Howard Hughes: The Man and the Madness - Documentary | Biography

you one of the richest men the oldest studio girls were flocking to him Tara's eccentric there's no question about he wasn't crazy and been estranged and that he had some damage money he probably made the greatest aviation picture ever made Hells Angels planes and the aviation industry were his first love he loved machines morning than people really Hughes was a man who lived on his ability to get along because they would make exceptions for him he was wealthy if he was powerful and he had cash we'd say with this remember there's no one that I can't buy a destroy he was called intents and purposes an inmate because he was a prisoner of his own fears he wanted me to be in constant touch with him and I'd always I just spoke to the poorest man in the world Howard Hughes life began in Houston Texas Christmas Eve 1905 the Texas oil industry was booming and Hughes father left his law practice to live the life of a wildcat although not an immediate success in the oil business he made ends meet by taking on odd jobs his luck changed however when he bought a wooden prototype for the rocky an oil drilling bit which could chew through fixed slabs of rock the source of frustration for many and Wellman on manufacturing and testing the bit Hughes senior brought a partner on board and founded the Sharpe Hughes Tool Company while his father was away selling his new discovery Hughes overprotective mother stayed home and lavished unusual amounts of attention on her only child his mother was a very powerful influence on it partly I think as much as anybody helped instill the sort of lifelong phobia fear and germs at the age of 16 Howard was away at school when he learned that his mother had died during surgery two years later Howard's father died of a heart attack when that happened he was began to exhibit all the traits that you would see throughout his life that very strong-willed character that tremendous streak of Independence nobody's going to tell me what to do with my money or how to run my various enterprises all of those things that really dominated him as an adult manifested themselves very quickly much to the surprise and anger by the way of the other family members he was smart enough at age 19 to go before a judge in Houston convinced the judge that he was sophisticated enough to buy his uncle who owned a who also had ownership in Hughes - at which time he became the sole owner of Hughes tool but he wanted control from day one the time he was 19 20 years old which was the one word if you were going to describe the man from one to the end was control they want to control everything firmly in control of Hughes Tool Company young Howard married socialite Ella rice pack their bags and headed for Hollywood a place whose glamour had always fascinated him his uncle screenwriter Rupert Hughes was there to introduce him to the moguls of the film industry the newlyweds settled into a spanish-style home on fashionable Muirfield Road Hollywood society embraced him but secretly referred to him as the sucker with the money Hughes began to immerse himself in the business of moviemaking spending months on film sets absorbing all the technical knowledge he could he'd spent entire evenings dismantling film projectors obsessed with learning every nuance of the industry in a pattern that would continue the rest of his life Hughes stopped carrying a watch no longer distinguishing between day and night during what he called his awake hours he'd work up to 40 hours without sleep breaking only for an occasional can of beans or an avocado and bacon sandwich once familiar with the cluttered sets swinging moods of actors and directors and a general confusion of filmmaking he was decided it was time to become a player he chose as his first project a story called swell Hogan an ill-fated venture that cost him $60,000 his family and associates begged him to stop squandering his fortune and get out of the picture business he ignored them and immediately put up money for everybody's acting the critics loved it and profits from the film all but made up for his previous loss at the age of 21 Hughes was a producer with a confirmed hit with a limelight on him Hughes wanted to free himself from the pressures of day-to-day business so he hired on Noah Dietrich as an advisor Dietrich came to work for him in the 1930s when his dependent as Howard was on the Tool Company based in Houston he felt he needed some blaze on who would be able to look over the books and advised him as to how it was doing Noah took the business from that point built it up to where at times it was running between 50 and 55 million dollars a year in those days now Hughes had time for what really interested him the glitz and glamour of Hollywood he established a film office and signed talented director Lewis milestone to a three-year contract their first effort to Arabian night made stars of them unknown actors Lewis Walheim and William Boyd more importantly it earned Hughes his first Academy Award in 1927 next