American billionaire Howard Hughes: biography, films, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (1905-24-12 – 1976-05-04) was an American aviator, businessman, and producer known for his aversion to publicity and for his use of his we alth.

Short biography

Howard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas to mining engineer Howard Robard Hughes Sr. and Allen Gano. The boy was three years old when his father developed a bit that revolutionized oil drilling and brought great profits to his company. While his parents were outgoing socialites, Howard grew up quiet and introspective, showing little interest in school other than an aptitude for mathematics and a knack for making crafts from wire and scrap metal. Strongly attached to his mother, he was in awe of his father. Everyone who met him years later claimed that Howard Hughes (photo posted later in the article) never considered himself equal to them.

At the age of fourteen, he was enrolled at the Fessenden School in West Newton, Massachusetts. At home during the holidays, his mother did not allow him to ride a motorcycle, believing it was unsafe. Then he turned his bike into a moped using partsfrom a car starter and a battery. On another occasion, when his father promised him that he would give him whatever he wanted, Hughes chose to ride in a flying boat. So he discovered the beauty of aviation, which soon became an obsession.

Young millionaire

Hughes' drill bit had a great impact on the development of the American oil industry. Spending more and more time in California, in September 1921, Howard's parents sent him to the Thatcher School in Ojai, about 112 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles. His uncle Rupert Hughes was a leading screenwriter in Hollywood, and through him the family began to get acquainted with the upper strata of local society. In the spring of 1922, Howard's mother died after an operation. Father and son returned to Houston, where Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack in 1924 during a marketing meeting.

Howard Hughes, whose biography was overshadowed by the loss of his parents in the prime of their lives, at the age of eighteen began to suffer from hypochondria, fear of death and germs. Then he decided to drop out of the Rice Institute in Houston and go into business. Having inherited 75% of the shares of his father's enterprise, he bought the remaining 25%, which were distributed among relatives. This had to be achieved long and hard, the procedure provoked a lot of scandals, which, however, worried Howard very little. Hughes said that in order to take command, you have to be tough with people. He never backed down from that position.

Howard Hughes and his women

The young businessman did not like the administrative side of his business, and he hired people who knew what to do almost without his participation. His decision was successful, and the company prospered, which allowed Hughes to have more free time. He soon fell in love with Houston resident Ella Rice, whom he married in 1925. They settled in Los Angeles, where Howard decided to become a film producer.

Hughes was a man to whom it was useless to give advice. He did whatever he wanted. His first film, Swell Hogan, was so bad it was never released, but his second, Everybody's Acting (1926), did better, as did Two Arabian Knights (1927). d.) directed by Lewis Milestone and starring William Boyd. The last tape brought Milestone "Oscar" for best comedy director. Hughes' next films, The Mating Call and The Racket (both 1928), were successful enough to inspire him to direct the World War I aviation epic Hell's Angels, which took two and a half years to shoot. Howard was lavish with money, buying planes and hiring pilots, practically operating his own small air force in the San Fernando Valley. The film's budget reached $4 million, an unheard of amount at the time, and Hughes shot 300 times more than was necessary. Released in the summer of 1930 during a national depression, the film was well received but took a long time to cover the costs.

The cost included Howard's marriage. Hughes split from Ella Riceshe returned to Houston, arguing that it was impossible to marry a man who was obsessed with his work and was rarely at home. After that, the producer fell in love with actress Billy Dove, who starred in his next two films The Age of Love (“The Age of Love”) and Cock of the Air. They came out in 1931, but were not successful, as was the affair with Dove, which became the first in a long line of his affairs with actresses. Howard Hughes and Ava Gardner, aka Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Ida Lupino, Bette Davis, Sid Charris - they were all lovers in their time.

Foundation of the airline

Hughes Howard showed World War I planes again in Heavenly Devils (1931), starring Spencer Tracy, but the film failed to replicate Hells Angels. Faring much better were Front Page (1931) and Scarface (1932), which are considered mini-classics.

Hughes has said his next film will be about blimps, but his Hughes Tool executives have resisted spending money on another epic. He took their advice even more than they expected. Howard Hughes not only did not make the film, he abandoned the film business altogether. In 1933 he founded Hughes Aircraft in Glendale, California. Nine years later, he relocated it to Culver City, where it grew into one of the most profitable aircraft companies in the world.

