The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty (51 page)

In November 1963, shortly before the country would be staggered by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Frances Kelly received a highly amusing telephone call from Conrad Hilton’s German-born butler, Hugo Mentz. “Please come and take Mr. Hilton to mass,” he pleaded with her. “The poor man can’t even go to Communion without some widow trying to pick him up at the Communion rail!” Frances laughed at Conrad’s “dilemma” and agreed to be his church companion. “So for many years after that, they went to church together,” recalled Frances’s niece.

Like Conrad, Frances was a staunch Catholic, and deep-seated faith helped forge the bond between them. She had never met a man with so much faith, a man so devoted to his God. She knew also that his religion had been a constant in his life from the time he was a little boy.

In the early 1970s, when Frances Kelly Fawcett Peterson was a college student, she would spend many of her summers with her aunt Frannie in Los Angeles. “Every morning before work, my aunt would get up and go to church with her best friend, Helen. Occasionally, Uncle Connie would join them. In addition to that, four nights a week we would go to Uncle Connie’s for dinner. Although it was usually just the three of us, it was a very formal affair; I had to wear a long dress, very Old World and mannerly.” Even with such longtime friends, Conrad insisted on an element of ceremony, regardless that he was hosting small, intimate social occasions. “Dinner was served promptly at eight. I remember that Uncle Connie would fine us twenty-five cents if we were late,” said Frances. “He was determined to keep a schedule. There was always an air of ceremony. For instance, once I went into the kitchen and Hugo the butler and [his wife] Maria [one of the housekeepers] were
horrified
to see me there. Uncle Connie explained that you just did not go into the kitchen when the staff were working.

“We would have cocktails in the den, watch the news, and then talk politics and current events. I remember a news story about a man who had shot his wife and five children and then committed suicide. Uncle Connie was upset about it. ‘We just don’t know enough about the human brain,’ he said, ‘and what would cause a person to do something like that.’ He then mentioned that he’d just recently given $10 million to the Mayo Clinic to do research on the human brain. He was always so interesting, so informed and so charming. For me, as a young girl, it was all fascinating, everything he had to say. I hung on his every word. After drinks, we would have dinner in the dining room, which overlooked the grounds [of Casa Encantada]. It was truly a beautiful setting.”

By 1977, Conrad was quite lonely, as had been apparent to many people in his life, such as his old friend, actress Debbie Reynolds. “I had been to Casa Encantada probably a dozen times for parties in the late sixties and early seventies,” she recalled, “but by the end of the decade, not so often. I just had a sense that something wasn’t right. One day, I was driving my car through Bel-Air and I thought, ‘I wonder how Mr. Hilton is doing?’ I was all dressed up and on my way to a luncheon but I decided to stop at Conrad’s home on an impulse. I drove up to the enormous gates and rang the buzzer and asked for Hugo, on the chance that Conrad might see me. I just felt nostalgic for him.

“The gates opened and Hugo came out to greet me. I walked into the house and Mr. Hilton yelled down from one of the balconies, ‘I’m up here, Debbie. Ice the champagne, Hugo. We’re going to dance!’ He came down in the elevator, and for the next three hours I sang to him and we just danced, danced, and danced. We had a glorious time. He had such a smile on his face by the time I left, just like the old Conrad. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he told me. ‘This has meant the world to me.’

“I sensed that, while he was older, he still was hungry for female companionship. I felt that strongly. He still had a lot of life in him, a lot to give to some lucky woman.”

