Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was an American Aviator, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was one of the richest and most influential people in the world during his lifetime. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder, chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.
As a film tycoon, Hughes gained fame in Hollywood beginning in the late 1920s, when he produced big-budget and often controversial films such as The Racket, Hell's Angels, and Scarface. He later acquired the RKO Pictures film studio in 1948, recognized then as one of the Big Five studios in Hollywood, although the production company struggled under his control and ultimately ceased operations in 1957.
In 1932, Hughes founded Hughes Aircraft Company and spent the next two decades setting multiple world air speed records and building landmark planes like the Hughes H-1 Racer and the H-4 Hercules. The H-4 was the largest flying boat in history with the longest wingspan of any aircraft from the time it was built until 2019. He acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines and later acquired Air West, renaming it Hughes Airwest. Hughes won the Harmon Trophy on two occasions, the Collier Trophy, and the Congressional Gold Medal all for his achievements in aviation throughout the 1930s. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973 and was included in Flying magazine's 2013 list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation, ranked at 25.
During his final years, Hughes extended his financial empire to include several major businesses in Las Vegas, such as real estate, hotels, casinos, and media outlets. Known at the time as one of the most powerful men in the state of Nevada, he is largely credited with transforming Las Vegas into a more refined cosmopolitan city. After years of mental and physical decline, Hughes died of kidney failure in 1976. His legacy is maintained through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Howard Hughes Holdings Inc.
Early life
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was the only child of Allene Stone Gano and of Howard R. Hughes Sr., a successful inventor and businessman from Missouri. He had English, Welsh and some French Huguenot ancestry, and was a descendant of John Gano, the minister who allegedly baptized George Washington. Through John Gano's sister Sussanah, Hughes was a fifth cousin once removed of the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who invented the first successful airplane.Hughes Sr. patented the two-cone roller bit in 1909, which allowed rotary drilling for petroleum in previously inaccessible places. The senior Hughes made the shrewd and lucrative decision to commercialize the invention by leasing the bits instead of selling them, obtaining several early patents, and founding the Hughes Tool Company in 1909.
Hughes' uncle was the famed novelist, screenwriter, and film director Rupert Hughes.
A 1941 affidavit birth certificate of Hughes, signed by his aunt Annette Gano Lummis and by Estelle Boughton Sharp, states that he was born on December 24, 1905, in Harris County, Texas. However, his certificate of baptism, recorded on October 7, 1906, in the parish register of St. John's Episcopal Church in Keokuk, Iowa, listed his date of birth as September 24, 1905, without any reference to the place of birth.
At a young age, Hughes Jr. showed interest in science and technology. In particular, he had a great engineering aptitude, and built Houston's first "wireless" radio transmitter at age 11. He went on to be one of the first licensed ham-radio operators in Houston, having the assigned callsign W5CY. At 12, Hughes was photographed for the local newspaper, which identified him as the first boy in Houston to have a "motorized" bicycle, which he had built from parts of his father's steam engine. He was an indifferent student, with a liking for mathematics, flying, and mechanics. He took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended Fessenden School in Massachusetts in 1921.
After a brief stint at The Thacher School, Hughes attended math and aeronautical engineering courses at Caltech. The house where Hughes lived as a teenager at 3921 Yoakum Blvd., Houston, still stands, now known as Hughes House on the grounds of the University of St. Thomas.
His mother Allene died in March 1922 from complications of an ectopic pregnancy. Howard Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack in 1924. Their deaths apparently inspired Hughes to include the establishment of a medical research laboratory in the will that he signed in 1925 at age 19. Howard Sr.'s will had not been updated since Allene's death, and Hughes Jr. inherited 75% of the family fortune. On his 19th birthday, Hughes was declared an emancipated minor, enabling him to take full control of his life.
From a young age, Hughes became a proficient and enthusiastic golfer. He often scored near-par figures, playing the game to a two-three handicap during his 20s, and for a time aimed for a professional golf career. He golfed frequently with top players, including Gene Sarazen. Hughes rarely played competitively and gradually gave up his passion for the sport to pursue other interests.
Hughes played golf every afternoon at Los Angeles courses including the Lakeside Golf Club, Wilshire Country Club, or the Bel-Air Country Club. Partners included George Von Elm or Ozzie Carlton. After Hughes hurt himself in the late 1920s, his golfing tapered off, and after his XF-11 crash, Hughes was unable to play at all.
Hughes withdrew from Rice University shortly after his father's death. On June 1, 1925, he married Ella Botts Rice, daughter of David Rice and Martha Lawson Botts of Houston, and great-niece of William Marsh Rice, for whom Rice University was named. They moved to Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a name for himself as a filmmaker.
