Biography
Howard Hughes was born in Humble, Texas on
December 24, 1905. His parents were Allene Gano Hughes
and Howard R. Hughes, Sr., who invented the dual cone
roller bit, which allowed rotary drilling of oil wells
in previously inaccessible places. He founded Hughes
Tool Company to commercialize this invention.
As a teenager,
Howard Hughes declared that his goals in life
were to become the world's best golfer, the world's best
pilot, and the world's best movie producer. Despite
attending many good schools, he never earned a diploma.
He attended the Fessenden School in West Newton,
Massachusetts (near Boston), and the Thacher School in
Ojai, California. His father subsequently arranged for
him to audit math and engineering classes at the
California Institute of Technology. He then enrolled at
the Rice Institute (later known as Rice University).
His parents died when he was a teenager – his mother in
1922 due to complications from minor surgery, and his
father two years later from a heart attack. Hughes
inherited much of Hughes Tool Company, but had to deal
with trustees, whom he considered meddling. He went to
court to become an emancipated minor. He then bought out
various relatives, and took complete control of Hughes
Tool in 1924 at the age of 19.
Howard Hughes dropped out of Rice, and moved to
Hollywood where he had an uncle, Rupert Hughes, a
novelist. His girlfriend, Ella Rice, joined him, and
they married on June 1, 1925 (divorced in 1929).
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Howard Hughes used his fortune to become a movie producer.
He was at first dismissed by Hollywood insiders as a
rich man's son. However, his first two films released in
1927, Everybody's Acting and Two Arabian Knights were
financial successes, the latter winning an Academy Award
for Best Director of a Comedy Picture. The Racket in
1928 and The Front Page in 1931 were nominated for
Academy Awards. He spent a then-unheard-of $4 million of
his own money to make Hell's Angels, which he wrote and
directed. It and Scarface, which he produced, became
smash hits. His best-known film may be The Outlaw
starring Jane Russell, for whom Hughes designed a
special bra. Scarface and The Outlaw received attention
from industry censors; Scarface for its violence, The
Outlaw for Russell's physical charms. He signed an
unknown actor David Bacon in 1932 to play Billy The Kid.
The next year, Bacon's murder led to allegations that an
intimate affair with Hughes may have resulted in his
death. Greta Keller, Vienna-born cabaret singer and
actress and Bacon's widow, claimed later in life that
Bacon had been prepared to reveal intimate details to
get released from his contract with Hughes.
Hughes was a notorious ladies' man, and allegedly had
affairs with many famous women including Katharine
Hepburn, Bette Davis, Gene Tierney, and Ava Gardner.
Bessie Love was a mistress during his first marriage.
Jean Harlow accompanied him to the premier of Hell's
Angels, although it's uncertain if they were an item.
Less-significant affairs are rumored to have occurred
between Hughes and a long list of celebrities.
Hughes was a lifelong aircraft enthusiast, pilot, and
self-taught aircraft engineer. He set many world
records, and designed and built several aircraft himself
while heading Hughes Aircraft. The most important
aircraft he designed was the Hughes H-1 Racer. On
September 13, 1935, Hughes, flying the H-1, set the
world speed record of 352 mph (588 km/h) over his test
course near Santa Ana, California. (The previous record
was 314 mph (502 km/h). A year and a half later (January
19, 1937), flying a somewhat re-designed H-1 Racer,
Hughes set a new trans-continental speed record by
flying non-stop from Los Angeles to New York City in 7
hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds (beating his own
previous record of 9 hours, 27 minutes). His average
speed over the flight was 322 mph (515 km/h).
The H-1 Racer featured a number of design innovations:
it had retractable landing gear, so that in flight the
wheels did not increase drag. It had all rivets and
joints set flush into the body of the plane, also to
reduce drag. The H-1 Racer influenced the design of a
number of World War II fighter airplanes such as the
Mitsubishi Zero, the Focke-Wulf FW190, and the F6F
Hellcat. (Wright Tools web site) The H-1 Racer was
donated to the Smithsonian in 1975 and is on display at
the National Air and Space Museum.
On July 10, 1938 Hughes set another record by completing
a flight around the world in just 91-hours (3 days, 19
hours) - beating the old record by more than four days.
For this flight he did not fly a plane of his own design
but a Lockheed Super Electra (a twin engine plane with a
four man crew).
In 1938, the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas,
known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport, was
re-named "Howard Hughes Airport," but the name was
changed back after people objected to naming the airport
after a living person.
As an aviator,
Howard Hughes received many awards. This included
the Harmon Trophy in 1936 and 1938, the Collier Trophy
in 1939, the Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a special
Congressional medal for his round-the-world flight.
