Merv (20 page)

I had guests who could tell wonderful stories. And we had the luxury of being able to do twelve- to fourteen-minute segments with a single person. One of the biggest problems with talk shows today is that they’ve been reduced to a mind-numbing collection of sound bite interviews. This isn’t the fault of Leno, Letterman, or anyone else; they’re prisoners of commerce. With the invention of the remote control (if you’re under the age of thirty, pretend you know what I’m talking about), sponsors now live in constant fear of channel-surfers.

For me, it all came down to the question that I’ve asked myself at every stage of my career: “Is it still fun?”

The answer meant that it was time for me to hang it up.

Taping the final episode of
The Merv Griffin Show
was a very emotional experience for me. I sat alone in the theater, where the audience had always been, and introduced clips that my staff had assembled into a two-hour retrospective.

After it was all over, I wasn’t ready to go home. I asked my young assistant, Ronnie Ward, to drive, and we just got in the car and took off. I had no destination in mind—we simply drove. I remember that we stopped at a tennis tournament in one of the beach communities south of Los Angeles. Then we got back in the car and headed east. We made it just across the California-Nevada border, finally ending up in the bustling new gambling town of Laughlin.

It wasn’t only the end of my show that was making me restless. This was the first time in more than forty years that I wouldn’t have a job to go to the next day. Granted, I didn’t
need
a job anymore. But the reality was that I hadn’t actually needed to work for a long time, at least not for the money.

I came to terms with something during that long car ride that I hadn’t been willing to acknowledge before. My sense of self-worth, my identity, my reason for getting out of bed in the morning—they’d all become tied up with my career. Sure, my family and friends were important to me, but if I was being honest—and in that car I was—my personal life invariably came in second to my professional one.

Luckily for me, Ronnie Ward is a wonderful listener. By the time we made it back from Nevada, I was almost hoarse from talking. But I felt a lot better.

I’m sure that Ronnie had no idea what he was getting into when I asked him to drive me that day. He’d been with my company for four years, and although he was only in his twenties, I could already see that he had a great future ahead of him. When I completed the sale of my company to Coca-Cola, I made Ronnie my personal assistant, the first time in my career that I’d ever had one. Clearly I needed someone in that job I could rely on, whose intelligence and judgment I trusted completely. Even though he was young, I knew that Ronnie Ward was the only choice.

Let me tell you about Ronnie. Next to Bob Murphy, Ronnie Ward is probably the most loved person I know. He’s everybody’s son, son-in-law, brother, best friend.

Like me, Ronnie is a native Northern Californian. He comes from the town of Salinas where, as it happens, he lived across the street from the children of a family that I’d grown up with in San Mateo. (Neither of us realized this for many years, until one day it just popped out. We were talking about a childhood friend of Ronnie’s who was coming to visit him, a fellow named Steve Holetz. I said, “You don’t mean Robert’s son, do you?” Ronnie couldn’t believe it. He said, “How did you
know
that?” I’ve got to tell you that I don’t think things like that are coincidental. It’s the way that the universe has of letting you know that you’re in the right place.)

Growing up, Ronnie worked several summers on an Alaskan fishing boat with his grandfather, a veteran sea captain. After graduating high school, he moved to Los Angeles with his family and took a job at a record store.

One of his co-workers was moonlighting as a security guard at TAV Studios, the facility where I taped my show and which, at the time, I still owned (it would eventually be part of the sale to Coca-Cola). Ronnie’s friend, knowing that he needed extra income, asked him if he’d be interested in a night job as well.

At the age of nineteen, he was hired as a security guard at TAV. I didn’t know him when he first came to work for me. With
Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, The Merv Griffin Show
, and
Dance Fever
, I had more than two hundred employees. He went on to work in every department and became familiar with the entire company, eventually making it up to the third floor, where my office was. When my secretary became ill, Ronnie filled in for her temporarily.

When we were finalizing the Coca-Cola deal, Ronnie had lawyers standing nervously over his shoulder as he hunted and pecked his way through last-minute changes to a quarter-billion-dollar contract. I ended up hiring a new secretary, but Ronnie stayed on as my assistant.

After more than twenty years of working with him, I’ve now concluded that typing is the only skill that Ronnie lacks. He can handle any situation, from employee problems to business decisions. Nothing rattles him, not even Donald Trump.

Yet for all of his professional accomplishments, it is his two beautiful daughters who are Ronnie’s pride and joy. No matter how hard he works, they always come first. As good as he is at his job, he’s an even better father.

Ronnie Ward never seeks publicity or accolades. In fact, everything I’ve just told you will probably embarrass him. Sorry, Ronnie. They made me do it.

Hotels have always fascinated me. To understand why, we have to hark back to my days on the road with Freddy Martin when I traveled the whole country by bus. We played every single state in America—all forty-eight of them (and,
yes
, we did have electricity back then).

Every day was a different city or town. Every night was a different hotel. Many were good; some were fleabags and flophouses. A few of them were so bad that it was actually a relief if they turned out to have been overbooked. The lobby couches were invariably more comfortable than the beds.

I remember one ancient firetrap of a place in South Dakota. Next to every bed was an emergency kit with a rope inside. If the building went up in flames, you were supposed to use it to lower yourself out the window. The only problem was that the rope was so old, it disintegrated the moment you touched it. I decided that night to quit smoking, just in case.

On the road, my understanding and appreciation of hotels grew daily. I learned that a traveler’s three basic needs are a fast check-in, speedy room service, and excellent water pressure.

Even back then, it struck me that the hotel business, done properly, is entertainment at its finest. The guests are like an audience. They want to enjoy themselves, leave happy, and be eager to return. That’s exactly what show business is.