It was in 1977, then, after many years of good friendship, that Conrad Hilton and Frances Kelly finally began dating. Besides their shared passion for religion, Connie and Frances were also happy to discover they had a great deal more in common. For instance, they loved to dance around the house to the music of varsovienne—music and dance, originating in Warsaw, Poland, that combined elements of waltz, mazurka, and polka. (It was danced in America to the tune of “Put Your Little Foot Right There.”) They also enjoyed reading and were avid golfers. Moreover, Conrad belonged to the Los Angeles Country Club, while Frannie belonged to the Bel-Air Country Club, and they enjoyed taking each other to dinners at their respective clubs (with Frances’s niece and namesake always tagging along). On lazy Sunday afternoons, the couple could think of nothing better than a long drive together through the hills of Brentwood and Bel-Air, with Frances driving because Conrad as he got older didn’t like to get behind the wheel. It was as if the loneliness in their later years had sparked something in both Conrad and Frances and allowed them to view each other through different eyes. This turn of events was a big surprise for everyone on Frances’s side of the family. Stella Kelly, Bill’s wife and thus Frances’s sister-in-law, observes, “I started to notice that whenever Frannie would walk into the room, Connie’s face would absolutely light up. When I saw that, I knew it was love.”

A Gentle Nudge

H
er excitement practically leapt through the telephone line.

“You’ll never believe it,” Frances Kelly was saying. She was on the telephone with her brother, Bill, calling him from the main kitchen of Conrad’s estate, Casa Encantada. “Conrad has asked me to marry him.”

“Well, I’ll be! Congratulations, Frannie,” Bill exclaimed. “That’s great news!” Then, just as suddenly as her joyous proclamation had nearly floored him, her tone changed.

“But I have my reservations,” she said.

He couldn’t imagine what such reservations could be. Obviously his sister and Conrad got along; they had a wonderful relationship, at least as far as he could see. It seemed to him that Conrad couldn’t get along without her. Just recently, the siblings, along with Bill’s wife, Stella, had gone on a vacation to Marbella in southern Spain, where they owned a condominium. They didn’t have a telephone in the unit. Yet somehow Conrad managed to get in touch with Frances by tracking her down at a golf course. He told her how much he missed her, and pleaded with her to return to Los Angeles. “Forget it, Frannie,” Bill told her. “We’re here now, and we’re not turning around and going back for anyone!” He knew then that Conrad Hilton would likely never let Frances slip away from him again.

“You know, he’s one of the wealthiest men in the world,” Frances said, her voice a whisper. “People will think I’m marrying him for his money!”

Bill had to laugh. Knowing his sister as he did, he realized that nothing could be further from the truth. “Who cares what people think?” he said.

“I do!” she shot back.

Frances Kelly had been a single woman her entire life. Of course, she’d had her romances over the years, one with a gentleman from South Carolina almost culminating in marriage. However, when that didn’t work out, she all but gave up hope of finding a husband. She decided then—and this was when she was in her early fifties—that she didn’t necessarily need a spouse, that she was perfectly content with her life as it was. Being single wasn’t so bad. Some were surprised by her status as a spinster, though. She seemed like a good catch for any man.

Frances had worked most of her adult life and now valued her job with United Airlines. She had her own money, was financially secure, and lived in a small, albeit nicely furnished three-bedroom apartment in Westwood, near UCLA, with her mother. Her life was predictable and safe. But from the time Conrad came into the picture as a possible romantic partner, nothing was the same for her. He made her feel alive. He was funny, full of surprises. She was well aware that recent years had been difficult for him, but she would never have known as much based on the way he was when they were together. When Frances was with Conrad, he seemed strong and resilient, not at all fragile. “Everyone breaks,” he told her one day, quoting author Ernest Hemingway, “but most are stronger in the broken places.”

Although through the years Zsa Zsa Gabor would perpetuate the image of her ex-husband as being stingy, Conrad was by far the most generous man Frances had ever met. He lavished many expensive gifts on her during their courtship, mostly jewelry. There seemed no end to his extravagant gestures. Only a week before proposing to her, he arranged for a fifteen-piece orchestra to play classical music for them as they dined on one of the terraces of Casa Encantada. That experience alone was beyond anything she had ever heard of, or even imagined possible! And although she had lived a comfortable life, the opulence of his mansion was like no home she had ever seen, and it left her speechless. She would never forget the expression on her mother’s face the first time she accompanied her to a cocktail party at Casa Encantada. On the evening of the party, her mother, Christine, went into one of the many well-appointed bathrooms to freshen up. So astonished was she by the many solid gold fixtures in the room, when she exited she joked with Conrad, “When you have trouble in that bathroom, who do you call? A plumber? Or a jeweler?”