According to his obituary in the New York Times, he
never bothered to pick up the medal. It was eventually
found by President Harry Truman and mailed to him.
The second XF-11 prototype (with conventional
propellers).
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Also in 1938, William John Frye, a former Hollywood
stunt flier and the first director of operations of
Transcontinental and Western Air (T&WA), put in an order
for the new 33-passenger Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the
first commercial plane with a pressurized passenger
cabin. He convinced Hughes, also enamored of avant-garde
aircraft technology, to finance this purchase. By doing
so, Hughes became the principal stockholder of T&WA in
April 1939. Throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s,
T&WA (which became Trans World Airlines) continued to
bet on the most advanced planes available, largely due
to Hughes' own interest in aircraft development. In
particular, Hughes helped specify the design of the
Lockheed Constellation, with its pressurized cabin and
distinctive tail, buying several planes for TWA in order
to be able to fly high altitude (20,000 ft/6,600 m) long
distance routes above the turbulence of low altitude
weather. The airline would grow significantly under his
leadership.
On July 7, 1946,
Howard Hughes barely survived a plane crash.
He was piloting the maiden flight of the experimental
aircraft XF-11, a U.S. Army spy plane. His flight plan
included a tour of Los Angeles to show off the new
plane, but an oil leak caused one of the
counter-rotating propellers to reverse its thrust,
making the plane yaw sharply. Hughes tried to save the
craft by landing it on the Los Angeles Country Club golf
course, but seconds before he reached his attempted
destination the plane started dropping dramatically and
the aircraft crashed into the Beverly Hills neighborhood
surrounding the country club. When the plane finally
stopped after clipping three houses, the fuel tanks
exploded, setting fire to a home and the surrounding
area. Hughes lay wounded beside the burning airplane
until he was rescued by a Marine master sergeant who was
visiting friends next door. The injuries he sustained in
the crash, including a crushed collar bone, six broken
ribs and third-degree burns, affected him for the rest
of his life. Many attribute his long addiction to
opiates to the large amounts of morphine he was
prescribed for the injuries. The trademark mustache he
wore later in life was an attempt to cover a minor
facial scar from the incident.
One of his greatest endeavors was the H-4 Hercules,
nicknamed the "Flying Lumberyard", and more famously,
the Spruce Goose (although its frame was built
predominantly of birch), a massive flying boat completed
just after the end of World War II. The Hercules only
flew once (with Hughes at the controls) on November 2,
1947. The plane was originally commissioned by the U.S.
government for use in World War II, but was not
completed until after the war. Hughes was called to
testify before the Senate War Investigating Committee to
explain why the plane had not been delivered to the
United States Air Force during the war, but the
committee disbanded without releasing a final report.
Because the U.S. government denied him the use of
aircraft aluminum (which had been rationed), Hughes
built the plane largely from birch in his Westchester,
California facility to fulfill his contract. The plane
was on display alongside RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach,
California for many years before being moved to
McMinnville, Oregon, where it is now part of the
Evergreen Aviation Museum.
Howard Hughes acquired RKO in 1948, a struggling major
Hollywood studio. He interfered with production and even
shut down shooting for weeks or months. RKO was sold in
1955.
After the war, Hughes fashioned his company Hughes
Aircraft into a major defense contractor. Portions of
the company wound up with McDonnell Douglas, and
eventually Boeing when those two companies merged. The
remainder of Hughes Aircraft was sold to Raytheon in
1998.
In 1953, Hughes launched the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute in Delaware, formed with the express goal of
basic biomedical research including trying to
understand, in Hughes' words, the "genesis of life
itself." It was viewed by many as a tax haven for his
wealth: Hughes gave all his stock of the Hughes Aircraft
Company to the institute, thereby turning the defense
contractor into a tax-exempt charity. The deal was the
topic of a protracted legal battle between Hughes and
the Internal Revenue Service which Hughes ultimately
won. After his death in 1976, many thought that the
balance of Hughes' estate would go to the institute,
although it ultimately was divided among his cousins and
other heirs, given the lack of a will to the contrary.
It is America's second largest private foundation and
the largest devoted to biological and medical research
with a 2004 endowment of $12.4 billion.
On January 12, 1957, Hughes married actress Jean Peters;
they divorced in 1971.
Shortly before the 1960 Presidential election, Richard
Nixon was harmed by revelations of a $205,000 loan from
Hughes to Nixon's brother that was never repaid.