failing to find a director who shared his love for airplanes Hughes decided to write produce and direct Hells Angels an epic picture about two british fliers competing for the hand of an english socialite back at home Hughes owned socialite his wife Ella had had enough she filed for divorce claiming abandonment and cruelty for the production of Hell's Angels he was employed with seemed like most of Hollywood he acquired an air fleet that rivaled that of some small countries buying up World War one fighter planes and hiring every available pilot in Hollywood he even became obsessed with cloud formations often postponing expensive production schedules until the skies were just right on top of these headaches came a host of other problems Hughes and expert pilot himself went up one day in a small Scout plane he had never flown before to the horror of the pilots and stuntmen the plane went into a tailspin and crashed Hughes walked away unhurt leaving crew members to joke that at least he hadn't injured his check-writing arm he was luck was better than some two other pilots died during production by the time Hughes put finishing touches on Hell's Angels the public had begun a love affair with the new talkie Pictures Hughes was crestfallen he wanted Hells Angels to be the greatest epic ever seen but he realized that without a soundtrack it would have little chance against the pleading of business directors Hughes had a new script written and began refilling the dialogue scenes leading lady greta neilson lost the part because of her thick Norwegian accent Harleen carpenter then a bit player in Laurel and Hardy comedies replaced her and was soon transformed by Hughes into Jean Harlow the platinum blonde bombshell would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable four million dollars later the film premiered in typical Hughes style at Grauman's Chinese Theatre looking at Hollywood buddhabar illuminating for miles in honor of the opening of Hell's Angel full of waste time in history fine beaten Hollywood Boulevard had been made we were two miles to the heart of Hollywood from who that word opening Hells Angels broke box office records everywhere but privately he was confided that taking a project of that size on by himself was one of his biggest mistakes but that didn't stop him from trying to cash in on the success of Hell's Angels he released two quickly produced aviation pictures [ __ ] of the air and sky Devils both were complete failures another effort age for love was equally as bad so too was his relationship with its leading lady Billy dove however very much in love with gold of who and sound pictures was the most beautiful woman on the screen but they had a falling out and I never forgot Howard told me that he loaded all the furniture up there from Billy's house took it in the middle of a desolate box strangely enough right on Wilshire Boulevard said part of the whole damn thing bring up the van and furniture and all he amazes wouldn't be able to do that today anywhere I guess but at that time he did what he want in theaters around the country newsreels broadcast sordid tales of thugs like Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger Hughes reacting to moviegoers fascination with gangsters chose Scarface as his next project a story loosely based on the life of Al Capone this time he took a more hands-off approach allowing Howard Hawks to direct Hawks cast Paul Muni and George Raft in the starring roles the film with its scenes of graphic violence lust rape and hints of incest proved to be controversial in fact the self-censoring Hays office blacklisted the film insisting on a new title and new ending but much to the surprise of Hollywood Hughes sued the Hays office and won the right to show Scarface in its original form if you had a reputation for fighting the censors was he a great champion of First Amendment rights and the answer that is no but he saw fighting the censors is a wonderful way to drum up mercantile interest in his movies you've never lost interest in films but for a while he stepped away from moviemaking and became more serious about his favorite hobby flying he and his Hollywood pals could regularly be seen buzzing the skies above Southern California Noah deeply just say you go flying around with Howard he goes out there he picks any aeroplanes to found the damn landing strip and takes off from it you're gonna wind up getting killed but Howard never got killed nor did we Jews would disappear for days piloting his boeing pursuit plane between California and Palm Springs in 1934 Hughes entered the Boeing in an air meet in Miami he easily won the race with an average speed of 185 miles per hour fueled by his success aviation became a full-time obsession - Hughes working under the pseudonym Charles Howard Hughes earned $250 a month as an assistant pilot for American Airlines he took the job in order to learn the intricacies and mechanics of flight he loved to fly our planes loved everything about airplanes love the gauges and airplanes love to talk to pilots the whole process