I’ve said it many times: hotels are talk shows with beds. It’s the same principle—an exotic variety of people coming through the door, staying a short time, then departing; sometimes never to be heard from again (with the possible exception of Charo).

Now, you have to realize that in all the years of hosting my show, I almost never got to meet my audience personally. I saw them when I passed through the theater curtain and walked out onto that proscenium stage every night, but that was all. My only other contact was limited to those fans who waited patiently after the show for an autograph.

I started to think seriously about the hotel business. Maybe I’d finally have a chance to meet the audience.

At the gala opening of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 1955 (the same year that another Southern California landmark, Disneyland, first opened its gates), Vice President Richard Nixon recalled a time when Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills—now the site of a mammoth, modern hotel—was largely farm land. Conrad Hilton beamed with pride when he heard the new crown jewel of his burgeoning empire described as “the most sumptuous hotel in the world.”

At the time, it was.

Thirty-two years later, that great lady of luxury hotels had become a fading dowager whose best days were a distant memory.

Against everybody’s advice, I bought her.

Conrad’s son, Barron Hilton, is one of my oldest friends. He started in the hotel business as an elevator operator in 1951; his father wanted him to work his way to the top—literally. By the late seventies, he had become chairman of the Hilton Hotels Corporation.

So when his son, Rick, who was brokering the deal, phoned me in 1987, I was quick to take his call.

Rick informed me that the Hilton Corporation was looking to sell the Beverly Hilton. Only half of the hotel was actually owned by Hilton. The other half belonged to the Prudential Insurance Company. I realized quickly that it was Prudential that wanted out.

I put down the phone and stared off into space. I’d always loved that hotel. Several years earlier it was the scene of one of the greatest nights of my life. The Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce had honored me with its Will Rogers Memorial Award and the presentation had taken place at a black-tie dinner at the Beverly Hilton. They went all out to make it an extraordinary night for me, even recruiting the Freddy Martin Orchestra to perform. The International Ballroom was converted into a replica of the old Cocoanut Grove, where I’d sung with Freddy three decades before.

Unquestionably, the highlight of the evening for me was the surprise participation of Orson Welles. I know it’s immodest, but I’m going to tell you a little of what he said that night—it will help you to understand why the Beverly Hilton became so special to me.

“The talk show,” intoned Orson in that magnificent voice, “is the TV art form that is unique to TV. It was never as good on the radio. It obviously couldn’t happen in the theater or anywhere else. It is pure television form. There are a few talk show giants. I’m here to salute my favorite. A good host must be considerate to his guests, and bring out their best. Merv’s enthusiasm is genuine. A real actor is a re-actor—he knows how to genuinely listen. They tell me he’s very rich and he deserves to be. He’s very rich in friends and I am proud to be one of them. To be able to genuinely listen in front of all those millions of people, to bring out the best in people without endlessly trying to score off them, or to be funny; to be compassionate, to be amusing and amused, to be concerned and intelligently concerned; all these are the definition of the classic talk show host and the best of all talk show hosts.”

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m an emotional guy. Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but it doesn’t take a lot to move me to tears. On the other hand, I’d made a career out of maintaining my composure in front of an audience, usually by cracking wise. So when I came to the microphone to accept my award, I said, “Wow. Orson Welles makes you feel immortal. I didn’t know that I was
that
great…”

It was a magical night that ended with me singing “Tonight We Love” in front of the orchestra, as the guests swirled on the dance floor in front of me.
Déjà vu all over again
.

It was that memory (and many others like it) that excited me about the prospect of restoring the Beverly Hilton to her former glory. So, despite the entreaties of my advisors who assured me that it was the worst possible time to get into the hotel business, I decided to do it. I made the Hilton-Prudential ownership group a substantial offer and, soon after, I was told that they were ready to accept it.

Then, out of the blue, a consortium of Japanese investors came in and topped my offer by 20 percent.

My old friend Barron Hilton gave me the chance to match their bid. I thanked him, but said, “Let them have it, Barron. The revenues won’t ever be enough to recoup that purchase price. I wouldn’t have a prayer of keeping it profitable.” I walked away.

This was in October of 1987. Before the deal could be completed, Wall Street suffered through “Black Monday” and the Dow dropped more than five hundred points. The Nikkei Index followed suit the next day. Overnight, the Japanese group lost a significant chunk of its capital, so they had no choice but to bail out of the Hilton deal.

Two days later Barron called again.

“Want to jump back in?” he asked, hopefully.

“Sure,” I said. “At what price?”

He didn’t hesitate. “We accept your original offer.”

Sold.

The Hilton name, particularly in Europe and Asia, is very strong. So I’m sure that my first press conference after purchasing the hotel (which would continue to be affiliated with the Hilton Corporation; I pay them a fee for the use of their name and reservation system) must have
thrilled
Barron.

“I only bought it because I was tired of waiting for room service,” I joked to the assembled press corps. Then I became serious as I talked about my plans. “I’m going to break the Hilton cookie cutter mold. This is where the action is going to be.” Fifteen years later I’m still telling them that. They can’t believe the things I’ve done with the Beverly Hilton, because they do everything as inexpensively as possible.

I knew when I bought the aging grandame that she was badly in need of a facelift—in fact, her whole body needed work. It was going to take millions of dollars to do it the way I envisioned, but I didn’t care. This was the fun part.

The first improvements I made were to the International Ballroom, the largest hotel event space in the city, with a sit-down capacity of more than thirteen hundred. My staff believed strongly that I should start with redoing the guest rooms, but I was adamant. I knew that refurbishing the ballroom would send an important signal, particularly to the entertainment community. They would see that I was serious about restoring the Beverly Hilton to its former grandeur. “Trust me,” I told my skeptical staff, “everyone will want to use that room.” And they did.