Hughes Space and Communications was founded in 1961. In
the same year, TWA's management sued its chairman Hughes
because of differences in running the company; he was
forced to sell his stock in TWA in 1966 for more than
$500 million. During the 1970s, Hughes went back into
the airline business, buying airline Air West and
renaming it Hughes Airwest.
In 1972, Hughes was approached by the CIA to help
secretly recover a Soviet submarine which had sunk near
Hawaii four years before. He agreed. Thus the Glomar
Explorer, a special-purpose salvage vessel, was born.
Hughes' involvement provided the CIA with a plausible
cover story, having to do with civilian marine research
at extreme depths, and the mining of undersea manganese
nodules.
In the summer of 1974 Glomar Explorer attempted to raise
the Soviet vessel. But during the recovery a mechanical
failure in the ship's grapple caused half of the
submarine to break off and fall to the ocean floor. This
section is believed to have held many of the most sought
after items, including its code book and nuclear
missiles. Two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and some
cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the
bodies of six Soviet submariners who were subsequently
given formal burial at sea in a filmed ceremony. It has
been speculated that, contrary to this official account,
the entire submarine was recovered and that the CIA
released disinformation to leave the Soviets with the
impression that the mission was unsuccessful.
The operation, known as Project Jennifer, became public
in February 1975 because burglars had obtained secret
documents from Hughes' headquarters in June 1974.
By the late 1950s, if not earlier,
Howard Hughes developed
debilitating symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
The once dashing figure vanished from public view and
became a mystery. The media followed rumors of his
movements and behavior. According to various rumors,
Hughes was either terminally ill, mentally unstable, or
dead and replaced by an impersonator.
Hughes had earlier displayed symptoms consistent with
OCD: In the 1930s, friends reported he was obsessed with
the size of peas – one of his favorite foods – and used
a special fork to sort them by size before he ate. When
he produced The Outlaw, Hughes became obsessed with a
minor flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, and wrote a
detailed memorandum on how to fix the problem: Hughes
contended that fabric bunched up on a seam, giving the
distressing appearance (to Hughes, at least) of two
nipples on each of Russell's breasts.
Howard Hughes became a recluse, living a drug-addled life
locked in darkened rooms and terrified of germs. Though
he kept a barber on-call with a handsome retainer,
Hughes had his hair cut and nails trimmed perhaps once a
year. Several doctors were kept on salary, though Hughes
rarely saw them and refused to follow their advice.
Hughes' inner circle was largely composed of Mormons
because he considered them trustworthy - even though he
was not an adherent to the Latter Day Saint movement.[3]
Howard Hughes became addicted to codeine (injections),
valium, and other painkillers, was extremely frail,
stored his urine in jars and wore Kleenex boxes as shoes
(although it has been reported that Hughes did this only
once, as "protection" when a toilet flooded). He
insisted on using paper towels to cover any object
before he touched it, to insulate himself from germs.
Hughes had contracted syphilis as a young man, and much
of the strange behavior at the end of his life has been
attributed by modern biographers to the tertiary stage
of that disease. His well-documented aversion to
handshaking, for example, probably began when he
contracted syphilis. The disease first revealed itself
in the form of tiny blisters that erupted on his hands
during the secondary stage of syphilis. After receiving
medical treatment, Hughes was warned by his doctor not
to shake hands for a time. Hughes avoided doing so the
rest of his life. Syphilis was also responsible for a
bizarre episode in which Hughes burned all his clothes.
(In the film, The Aviator, 2004, it is presented as his
response to Katharine Hepburn's leaving him. In reality,
it was Hughes' overreacting to the syphilis diagnosis by
ordering every piece of clothing and bed linen in his
home destroyed.)
With his entourage,
Howard Hughes moved from hotel to hotel,
from the Beverly Hills Hotel to Boston to Las Vegas,
where he bought the Desert Inn (because they threatened
to evict him) and several other hotel/casinos
(Castaways, New Frontier, The Landmark Hotel and Casino,
Sands and Silver Slipper). He was known for modernizing
Las Vegas by buying much of it from the Mafia. He bought
television stations such as KLAS-TV in Las Vegas so that
there would be something to watch when he was up all
night with insomnia.
Howard Hughes' considerable business holdings were
overseen by a small panel sometimes dubbed "The Mormon
Mafia" due to the many Latter-day Saints in the group.
While running day-to-day business operations, they also
took great pains to follow Hughes' every bizarre whim.
For example, Hughes took a liking to Baskin Robbins'
banana-nut ice cream, and his aides were horror-stricken
when they learned that Baskin-Robbins had eliminated the
flavor. They made a special order of 350 gallons—the
smallest amount the company could provide for a special
order—and had it shipped from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
A few days after the order arrived, Hughes announced
he'd tired of banana-nut and only wanted vanilla ice
cream. For years afterwards, Hughes' aides gave free
gallons of banana-nut ice cream to their friends and
family.