he was some sort mine after only two months Hughes quit American Airlines and along with mechanic Glenn Oedekerk formed the Hughes Aircraft Company together they set out to design and build the world's fastest racer the h1 that particular plane was one that he was instrumental in helping to design but the heart of the way he designed airplanes was he was a great brain coal ideas in the whole range of things who made them decide which ones might work Madison what other people the h1 was a perfect example that outstanding very swept extremely modern looking plan for its time on August 18th 1935 used boarded the h1 and set a land speed record of 352 miles per hour as ship is raised from runway and wings into the air wraps are coming off craft that has long been called the mystery plane and then the mystery unfolds and its owner backer builder and pilot Howard Hughes brings the plane in from its test flight for a landing at the dangerous speed of 75 miles an hour it's only 1935 yet millionaire sportsman Howard Hughes has flown over 300 miles an hour then he began to dream of bigger prizes on the transcontinental flights the next year he flew another plane from California to Newark set a transcontinental record for the time the year after that can get another play he repeated the process each time shaving off time well I'm from Burbank California to New York in 7 hours 28 minutes is certainly some speed now I understand that you flew 332,000 hours that correct the public was fascinated with Howard Hughes dashing aviator in 1937 he was given the Harmon trophy for outstanding achievement in aviation in a White House ceremony President Roosevelt presented Hughes with the trophy saying he hoped someday they could fly together by 1938 Hughes was ready to begin what would become one of his greatest achievements a flight around the world if I seem to be in too much of a hurry to wait post your pictures it's not because I'm high hat or anything like that but just because I've been terribly worried that I wouldn't get out of here before the weather changed I had a good break in the weather yesterday and I've lost that and I suppose it'll be fair today but I've been in a purple rush to get away from here to help you'll forgive me are you bad thousands watched as Hughes and a hand-picked flight crew took to the skies aboard their modified Lockheed 14 dubbed the New York world fair for good luck hues dipped the wings over then girlfriend Katharine Hepburn's home and set out on a flight that would assure his name a place in aviation history every conceivable kind of electronic gadget imaginable they packed onto that plane the difference between that playing in 1938 in Lindbergh's spirit of st. Louis across the water of just two slightly more than ten years before that is like night and day I mean the lucky that they flew around the world and was a very sophisticated airplane for its time that showed that interest of his in technology and it was a great contribution toward seeing the kinds of long distances that the planes could tackle Hughes first landing was a record breaker in itself from New York to Paris in 16 hours and 38 minutes with use at the controls a course was charted from Paris to Moscow and down to Siberia as the world watched and waited for news of the brave crew but not all the news was good leaving Siberia used barely averted disaster when he narrowly missed flying the Lockheed head-on into a Siberian mountain range that had been misidentified on his us survey man arriving in New York Hughes was celebrated as a hero circling the globe in the astonishing time of three days 19 hours and 7 minutes I know you're tired congratulations welcome home set to the time line then the truth is you lost your antenna last night for three days the painfully shy hues and your ticker tape parades and receptions in New York Chicago Washington and Houston in 1940 Hughes decided to move his aviation experience into a more practical arena by purchasing a controlling share in Transworld airlines Hughes was instrumental in the growth of TWA and even conceived the original design for the Lockheed Constellation he called us up one day and said I want to take a group to New York it's an inaugural of the new plane that we've just done it was named after my wife Connie Morris it was called the constellation so I said well you put the group together at your house and meet me at the Burbank Airport and we're going to do it as a midnight flight so I said sure who do you want said get every star in the business we had Paulette Goddard we had Lana Turner Merle Oberon Cary Grant every star you could think of was in that thing I never backed it when I called Paulette Goddard she said tell Howard I'll do the trip but I want to round-trip tickets to Rome I've called Howard I said you want Goddard you got to give her two tickets around suzhou that pitch give it to her so she had two tickets to to rome and anyway as we got off the plane in New York and it was a blizzard was it blowing 60 mile an hour tailwind so we look they're a little over