They moved into the Ambassador Hotel, and Hughes proceeded to learn to fly a Waco, while simultaneously producing his first motion picture, Swell Hogan. In 1929, after four years of marriage, Ella returned to Houston and filed for divorce.
Business career
Hughes enjoyed a highly successful business career beyond engineering, aviation and film-making; many of his career endeavors involved varying entrepreneurial roles.Entertainment
persuaded Hughes to finance a short film, Swell Hogan, which Graves had written and would star in. Hughes himself produced it. When he screened it, he thought it was a disaster. After hiring a film editor to try to salvage it, he finally ordered that it be destroyed. His next two films, Everybody's Acting and Two Arabian Knights, achieved financial success; the latter won the first Academy Award for Best Director of a comedy picture. The Racket and The Front Page were also nominated for Academy Awards.Hughes spent $3.5 million to make the flying film Hell's Angels. Hell's Angels received one Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
He produced another hit, Scarface, a production delayed by censors' concern over its violence.
The Outlaw premiered in 1943, but was not released nationally until 1946. The film featured Jane Russell, who received considerable attention from industry censors, this time owing to her revealing costumes.
RKO
From the 1940s to the late 1950s, the Hughes Tool Company ventured into the film industry when it obtained partial ownership of the RKO companies, which included RKO Pictures, RKO Studios, a chain of movie theaters known as RKO Theatres and a network of radio stations known as the RKO Radio Network.In 1948, Hughes gained control of RKO, a struggling major Hollywood studio, by acquiring the 929,000 shares owned by Floyd Odlum's Atlas Corporation, for $8,825,000. Within weeks of acquiring the studio, Hughes dismissed 700 employees. Production dwindled to 9 pictures during the first year of Hughes' control; previously RKO had averaged 30 per year.
File:Janet Leigh and John Wayne in 'Jet Pilot', 1957.jpg|thumb|Janet Leigh and John Wayne in Jet Pilot. Hughes was the producer of the film when he acquired RKO.
That same year, 1948, he was able to arrange for his previous films with United Artists, The Outlaw, Mad Wednesday, and Vendetta to be transferred to RKO. In exchange for the three completed being removed from UA distribution, Hughes and James and Theodore Nasser of General Service Studios would provide the financing of three independent films for distribution by UA. In terms of negotiations directly with RKO, the company agree to remove the production of the film Jet Pilot from David O. Selznick to Hughes. Hughes produced the film during the years 1949-1950 and owned RKO and in turn the distribution for the film. However, the film was not released until 1957 by Universal Pictures due in part to the subsequent events that would take place at RKO Distribution, and largely due the extra aerial film footage that had been filmed over the years after the film's 1950 completion. Hughes was undertaking a final edit before the 1957 release.
After his acquisition of RKO, Hughes shut down production at the studio for six months, during which time he ordered investigations into the political leanings of every remaining RKO employee. Only after ensuring that the stars under contract to RKO had no suspect affiliations would Hughes approve completed pictures to be sent back for re-shooting. This was especially true of the women under contract to RKO at that time. If Hughes felt that his stars did not properly represent the political views of his liking or if a film's anti-communist politics were not sufficiently clear, he pulled the plug. In 1952, an abortive sale to a Chicago-based five-man syndicate, two of whom had a history of complaints about their business practices and none with any experience in the movie industry, disrupted studio operations at RKO even further.
In 1953, Hughes became involved with a high-profile lawsuit as part of the settlement of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Antitrust Case. As a result of the hearings, the shaky status of RKO became increasingly apparent. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders had grown to become extremely annoying to Hughes. They had accused him of financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement. Since Hughes wanted to focus primarily on his aircraft manufacturing and TWA holdings during the years of the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, Hughes offered to buy out all other RKO stockholders in order to dispense with their distractions.
By the end of 1954, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO at a cost of nearly $24 million, becoming the first sole owner of a major Hollywood studio since the silent-film era. Six months later, Hughes sold the studio to the General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures that he had personally produced, including those made at RKO. He also retained Jane Russell's contract. For Howard Hughes, this was the virtual end of his 25-year involvement in the motion-picture industry. However, his reputation as a financial wizard emerged unscathed. During that time period, RKO became known as the home of classic film noir productions, thanks in part to the limited budgets required to make such films during Hughes' tenure. Hughes reportedly walked away from RKO having made $6.5 million in personal profit. According to Noah Dietrich, Hughes made a $10,000,000 profit from the sale of the theaters and made a profit of $1,000,000 from his 7-year ownership of RKO.