HUGHES, HOWARD 1905-1976

TYCOON

The Eccentric Eclectic

Over his lifetime billionaire Howard Hughes pursued a variety of interests: he was a test pilot, a manufacturer of aircraft, a longtime majority owner of Trans-World Airlines (TWA), a movie producer, a hotelier, and a real-estate developer. He is best remembered, however, for his increasingly bizarre behavior beginning in the mid 1950s, when he completely dropped out of society. His desire to avoid all publicity and his proclivity for seclusion only heightened the public's interest in Hughes, his whereabouts, and his activities.

Of Tools and Movies

Howard Hughes was born in Houston in 1905. His father had pioneered drilling equipment for the oil industry and built up a successful firm, Hughes Tool Company. When his father died in 1924, Hughes, a freshman at California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), dropped out of school to run the inherited tool firm. After soon discovering that Hughes Tool did not seem to need his leadership, the twenty-one-year-old Hughes moved to Hollywood to make movies. In the 1930s and 1940s he made such notable films as Hell's Angels (the most expensive movie made until 1941), Scarf ace (which featured Hughes's discovery Jean Harlow as the female lead), and The Outlaw (which Hughes also directed and which introduced Jane Russell). His continuing interest in the movie industry led him to purchase a controlling interest in RKO Pictures Corporation in 1948.

Of Airplanes

Meanwhile, Hughes formed an aviation company that ultimately became Hughes Aircraft. Besides owning the firm, Hughes tested many of the aircraft himself. Over the course of the 1930s he established several speed and endurance records. In September 1935 he set a speed record of 352 miles per hour in a plane of his own design. Three years later he circled the earth in record time, ninety-one hours. But his most famous airplane was the all-wooden, eight-engine Spruce Goose, intended to carry up to 750 passengers. Hughes flew this giant on its maiden and only flight in 1947. While the industrialist was testing planes or making movies, Hughes Aircraft grew to be a major manufacturer of aircraft. It experienced great expansion during World War II, and by 1979 it was the nation's sixth largest defense contractor. Hughes's interest in airplanes also led to his involvement in the airline business—in 1939 he purchased control of TWA; over time he increased his interest in the company to 78 percent. He sold his TWA stock in 1966 for $546.5 million.

Of Seclusion and Controversy

By the time Hughes divested himself of TWA, he had not been seen in public for years. During the 1960s he became quite active in Las Vegas real estate and the gambling industry. He purchased, for example, the Desert Inn, the Sands Hotel, and the Frontier as well as a Las Vegas radio station and Alamo Airways. These new properties, combined with Hughes Tool, Hughes Aircraft, and real-estate holdings in Arizona and California, gave Hughes an estimated net worth of __BODY__ billion at the end of the decade. Increasing interest in the recluse led to scandal. In 1971 writer Clifford Irving claimed to have the memoirs of Hughes. Irving said he and Hughes had collaborated on the autobiography. Hughes denied the story, and in 1972 the manuscript was discovered to be a forgery. In the last years of his life the wealthy hermit grew stranger and stranger. Seen only by a few male aides, he shuttled in secrecy between quarters in luxury hotels in Las Vegas, Mexico, the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Canada, and England. Apparently becoming deranged from a poor diet and large doses of drugs, he died, oddly enough, in an airplane taking him to Houston for medical treatment in 1976. Even after his death, controversy continued. With his estate estimated as high as $2 billion, several different "wills" surfaced, one showing up in the Mormon church offices in Salt Lake City. All ultimately proved to be forgeries, and no authentic will has been located.