is because he is holding on to unhappiness from his own past.” Given what had happened with Nicky’s international division, Marilyn couldn’t very well disagree. Elizabeth further said that she wasn’t sure it would even be possible to obtain an annulment. She wasn’t familiar enough with Catholic Church doctrine, she admitted, to know one way or the other.

It would not be easy and there wasn’t much time in which to do it, but Marilyn knew that her influential family had not only the power but the money to make things happen. “You just let me and Barron take care of all of the pesky details,” Marilyn told Elizabeth. “As long as you will agree to sign the papers when they show up, we will handle everything else.”

Elizabeth agreed.

A Grasp at Happiness

Y
ou’ll never believe what has happened,” Nicky Hilton was telling Trish. It was the first week of January 1969 and the two were sitting together in the middle of the small Coldwater Canyon Park in Beverly Hills. There were just two small picnic areas with a couple of tables under a shaded arbor. Trish had packed a small lunch for them—two chicken salad sandwiches, some fruit, and a couple of small cartons of milk. They sat facing each other at one of the picnic tables.

By this time, Trish Hilton had decided on a last-ditch, tough-love approach to Nicky’s problems: She had filed for divorce and asked him to move out of the house. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she would explain in subsequent years. “I had a consultation with Dr. Judd Marmor. He said, ‘Trish, you’re going to lose this man. I would give you nine-out-of-ten odds that if he doesn’t get help, he’s going to die.’ He thought that if I made him leave and told him he could not come back until he went into a treatment facility, he would finally realize how much was at stake, and he would straighten himself out. I was twenty-eight. I listened to what I was told. I told Nicky, ‘I love you enough to know that I can’t help you. You need treatment.’ I regretted it, though. Suffice it to say, this was a mixed-up time for all of us Hiltons.”

But certainly not for anyone more than for Nicky as he moved into a small split-level home off of Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills. To keep an eye on him, Trish sent with him their cook, an African American woman named Mary whom Nicky liked very much. Trish also vowed to visit him every day, and on this winter day in the park he seemed genuinely happy. He had asked Trish to meet him so that he could give her some good news.

“What’s going on?” Trish asked. “What’s happened?”

“It’s Elizabeth,” he said, beaming. “She has given me an annulment. Finally, after all of these years!”

Trish was stunned. “But… but… how?” she managed to say.

The annulment had not been finalized. How could it have? It had only been a short time since Marilyn obtained Elizabeth’s permission to proceed. What likely happened is that Marilyn told Nicky about the
possibility
of an annulment and he had misunderstood and thought that the process was completed, when actually it had just begun. It didn’t matter, though. The result was the same: Nicky seemed to have a brand-new lease on life. “Marilyn is a saint,” he told his wife. “She’s an absolute
saint
to have done this for us!” he exclaimed.

“I’ll bet Barron had something to do with it, too,” Trish offered.

Nicky stopped and mulled that possibility over for a moment. “Do you think?” he asked, his dark eyes wide with astonishment. “Do you think Barron would do this for me?” The anxious expression on his face suggested that he truly wanted to believe it.

“Of course he would,” Trish said. “He loves you so much, Nicky.” Moreover, she said that Elizabeth and Marilyn would have needed some assistance with something as complex as an annulment. “They would need Barron,” she said.

It had been Nicky’s nurse, a man named Elliot Mitchell, who had most recently tried to convince Nicky to do whatever he could to make amends with, at the very least, Barron, if not also Conrad. Then, in an effort to smooth things out, the nurse took a meeting with Barron at the Hilton Hotels corporate office in Los Angeles. He told Barron that he believed Nicky didn’t have long to live. Barron then contacted Nicky by telephone, and the two had an emotional, heart-to-heart conversation. Later that day, when Elliot Mitchell returned to Nicky’s side, he found him crying in bed.

Now, just a short time later, it seemed that Barron had helped his wife, Marilyn, do something for Nicky that was, in Nicky’s view, quite monumental. Nicky was so incredulous, he couldn’t stop shaking his head in disbelief. “Marilyn did tell me something about a big contribution to the Catholic Church,” he said, trying to put the pieces together in his head. He and Trish looked at each other in amazement and then, laughing, said in unison, “
Barron!
”

Though Trish was happy about the news, she didn’t quite understand how an annulment held any relevance for them. After all, they’d been married for ten years. Nicky explained, though, that an annulment would mean the two of them could finally marry in the church. “This is
huge
for us, Trish,” he said, beaming. “It’s a new start for us.”

Though Trish wasn’t convinced that it was as easy as Nicky seemed to believe, it was difficult for her to resist getting caught up in the moment. As her husband went on about their exciting future together, he began to remind her of someone she once knew. Who was it, though? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Just whom did he call to mind? It was driving her mad. Then it hit her, and when it did it was such a surprise, she felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck and goose bumps on her arms. He reminded her of…
Nicky Hilton
—the Nicky Hilton of days gone by, the one she hadn’t seen in years, the one with whom she had fallen in love. It was as if news of the annulment had brought him back to himself and he was suddenly the man he’d once been—full of life and excited about the future. “Maybe we can have that happy ending we deserve,” Nicky told his wife, holding her hands and gazing lovingly into her eyes.

“Do you think?” Trish asked hopefully. “Do you really think so?”

He nodded. “I do,” he said with a loving smile. “Just wait and see.”

It wasn’t meant to be, though. Within just a month, Nicky Hilton would be gone from Trish forever.