In Nevada, Hughes wielded enormous political power; he
was often able to influence the outcome of elections and
legislation. His influence did have its limits; he was
afraid of the effects of nuclear radiation from the
open-air nuclear weapons tests then conducted in the
state, and told his aides to offer $1 million to
presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon if they'd
bring the tests to an end. Hughes' aides never offered
the bribes, but reported to Hughes that Johnson had
declined the offer, and that they were unable to contact
Nixon.
As he deteriorated,
Howard Hughes moved to the Bahamas,
Vancouver, London, and several other places, always
living in the top floor penthouse with the windows
blacked out. Every time he moved out, the hotel seemed
to need to remodel to clean up after him.
In 1971, he divorced Jean Peters; they had been living
apart for several years. She agreed to a lifetime
alimony payment of $70,000 annually, adjusted for
inflation, and she waived all claims to Hughes' estate.
The usually paranoid Hughes surprised his aides when he
did not insist on a confidentiality agreement from
Peters as a condition of the divorce; aides reported
that Peters was one of the few people Hughes never
disparaged. Peters refused to discuss her life with
Hughes, and declined several lucrative offers to do so.
She would state only that she had not seen Hughes for
several years before their divorce.
According to some speculation on the Watergate affair,
the 1972 burglary of Democratic headquarters had been
ordered by President Nixon's aides in order to recover
potentially damaging papers documenting payments from
Hughes to Nixon, and in an effort to link the Democrats
to Hughes. Larry O'Brien, the Democratic National
Committee chairman whose office was broken into, had
been a paid lobbyist for Hughes since 1968.
In 1972, author Clifford Irving claimed he had
co-written an authorized autobiography of Hughes, and
created a media sensation. Hughes was such a reclusive
figure that he hesitated in condemning Irving, which, in
the view of many, lent credibility to Irving's account.
Prior to publication, Hughes, in a rare telephone
conference, denounced Irving, exposing the entire
project as an elaborate hoax. Irving later spent
fourteen months in jail after fraudulently receiving a
$765,000 advance.
Hughes died on an aircraft while traveling from his
penthouse in Mexico to Methodist Hospital in Houston on
April 5, 1976, at the age of 70. He was unrecognizable,
and the FBI insisted on fingerprints to identify Hughes'
remains. The autopsy determined kidney failure as the
cause of death. His body was in extremely poor
condition; X-rays revealed broken off hypodermic needles
in his arms.
Howard Hughes is interred in the Glenwood Cemetery in
Houston.
After
Howard Hughes's death, an intensive search began for his
will, but one could not be found. Speculation became
rampant that he may have written a holographic will. A
holographic will was soon found on the desk of an
official of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints in Salt Lake City. The "Mormon Will" gave a
gas-station owner named Melvin Dummar a 1/16th share of
Hughes's $2 billion estate. Dummar, who had appeared on
Let's Make a Deal, among other game shows, claimed to
reporters that late one evening in December 1967, he
found a disheveled and dirty man lying along U.S.
Highway 95, 150 miles (250 kilometers) north of Las
Vegas. The man asked for a ride to Las Vegas. Dropping
him off at the Sands Hotel, Dummar said the man told him
he was Hughes. The Mormon Will was rejected by a Nevada
court in June 1978 as a forgery. The court also declared
Hughes died intestate.
After saying he knew nothing about the Mormon Will,
mounting evidence forced Dummar to admit that he lied.
He claimed a "mysterious man" gave him a document with
instructions to deposit it at the LDS office. The Mormon
Will was one of 40 "wills" filed by 400 people claiming
to be Hughes's heirs. The estate was eventually split
between 22 cousins in 1983. Melvin and Howard starring
Jason Robards and Paul Le Mat is based on Dummar's tale.
A new book, "The Investigation," by his former lawyer
supports Dummar's claims. Even if he were to be
exonerated, it is doubtful that Dummar will receive any
money.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Hughes Aircraft was
owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who sold
it to General Motors in 1985 for $5 billion. Suits
brought by the states of California and Texas claiming
they were owed inheritance tax were both rejected by the
court.
In 1984,
Howard Hughes' estate paid an undisclosed amount to
Terry Moore, who claimed to have been secretly married
to Hughes on a yacht in international waters off Mexico
in 1949 and never divorced. Although Moore never
produced proof of a marriage (and married five more
times, while Hughes married Jean Peters), her book, The
Beauty and the Billionaire, became a best-seller.