five hours which fantastic for a prop ship that time while Howard was busy flying friends from coast to coast the war was beginning to rage in Europe the Defense Department called on Hughes Aircraft to supply aircraft components artillery shells and cannon barrels within the crowded hughes aircraft hangar work was also underway on an all wood long-range bomber dubbed the d2 by 1942 Allied ships were being decimated by German u-boats to overcome this menace President Roosevelt looked to Henry J Kaiser a businessman turned ship builder during the war and because he'd been so successful at that the plan he proposed as much as anybody talked to use into an initially let's build his giant flying boats twofer admitted material across the seas that's the way to get around the German u-boat menace and who's old would like to challenge said that sounds great in anticipation of the flying boat contract Hughes began testing his amphibious Sikorsky s 43 in Nevada's Lake Mead in the process he was involved in a violent crash his fourth Hughes again escaped injury but to co-pilots died in the accident Hughes learned quickly how to move in political circles and instructed his press agent John Mayer to entertain a group of visiting military men among the group was President Roosevelt's son Eliot a man with influence in the acquisition of military aircraft Meyer escorted the men on tours of Hollywood he threw parties in their honor in attendance were hopeful starlets all too willing to lavish attention on the important visitors these contacts plus Hughes powerful Washington lobbyists resulted in securing an additional contract for 100 of Hughes xf11 reconnaissance aircraft an offshoot of the earlier d2 design while Hughes was content with having received the contracts the actual task of designing and manufacturing the aircraft left him mentally exhausted the flying boat was an astonishing achievement in some ways but one of the most impractical things ever conceived I mean building a plane of that size was an enormous undertaking to begin with but building one out of wood where you had to measure every particular piece for its density versus a piece of metal where you know what that density will be absolutely nightmarish kind of thing to undertake and it helped as much as a to push shoes into his first major mental breakdown which occurred in World War two where he went off to the desert Nevada for several months and just basically had isolate himself from the calls from the pressure from the decisions that went into building that particular it's also one of the reason that was not finished for the war was over although World War two had ended Hughes continued production on the flying vote and personally financed the completion of his xf11 many of Hughes Hollywood friends looked on as he piloted the prototype xf11 as in the past he was insisted on personally testing his aircraft the flight ended in tragedy as the plane lost a propeller and Kareem toward a residential section of Beverly Hills he could have saved himself all he had to do was parachute out but he the plane something went wrong with a plane and he kind of fought with the plane trying to find out what was wrong with it and boom all of a sudden it hit we were going to visit dennis o'keefe who lived on the street about two blocks away from the country club and we because we got to Dennis's house he said twice how his plane just took the top of our roof off the house and landed up to me and the country club crashed and I couldn't believe in it over there but Howard had been taken away already he was really banged up Hughes was rushed to a Beverly Hills emergency room doctors reported that he was in shock had serious burns broken bones and his torso had been crushed so badly that his heart had shifted to one side of his chest cavity he was given morphine and left to die it's not entirely clear exactly how it affected it physically from then on out but it has always been assumed that some of us attached attachment to codeine which turned out to be a lifelong addiction stemmed from that time miraculously Hughes survived and while in the hospital showed promising signs of recovery while he was in the hospital and he began to feel better they didn't have automatic beds and Howard designed the automatic bed in the hospital where you can raise the feet or the head or the middle of it whatever the hell you want to do the controls are at the beds and those house all the hospitals have those beds now and how to design that bed one year after the crash and fully recovered Hughes took to the air in the rebuild xf11 the government was not impressed and announced it would launch an investigation into Hughes work as a defense contractor mr. Hughes the papers say that you're going back to Washington is that correct yes I'm going there to testify before senator Brewster's more investigating committee as you know the committee has caused quite a stir by its investigation of my two airplane projects the xf11 photographic plane and my large flight for 40 million dollars has been paid