The Death of Nicky Hilton

T
he funeral took place at St. Paul’s Church in Los Angeles on Saturday, February 8, 1969.
Time
, in its obituary, called Conrad Hilton Jr.—Nicky—“a director of his father’s 41-national hotel chain and inveterate playboy.” Of course, much was made of his infamous marriage to Elizabeth Taylor. There was also a passing reference to the fact that “he later remarried, only once,” but there was no mention at all of Trish McClintock Hilton’s name. Maybe it wasn’t surprising. After all, throughout their ten difficult years of marriage, Trish had always felt alone and unrecognized in her battle to save Nicky Hilton from himself. He was just forty-two when the battle was lost.

The night before the service, a rosary was said for Nicky at St. Paul’s. Trish had requested that the casket be open because she had heard a rumor that Nicky had shot himself in the head. It wasn’t true, and she wanted there to be no doubt about it. As mourners milled about in the small chamber in which the rosary was to be said over the casket, Barron and Eric walked with Conrad—one on each side, holding him gently by his elbows—up to Nicky’s dead body.

Finally, Nicky looked at peace, young and rested. In repose, his face had a sweet innocence to it. He was handsome in a black suit with a white silk tie. As the three Hiltons stood next to the brass casket, Conrad bent over and kissed his son lightly on the forehead. He then lingered over the body for a few moments, his body heaving up and down, overcome with emotion.

“Come on, Dad,” Barron was overheard telling him. “Nicky’s okay now. Let’s go sit down.” Conrad shook his head no. He said he wanted to stay next to the casket as others came up to pay their final respects. Always the great host, he said that Nicky would want him to be there to greet the mourners. It was perhaps the last thing he felt he could do for his son. With his death, he wanted to stand near him, be his voice. However, his remaining sons didn’t think it was a good idea. He simply wasn’t strong enough. They gently led their shaky father away. “It’s okay, Dad,” Eric said. “Let’s just sit down. It’s okay.”

After everyone left the church, Trish knew she would be seeing Nicky for the last time. She couldn’t bear to say her goodbyes alone and called upon her friend Carole Wells Doheny to stand nearby for moral support. Filled with complex emotions, Trish spent an hour with Nicky’s body. As she stared down at him, events from his turbulent life played out in her mind. She couldn’t get over the fact that Elizabeth Taylor had called both Eric and Barron to extend her condolences. After all she had been through with Nicky, there was still something that bonded Elizabeth to him all these many years after their troubled marriage. Obviously, Trish could relate. Nicky looked so restful and natural lying in the casket, Trish couldn’t believe he was gone. “Oh my God, Carole,” she gasped, turning to her friend. “He’s really dead. It’s true. It’s true!”

The next morning, sitting in the front pew of St. Paul’s with Trish for the requiem mass were Nicky’s young sons, nine-year-old Conrad III—also called Nicky—and seven-year-old Michael. Also seated in the front row were his grieving friends Stewart Armstrong, Bob Neal, John Carroll, and Robert Wentworth. In the second row were Nicky’s father, Conrad, his brothers, Barron and Eric, and their wives, Marilyn and Pat.

After the service, Conrad wandered around the church, seeming alone and lost. While everyone was making plans to go to Holy Cross Cemetery, where Nicky would be laid to rest in the family plot near his beloved mother, Mary, the millionaire tycoon had somehow wandered off. Ironically, there seemed to be no plan in mind for a man so well-known for orchestrating the most complex hotel openings around the world. “Do you think there’s a car for me?” Conrad finally asked a police officer.

“Should there be, sir?” the office asked him.

“I would think so,” Conrad said hoarsely. “You see, I’m the father of the deceased.”

Witnessing the scene as it unfolded, Nicky’s old friend Robert Wentworth walked over to Conrad to help. “This gentleman is Mr. Conrad Hilton,” he told the police officer, “owner of the Hilton Hotels Corporation and father of Nicky.” The officer raised his eyebrows, nodded, and then went to find out which car would be carrying Conrad to the cemetery. While he was gone, Robert Wentworth took Conrad by the elbow and moved him to a nearby chair, where he had him sit.

“He was in a bit of a daze,” Robert recalled of Conrad. “He asked me if I had any children. I told him I had two sons, age ten and twelve. He looked at me with a weary expression and said, ‘Enjoy their youth. Those are the most precious years. I have to say, I enjoyed Nicky’s youth,’ he continued. ‘I so loved watching him grow up.’ At that point, the officer reappeared to say that Conrad would be riding in a car with Barron and Marilyn. His instructions were to take him to them. Conrad stood up, turned to me, and extended his hand to shake mine. He thanked me for being a good friend to his son for so many years. ‘You know, I was always a little jealous of you fellows,’ he told me. ‘You had so much fun, didn’t you?’ he said. My heart went out to him as the officer led him away and helped him into a black Caddy.”

It had been a massive heart attack that finally claimed Nicky Hilton’s life on the morning of Wednesday, February 5. Weeks later, Barron and his sister-in-law Pat would dine together in Los Angeles and have a serious conversation about Nicky’s passing. Pat knew she had great latitude with Barron; she could be candid with him. “You know, the thing that hurt him so much was that he felt you took his company away from him,” she told Barron. “You took the international division away from him,” she said. “Why did you do that, Barron?”

“But I had nothing to do with that, Pat,” Barron said in his defense. He elaborated that it had been a board decision, not one he had made unilaterally. He insisted that Nicky understood as much.