The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (58 page)

At the time her father died, Francesca Hilton was thirty-one. She was a strong-willed, outspoken woman, like her mother, and in many ways like the man she had always looked to as a father figure. She’d spent most of her life seeking acceptance from Conrad and the other Hiltons, and it could be argued she never really got it. Now she decided that her only course of action was to contest the will, one of the points her mother made clear in a meeting with one of Hilton’s attorneys, her good friend Gregson Bautzer, shortly after the reading of the will.

“Now do you see?” Zsa Zsa asked Gregson as the two spoke of recent events. She was very upset, holding the thick last will and testament in her hand and repeatedly smacking it on the lawyer’s desk as she spoke. “For years, everyone has been saying, ‘Oh, that Zsa Zsa, she’s so
ridiculous
,” she continued. “Oh, that Zsa Zsa, she’s so
money hungry
. Well, I guess I knew him better than anyone, didn’t I, Greg?”

“You have to calm down,” the attorney told her. As Conrad’s lawyer and Zsa Zsa’s longtime friend, Bautzer once again found himself in a tough position. He reminded her that Francesca needed her full support during this difficult time. “You’ve always been hard as nails, Zsa Zsa,” he said. “Now is not the time to fall apart.”

“It’s just that my daughter doesn’t deserve this embarrassment,” Zsa Zsa said, trying to compose herself. She conceded that while she and Conrad certainly had their fair share of problems, “Francie was never to blame for
any
of it. You have always been on our side, Greg,” she added. “You
know
this isn’t right.”

“You raised a tough, smart kid,” Gregson said. He believed Francesca could get past this present unpleasantness. “After all, it’s only money, Zsa Zsa,” he remarked.

“Oh, please don’t be so patronizing,” Zsa Zsa said. “It’s not becoming to either one of us. And besides,” she added, “this is the real world we’re living in, not some fairyland.” She observed that money usually equated to power, especially for women. Money also meant independence. “Money matters a great deal,” she declared, “and the only people who don’t think so are people who have it.” When Bautzer noted that Conrad had not completely excluded Francesca from his will, Zsa Zsa made the point that he had bequeathed her only $25,000 more than Olive Wakeman. “And how does that make sense?” she asked, raising her voice. “You tell Conrad’s people that we will fight this thing,” Zsa Zsa said as she gathered her things to leave. “If it’s a family war they want, they will get it. Wills can be broken,” she concluded. “And Francie will do just that,” she added. “I assure you, she will.”

No matter her determination, taking on Conrad Nicholson Hilton’s estate would not be easy for Francesca. After all, the estate had what seemed like an endless supply of money and high-powered attorneys to litigate such legal wrangling. Francesca had nowhere near the same resources available to her. As it would happen, fighting for what she believed should be her rightful inheritance—at least $50 million, or, in the words of her attorney Robert D. Walker, “to be treated in the fashion a daughter ought to be treated”—would come at a steep price to her privacy. This would be no private affair. Named as defendants in the case would be
all
of the other beneficiaries: As well as her siblings, Barron and Eric, that would include all of their children (and Nicky’s too); all of Conrad’s grandchildren; his sisters; his nieces and nephews; his other close associates such as Olive Wakeman and Hugo Mentz; and dozens of nuns and priests and other people associated with the many charities now benefiting from Conrad’s estate. In effect, it meant that all of those people would be, by law, privy to the many filings associated with Francesca’s case, including copies of the thirty-one prior wills and codicils of Conrad Hilton, many of which declared the embarrassing fact that he did not recognize her as his daughter.

Unbeknownst to Francesca, in all of the wills Conrad Hilton had prepared between 1947 and 1955, he stated clearly that she was to receive no money from his inheritance, not a dime. He vaguely referred to her as “the daughter born to Zsa Zsa Gabor.” But then, in 1955, when Francesca was eight, Conrad apparently warmed up to her and had a change of heart, because in his will of June 3 that year, he decided to be more generous. He acknowledged her as his daughter and left her $50,000 in trust. In years to come, Hilton would repeat that $50,000 bequest to Francesca. Then, in his will of October 1960, he would double that inheritance to $100,000, remove the trust, and make the amount an outright bequest. However, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Francesca Hilton would be unaware of any of these private decisions until the dawn of the legal action they were about to mount.

Additionally, Francesca would have to be deposed—as would her mother—about her private relationship with Conrad. Copies of those lengthy and revealing depositions would then be readily available not only to each and every defendant in the case and their many attorneys and associates, but also to anyone else interested as a matter of public record. Still, despite this enormous invasion of her privacy, Francesca decided it was worth it. She wanted to fight. No. She
needed
to fight.