by the government to the huge aviation company and nothing has been thus far received what became of the 40 million is what we want to know so I ask you this question again senator Brewster during my last trip to Washington and while we were in your suite at the Mayflower Hotel did you or did you not offer the call off this entire investigation if I would agree to merge TWA Transworld airline with your friend Quon trips Pan American Airways with battle lines drawn the hearings began on July 28th 1947 in the caucus room of the Senate office building press agent John Meyer was the first to take the stand and was questioned as to Hughes special treatment of many government officials including the five thousand dollars spent on booze food and women for Elliott Roosevelt and his fellow officers girls were very pleasant what has that got to do with their crap production they just went along every company in the business did it we're no different well but is it you say because she was very charming that's the reason that you charged up 132 dollars that's right for the porch would go into the production of airplane and now will you tell us why you gave her $20 and charged it up to the company to go home if she was very charming what's your top mission listen very good point one Howard Hughes was the last witness to appear and showed obvious contempt for his accusers now will you give me the questions in advance that you want to ask me while I am here or will you give them to any third neutral party is it not true that you are going to propound the questions for me as I testify and based upon what I testify as I go along are you willing to it set aside the question of in advance what you will ask me mr. Hughes when John Mayer failed to appear on August 8th the committee became enraged now mr. Hughes I'm asking you what your answer was and we're not going to have this bickering back and forth you are before this committee and you're going to answer the question you asked me just now about a reply that I made my answer is I don't remember now the man is gone what will you bring mr. Mars in at the two o'clock session oh I know I don't think oh well will you try to bring him in oh I don't think I'll try all right throughout the hearings Hughes stood his ground but the final straw came when questioning turned to the flying boat project I put the sweat of my life into this thing I have my reputation rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it's a failure I'll probably leave this country I never come back and I mean it overall the committee had made a disastrous misjudgment they sought to prove that Hughes had profited from his wartime contracts when in reality he had poured millions of his own dollars into the projects during a break in the hearings Hughes had huge sections of the flying boat moved from Culver City to Long Beach harbor at a cost of $50,000 technical crews work day and night to assemble the components as newspapers speculated that Hughes might attempt to fly the craft before the hearings resumed in a stroke of public relations genius newsreel cameras rolled as Hughes led senators on an inspection of the flying boat I think the United States always a great debt of gratitude to mr. Howard Hughes for conceding and for constructing this great plane it's one of the most valuable contributions through our nautical science I believe which has ever been made and will be of inestimable value not only to aviation but I believe eventually to the country security on November 2nd 1947 thousands of spectators looked on as Hughes taxi the 60 ton craft get to Long Beach harbor air giant starts to move driven by her eight 3,000 horsepower motors and now for mr. Hughes surprise as the enormous craft approaches her 95 mile an hour takeoff speed the product lifts her out of the step and holes are there as she races through the choppy sea and for the final drive of her engines 200 tons are airborne five months ahead of time seventy feet off the water she stays for a mile twenty three million dollars where the airplane has answered a lot of committee questions it can Hugh's head triumphantly proved the merit of his prized flying boat and in the process brought about a quick end to the Brewster hearings when senator Brewster realized that he was fighting a battle against public opinion a losing battle he folded up and took a run-out powder yes that was the tip-off one senator Brewster hit the road for the backwoods of Maine that meant the hearing was over Washington was too hot for him he couldn't take it after that the other senators in this committee saw no reason why they should fight Brewster's losing battle for him if he was too cowardly to remain and face the music I saw what Hughes did to Brewster during the hearing and he helped choose a candidate to run against Brewster gave financial assistance and he defeated Brewster and the last time I saw Owen Brewster he was in the halls of the Senate begging for a ten thousand dollar a year job which he could not get back in Hollywood he was cultivated his image of