Air ace

Howard Hughes - aviator in 1934 received a prize at the All-American Air Competition in Miami,piloting a Boeing he purchased from the US Army and converted into a racing aircraft. In September 1935 he set a new speed record in a car he had designed himself, and the following January set a new transcontinental speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey in 9 hours and 12 minutes. His aerial adventures made him a popular figure in the press and on the airways, especially in 1938 when, in a converted twin-engine Lockheed 14 with a crew of four, he circled the world in 3 days 12 hours and 28 minutes. In May 1939, what would later become Trans World Airlines became Howard's property. Hughes entered the commercial aviation market with her help, and in the autumn of that year she began designing new types of military aircraft in case the United States became involved in the war.

Murder charge

June 11, 1936, Hughes was driving down Wilshire Boulevard and fatally hit a pedestrian named Gabriel Meyer. He was arrested and charged with murder. Despite breaking the law with his reckless driving, Hughes was released without charge. In his book Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (2004), Charles Higham argues that in those days, district attorneys could be bought and sold, and that anyone with enough money could pay off almost anything.

Outlaw

In the 1940s, Hughes founded another film company. He announced that he would make a movie about Billy the Kid with unknown actors as Billy and his girlfriend. In the latter case, hechose nineteen-year-old Jane Russell, apparently because of her well-developed bust. For this reason, The Outlaw (1943) was censored, which was widely reported in the media. Hughes personally handled directing. After an initial ban on showing the picture, he finally got permission to release it, but decided to wait two years to allow public curiosity to grow even more. Rightly called a ridiculously bad movie, The Outlaw still made millions for Howard.

Hughes managed to do a lot during the years of shooting the picture. In 1943, he joined forces with shipbuilder Henry Kaiser and won a government contract to build three huge flying boats. But only one was built - this is the famous Hercules aircraft by Howard Hughes. The flying boat order was canceled when it became apparent that they could not be completed in time for use in the war. Other aircraft contracts were also cancelled.

Plane crash

Always unusual in his habits and behavior, the tycoon has become even more eccentric. Nevertheless, Howard Hughes, whose biography is full of accidents, had an amazing ability to stay alive. On July 7, 1946, his XF-11's engines failed during a test flight. The plane crashed, exploded and burned. The pilot was pulled out of the wreckage with a crushed chest, broken ribs and a failed lung. Doctors doubted that he would live. Nevertheless, within a month the magnate recovered and soon began to fly again. Few people knew that Howard Hughes "treated" his illness with codeine.

Cinema and airplanes

Despite the pain and problems of running the aviation corporation, Hughes turned to the film industry again, perhaps because of the profits and publicity that The Outlaw brought. He signed contracts with two well-known Hollywood figures, Harold Lloyd and Preston Sturges, to shoot the comedy Mad Wednesday ("Crazy Wednesday", 1947), but it was expected to fail. Then Hughes took his beloved - 22-year-old Faith Domergue - in the title role in the costume drama Vendetta ("Vendetta", 1948). Howard Hughes unfortunately had to put this film on the shelf, as even he saw how bad the picture was.

Parallel to filming, he had other things to do, one of which was his desire to restore the XF-11 and prove it airworthy, which he did on April 5, 1947. Four months later, he testified to the Senate Military Investigation Committee about his work as a defense contractor. Hughes made many enemies during the war years, and he was not as successful as he had hoped. Hughes Aircraft did not become a giant as he planned - it will happen later, in the space age. The massive Hercules was literally accused of being unairworthy, which Hughes denied after flying for several minutes over the waters of Long Beach Harbor on November 2, 1947.

Where did the 40 million go?

In 1945, journalist Westbrook Pegler claimed to have seen an FBI file that claimed Hughes used hiswe alth to illegally obtain government contracts. The following year, Owen Brewster, chairman of the Senate Military Investigative Committee, said he was very concerned that the government had given Howard $40 million to design and manufacture two aircraft that were never made. He also noted that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, contrary to the opinion of his military experts, gave Hughes the contracts for the production of the F-11 and the HK-1 (also known as the Hercules).

Brewster said that Hughes organized parties for government officials to influence their future decision. Howard paid the starlets $200 each to take part. Their duties included nude swimming in the Hughes pool. Julius Krug, head of the war production board, was one of those who frequented these parties. One congressman who was also a frequent visitor to Howard's home said, "If it's true that they were paid $200, they were grossly underpaid."

Hughes, accused of corruption, leaked information to journalists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson that Owen Brewster was receiving money from Pan American Airways (Pan Am) to compromise him. According to Howard, Pan Am was trying to convince the United States government to create an official world monopoly under its control. Part of this plan was to force all existing US carriers operating overseas to close or merge with Pan Am. As owner of Trans World Airlines, Hughesposes a serious threat to this plan. According to Howard, Brewster approached him with a proposal to merge Trans World with Pan Am. When he refused, the chairman of the committee launched a smear campaign against him.

Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson believed Hughes and launched their own campaign against Owen Brewster. They reported that Pan Am provided the committee chairman with free flights to Hobe Sound, Florida, where he entertained at Pan Am Vice President Sam Pryor's vacation home. These allegations were repeated by Hughes when he appeared before the Senate Military Investigation Committee. He also accused Brewster of trying to blackmail him into merging with Trans World Pan Am. The chairman of the committee denied the allegations, but it helped divert attention from the issue of $40 million in public money.

The Senate Military Investigation Committee never completed its F-11 and HK-1 non-delivery report. The Committee ceased its meetings and was eventually dissolved.

Purchase and sale of RKO studio

Obsessive-compulsive disorder - what Howard Hughes suffered from - did not allow him to admit defeat. In 1948, he bought the Hollywood studio RKO. Hughes owned and operated it for five years, while remaining in his office at the Goldwyn studios, having only visited the RKO site once. Few films made during these years became financially profitable, and all the producers, directors, and writers of RKO complained that they were never able to meet with Hughes to discuss their problems. Eventually the latter declared that RKOhe needs it like the plague, and sold the studio for $25 million, of which, after paying off debts to shareholders and lawyers, he had $6 million left.

Foundation of the Medical Institute

Howard's interests in other businesses, especially aviation, only increased during his years at RKO, and his we alth ran into the millions. It was during this time that he founded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Florida, an expression of his concern for germs and disease. He promised to bequeath the majority of his we alth to the institute so that it would do something good on his behalf. Always a loner, he became even more reclusive and eventually stopped communicating with everyone except the management of his business. In 1957, he married actress Jean Peters, but the marriage was unconventional as the partners rarely lived together. They divorced in 1971.

Howard Hughes: biography. Illness and the last years of life

Whatever the failures in marriage or in filmmaking, Hughes' success in building jet and military aircraft grew. But the stress of all these endeavors took a toll on his he alth, and in 1958 Howard suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1965, the Atomic Energy Commission announced that it was going to begin nuclear testing at Pahute Mesa, just 150 miles from Howard Hughes' home. He contacted Richard Nixon, who refused to speak out against the tests. During the 1968 presidential campaign, Hughes aide Robert Mayo met with Hubert Humphrey in Denver. Mayo saidHumphrey that Hughes is willing to pay him $100,000 if he does something about these nuclear tests. Humphrey promised that if he was elected, he would appoint a commission of scientists to study the effects of radiation.

According to the author of Howard Hughes: The Secret Life, Hughes was delighted and promised the committee $300,000. But Hughes feared that Bobby Kennedy would defeat Humphrey, who lacked the glamor, charisma, and name of his rival. On June 4, 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Hughes was concerned that Edward Kennedy would replace his brother, and so he decided to bribe Larry O'Brien, Kennedy's campaign manager. Robert Mayo met O'Brien in Las Vegas on July 4, 1968. As a result of the meeting, it was agreed that Hughes would pay O'Brien $15,000 a month.

Hughes had constant conflicts with the government over taxes, in the end, he left California and settled in Nevada. In 1967, he bought the Desert Inn in Las Vegas to make it his home and business headquarters in Nevada. In 1966, he sold TWA for $566 million. Four years later, Hughes acquired Air West.

To avoid paying taxes, in November 1970, Hughes moved to the Britannia Beach Hotel, located on the Bahamian Paradise Island. He never returned to the United States again. The last six years of his life were when he moved from one luxury hotel to another.

Death in flight

Hughes has become a recluse living behind closed curtains. He moved to Managua (Nicaragua), from there - to Vancouver, London, Freeport onBahamas and, finally, in Acapulco (Mexico). In 1972, he sold Hughes Tool for $150 million. The assets of his Summa corporation, which managed his entire business, were valued at $2 billion. Despite his we alth, the billionaire looked like a man living in extreme poverty. In recent years, Howard Hughes did not treat his illness and did not eat properly. He was emaciated: at the time of his death, his weight was only 42 kg. Hughes did not allow his assistants to take care of him until he finally fell into unconsciousness. They tried to transport him to Houston, but by the time the plane landed, he was already dead. Howard Hughes died in flight, which was a blessing to him, for only in the air did he feel at home. The childless billionaire left the world his possessions and a name that has become a legend.

The Howard Hughes film The Aviator won top honors at the Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood. In addition, the film was awarded five Oscars, the US Screen Actors Guild Award and four awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) is shown during his life from the late 1920s to the late 1940s.