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Company Founder Biographies: Founder bios of some of the most successful people in business today. |  |
Barron Hilton Bio, Founder of Hilton Hotels
Barron married Marilyn June Hawley of Los Angeles on June 20, 1947, with whom he had eight children. At the time of the Statler acquisition, he was elected a vice president of the corporation, but continued to work outside of the hotel chain as well, running aviation and orange juice businesses and working as president of the Carte Blanche credit card company. In 1960, he founded the Los Angeles Chargers, one of the founding teams in the new American Football League -- the team lost the first two AFL championships to the Houston Oilers, and Barron relocated it to San Diego. In 1966, he assumed the presidency of the Hilton Hotels chain, and soon introduced gambling establishments to the corporation's fold. His brother Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr. ("Nicky") was Elizabeth Taylor's first husband; his half-sister Francesca is the mother of Zsa Zsa Gabor. His son Rick married actress Kathy Richards, with whom he had four children: two young sons (Conrad Hughes and Barron Nicholas) and their socialite sisters, Paris and Nicky. Hilton has publicly distanced himself from the tabloid-headline behavior of his granddaughters. Like a growing number of billionaires following Warren Buffet's example, he has turned to large-scale philanthropy, announcing on Christmas Day 2007 that the bulk of his estate -- about 97 percent of $2.3 billion -- will be turned into a charitable trust governed by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Conrad had similarly left most of his estate to charities when he died in 1979, but Barron contested the will and won his suit on the basis of his lifelong involvement with and guidance of the family business. |
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