Regent’s mom ‘fiercely independent’

Thursday, March 30, 2000 | 10:12 a.m.

In the early 1930s Gladys Hilton journeyed from her native Brooklyn to Hollywood to work for Max Factor, the legendary makeup artist to the stars.

All of the great leading ladies had their film makeup -- the so-called greasepaint in a tube -- applied by Factor and his artists. Among them were Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Marlene Dietrich and Bette Davis.

One day while Hilton was working on Davis, the two exchanged words and the future two-time Oscar-winning actress flung the makeup tray at Hilton.

"My mother told Davis she could put her own makeup on and walked out on her," University Regent Mark Alden said. "She used to say Davis was so ugly no amount of makeup would have improved the way she looked.

"Mom was fiercely independent. It was either her way or the highway."

Gladys R. Hilton, an avid follower of Las Vegas politics and an advocate of the Americans with Disabilities Act and other senior-oriented issues, died Tuesday of complications of old age at the Henderson Convalescent Hospital. She was 89.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 16 years will be 10 a.m. Tuesday on Alden's 56th birthday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern. Burial will be private.

"My mom was one of the most well-versed people on politics I ever knew," Alden said. "She would grab my (Regents) agenda, read it thoroughly, then grill me on the issues. She diligently watched the local and national news broadcasts."

Hilton also was a regular at the Orleans hotel-casino, where she always played the same 25-cent video slot machine. Casino officials would hold the machine for her when they knew she would be coming, Alden said.

Born Gladys Amato on April 24, 1910, she was one of several children of Leo Amato, an Italian immigrant, and Marie Shein, an immigrant from England.

After attending high school in New York, Gladys left for Los Angeles to work for Factor, who in 1929 had won an Oscar for his makeup innovations, including lip gloss and pancake makeup.

In the early 1940s Gladys moved to Maine and married David Sulka, Alden's father. She divorced him in 1945 and married Hilton Goldblatt, who died shortly before she moved to Las Vegas in 1984. After Goldblatt's death, Gladys took his first name as her new last name.

Alden, who has served as a regent for six years, said his mother gave him the best political advice he ever received: "Do what is right and don't worry about re-election."

In addition to her son, Hilton is survived by a grandson, Mark Hastings Alden, also of Las Vegas.

The family said donations can be made in Hilton's name to the Henderson Boys and Girls Clubs.