For the next few years, Constance Francesca Hilton would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars engaged in this legal war. Zsa Zsa, of course, agreed with her daughter’s position. Mother and daughter now found themselves aligned in the fight of their lives, not just for money for Francesca, but also for recognition.

Besides the cost to Francesca Hilton’s privacy, the fight would come at another huge risk. In many wills written by wealthy people, it is stipulated that when one of the recipients contests the will, that person is immediately written out of the will if he loses the contest, and completely forfeits his or her inheritance. Such a provision existed in Conrad’s will. As always, he wanted his word on the matter to be final. Therefore, if Francesca were to lose her case, she would end up with nothing, not even the $100,000 Conrad Hilton had left to her.

“Insane Delusion”

T
he thrust of Francesca Hilton’s contesting of her father’s will, according to her original filing of March 13, 1979, was her theory that because of Conrad’s unwavering devotion to his faith, he began to suffer from the “insane delusion” in 1971 that he was not her father. That was the year the two had their big argument at Casa Encantada. It was after that heated confrontation, according to her theory, that he first asserted he was not her father and suddenly “changed from a caring and loving father to a fear-ridden old man who renounced his only daughter.” Moreover, “As a result of his age, illnesses and cerebral accidents which had impaired him physically and mentally, [Conrad Hilton] on October 31, 1973 [the date of his last will], did not know and comprehend the nature, extent and value of his estate and bequeathed ‘one-tenth of one percent’ of his estate to her, his daughter.”

Today, of course, a simple DNA test could quickly determine whether or not a person is a child’s parent. But back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, DNA testing for the purposes of proving paternity had not yet been pioneered. The process of DNA fingerprinting was not developed until 1984, by Alec Jeffreys, and didn’t become available for paternity testing until 1988. Prior to that time, a blood test—ABO blood typing—could have been used to
exclude
Conrad Hilton from being Francesca’s father in that all the markings in the blood typing would be inherited characteristics. However, it could not be used to confirm whether or not he
was
her father. It’s a moot point, anyway. Conrad never asked to be tested, and he never was tested. Myron Harpole says that James E. Bates “had a thick file that he kept for years that was for entirely the purpose of filing a paternity case against Zsa Zsa Gabor where Francesca Hilton was concerned. However, we never did it.”

Obviously Francesca had no inkling as to the evidence that would now be collected by the Hilton estate’s many lawyers to indisputably discount her theory about Conrad’s “insane delusion.” For instance, at the end of 1979, those attorneys presented the hotel mogul’s many previous wills, some of which illustrated quite clearly that Conrad had disowned Francesca—and well before 1971. These long-buried documents turned Francesca’s theory on its head. Now, with her argument—that Conrad’s ambivalence toward her started in 1971—significantly weakened, Francesca had no choice but to amend her complaint. To that end, she then stated that she believed Conrad had actually begun to suffer from an “insane delusion”
not
in 1971, when she first heard him doubt his paternity of her, but way back in 1947, right after she was born. She said she now believed that he disavowed her at that time because she was born into a marriage (to Zsa Zsa Gabor) he was ashamed of, a union that was not sanctioned by the church.

Francesca Hilton’s depositions would be taken on September 12, 13, and 14, 1979. The principal examination of the first day and a half was conducted by Ralph H. Nutter and the balance by Myron E. Harpole. “As I recall it,” said Myron Harpole, who from the firm Witter and Harpole represented Barron and Eric Hilton, James Bates, and Olive Wakeman, “one of the biggest hurdles faced by Miss Hilton was defining the term ‘insane delusion.’ It was a legal terminology her attorneys had implemented, and one she didn’t seem to fully understand or, at the very least, couldn’t fully explain.”

During her deposition, Francesca testified about the night in August 1971 when she had the argument with her mother that caused her to then flee to Casa Encantada and into her father’s arms. This was the night she asked him for money and shelter. “On previous occasions when he turned down a financial request,” she stated, “he had done so calmly and easily—simply stating, in substance, ‘No, I won’t do that,’ and ‘That’s too much money,’ or words of similar meaning. He had never displayed any anger or ill feeling, but rather had simply turned down my request. However, on this occasion, he became visibly upset, vehemently stated that my support was my mother’s responsibility and made a series of statements, the substance of which was that he didn’t believe he was my father (or wanted me to think he didn’t believe he was my father).”

The subject of Conrad’s state of mind was then broached. “From time to time over a period of approximately ten years prior to the demise of my father,” Francesca had previously stated in one of her answers to interrogatories, “I had conversations with my mother, the date and place of which I cannot clearly recall, which indicated that my father was no longer of sound mind.”