“Frannie, don’t be ridiculous,” Bill told his sister during their phone conversation about Conrad’s marriage proposal. “Just accept it.”

“I don’t know. I have a lot of questions.”

“The only question you need to ask yourself,” Bill offered, “is: ‘Do I love him?’ ”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. There was no doubt about that in her heart. She loved him very much, and she was quite sure he loved her as well. “But is love enough?” she asked.

“Hell if I know,” Bill said, laughing. He was a pragmatic man. In his world, people simply fell in love and got married. They didn’t examine complex emotions, pick them apart, and try to understand them. He’d been happily married to his wife, Stella, for many years and just wanted the same for his sister. “I say let people think what they want,” he concluded. “You and Conrad know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”

Bill’s simplicity on the matter seemed to cut through Frances’s qualms, clearing out the overanalyzing that had clouded her decision making. “Okay,” Frances decided. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to say yes! Can you believe it?” she asked, barely able to contain her growing excitement. “Can you believe that I am going to marry Conrad Hilton?”

Best Friend’s Advice

E
very morning for more than twenty years, Frances Kelly and her best friend, Helen Lamm, would attend 6:30 mass at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westwood. Helen had worked for Fawcett Publications from 1940 to 1955, first as a secretary and then as the coordinator of celebrities for commercial endorsements. Now she was an employee of Kelly Girl, the successful temporary employment agency.

Helen had met Frances at a Kelly Girl convention at the Beverly Hills Hotel back in 1960. The company had hired a spokesman from United Airlines to lecture its employees on how a woman should pack for a trip. This idea may sound a bit strange today, but back in the 1950s and early 1960s, traveling by airplane was still a daunting adventure for the average American. With travel becoming such a major part of the lives of everyone, advice on how to pack for a trip was actually something people found useful and valuable. The woman sent by United to give the talk? Frances Kelly.

“A woman should be able to travel the entire country with a single suitcase,” she told the group while standing behind a lectern. Addressing her mostly female audience, she demonstrated the most efficient ways to fold clothing, where to put high heels in the suitcase, and how to pack as many outfits as possible in one suitcase.

As songs like Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” and “Mack the Knife” played on the hotel’s sound system at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, Frances and Helen shared cocktails and life stories under the sun and became fast friends. They remained so all of these years later. Their daily church ritual was a big part of their friendship. All of that changed, though, when Frances met Conrad. Now, suddenly, Frances was going to mass with
him
every morning.

“Of course I thought it odd,” recalled Helen. “But I had met Connie—though I always felt odd calling him that, and preferred ‘Mr. Hilton’—and had many dinners at his lovely home with Frannie. I knew how much she liked him; they were so darling together. I thought, ‘How wonderful that she has met a new friend’; it’s so difficult to meet new friends at our age. That’s all I thought it was, a nice friendship.”

One afternoon in the spring of 1976, Frances telephoned Helen to suggest that they go to mass together the next day, “like old times.” When Helen picked up Frances at her apartment at 512 Kelton Avenue in Westwood, she couldn’t help but notice the unwavering, radiant smile on her face. Ordinarily, Frances was a lighthearted person who enjoyed life to the fullest, but on this day, according to what Helen would remember, Frances seemed particularly “jaunty.” Helen suspected something was up, but the two old friends attended mass as usual. Afterward, they sat in the car for a moment in the church’s parking lot. Frances was beaming by this time, seeming ready to burst with some sort of good news. “I have something I have just been
dying
to tell you,” she said.

“What’s that, Frannie?”

“You know that gentleman I’ve been going to mass with—Mr. Conrad Hilton?” Frances began.