Hollywood playboy but as one starlet noted Howard could have been cross-eyed and it wouldn't have mattered with all that dough along with the notion that he made a lot of money that he had a Midas touch that he was an aviation genius that he was a financial whiz that he was a great movie maker he also liked to add to that list of superlatives the fact he was a great ladies man Hollywood gossip columns regularly featured Howard Hughes linking him to scores of glamorous starlets he's a bachelor very much available and he courted every girl in the whole damn town at one time I'm sure he is dated which is a kind of a kind word for it all the the girls on the 20th Century Fox contract list yeah Howard Howard he had him gone boy how he was never Wallflower but he didn't mingle too much either yes he was a very shy around woman but he had more woman than anyone I think he had more woman than Errol Flynn and of course he had no trouble having dates because everybody knew who he was and who would liked him he just left to go out and he'd dance he was a good dancer he's a good rhythm that guy could jitterbug Latin dance anything he was fantastic I was at the Coconut Grove one night what's the Howard Hughes munroe I saw him and Marilyn out there jitterbugging like crazy Merrill and I were drinkin don't Perignon Howard : water what he did do with a lot of the girls including Ginger Rogers you'd have a whole tray of jewelry and I mean jewelry beautiful necklaces and brooches and rings and mr. ginger turned him down she wouldn't have a part of it because she was his girl for a while and Kathryn Grayson took it she had that whole tray of jewelry I remember in fact he offered Elizabeth Taylor 1 million dollars tax-free if she would marry him but Elizabeth who was very young at the time got cheated I think she's still in her teens she turned him down very unromantic proposal unfortunately I the one trade in Howard that I never liked and I liked this man very much but he always told every girl he ever went with that it was going to marry her why the hell he said that I don't know it was going with Lana Turner and Lana madly in love and she thought sure she was going to marry him and she went and had all the towels and bed linens monogrammed h/h when Howard found out about he says aren't you Mary Huntington Hartford he was very much in love with Anna Darnell and she was gorgeous but she told me they don't called Hughes Tool Company for nothing Howard Hughes again turned a hobby into an industry when he purchased RKO studios in May of 1948 if he wanted to spend 22 million dollars to buy RKO whether RKO was a success or not didn't make much difference because the following year Hughes tool would spit out another 50 or 55 million that was the company that year-in and year-out churned out the profits and made it possible for him to invest in all of these other things even though he bought the studio and put some good people in there running it he never saw the studio there used to be a legend that Howard Hughes went in the studio one night at midnight and said painted Howard Berman that wasn't true he said the closest he ever got the RKO studio he drove down Gower Street and he turned on Nate and says let's do you needs a paint job the thing was painted in the next day he used office in a little one-room office at golden studio he's have a desk in two wooden chairs but he was just exactly cross an aisle from a projection room and there he would sit every night and see the rushes that were done all day long of all the various pictures at RKO and he would sit there and pick out the scenes that he wanted put in who seems he wanted cut although Howard Hughes was now a powerful studio owner he certainly didn't play the part Howard when he could work he'd worked maybe 48 to 60 hours at a time then conk out and sometimes sleep in his car you had the cheapest car you could buy when I used to ride around with him we have Chevy a stick shift no radio I was driving with him once and I says Howard with all your money why the hell don't you get a Rolls Royce and he says who do I have to impress and he never had a dime in his pocket never had any money he'd always borrow my he never had any money on he never thought about money it just came in you know that gets that huge tool company must have just given you millions to play with in the mid-50s Hughes favorite playground was Las Vegas Nevada he was a regular fixture at floor shows and enjoyed the company of glamorous showgirls but only after a signed contract of silence was procured he moved to Las Vegas long before he bought hotels there because he'd worked 48 hours at a time and then he'd go out and walk around the town no one recognized him and he like you know Las Vegas is a great place to be anonymous it was in Las Vegas that Howard Hughes lived in one of the few houses he actually purchased he called it the green house he lived here from in the 50s the very early 50s and of course it was about that time that he started to turn into this tremendous recluse and he never returned here after he left here in 1955 I believe he left at the time that he left that there is a large area that had monstrous they're actually hotel size air conditioners humidifiers because like I say he did have this horrible fear of germs so the house was just literally a time capsule clothes were still in the closets linens beds are still made just like he was plenty came back this room that we're in right now and is now the dining room was actually his living room and it was very sparsely furnished and I would say in the I called early motel or desperate American it was very utilitarian nothing pretty about it this room was his viewing room he watched movies constantly he slept mostly during the day and you'll notice on the window is the heavy heavy screening there were a massive amount of foams when we originally came in here approximately 50 all of them of course had hearing aids on boosters on them because he was very hard of hearing within this hideaway the only link to his business empire was this small office area complete with a memo recorder and Edison voice writer in Hollywood RKO Studios took a dramatic down slide losing over eight million dollars within the first few years of Hugh's control Hughes was also responsible for firing a large number of RKO employees who he suspected were communists one of the persons fired was studio head Dorrie sherry I got a call from Howard one night and Howard said I've got to get rid of Deutsch arey he's a communist ik bastard and I won him the hell out of the studio he was with such a staunch anti-communist he appeared at the Hollywood American Legion Post to make a rare speech denouncing communism during his tenure at RKO Hughes began the curious practice of luring hundreds of potential starlets to Hollywood with promises of fame and fortune that's another thing I didn't like about him you'd see a picture of the beautiful girl that would want to Miss America something he'd bring her here do a test with a studio - sure in a bungalow and she can stay there for ten years the buzzin stood paid for sometimes you'd have 20 on one on the on his list you know set him up in apartments and give them cars to drive but she might never ever go back to the studio again if they did have something he'd give him a chance but most of the girls who were not very artistically and find I guess they were just beautiful girls they wait by the phone for Howard to call you might call once a month you know after all the teachers that somebody has for instance Terry Moore would let go at Columbia and Howard said let's bring Terry Moore and so I signed her up at the studio it's interesting that later on Terry came to the executives of the estate and said she had secretly married him on the yacht Terry was a strict Mormon and a very religious and when she was going with Hughes she's one of three Hollywood virgins in town Terry told me she says I will not go to bed without his unless I'm married to him she told him that to his face so Howard you know I had to skipper this shot marry him then he threw the log overboard no record of it but I'm sure it happened because Howard would do anything to get Terry in bed on December 17 1953 Hughes founded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute although it is questioned whether this was for strictly humanitarian reasons he solved all of his problems by creating this tax-exempt charitable organization and the really interesting part of course is that the taxpayers pick up the bill for it because in its first or second and third years of existence the Medical Institute about 84% of its revenue it returns to Howard Hughes and it spends about 1% of its revenue on medical research and you go through the years it gets something like two million dollars from Hughes Aircraft Company in the same period of time it pays something like 22 or 23 million dollars to Howard Hughes as interest payments and lease payments and so it was really the ultimate charity by 1955 he was commanded a remarkable Empire a special note was Hughes Aircraft a company which was doing groundbreaking research in electronics and pioneering high-tech electronic weaponry at his office on 7,000 romaine Street Hughes began systematically isolating himself from business contacts through a division called operations this strange organization was crafted by Assistant Bill gay gay a devout Mormon hired on fellow church members to serve as operators drivers and personal aids to Hughes he had one particular section of it which was in effect like a control panel almost like dispatchers desk for the guerrillas I simply had a police department somebody man did 24 hours a day receiving calls in various parts of the empire and these were attorneys as well as people with the youth tool company vice presidents presidents and airline people and on and on and on so that would consume hours just to get everybody notified of what was going on this was a device by remote control and enabled him to keep various parts of his empire in check and to respond to their demands when he wanted without having to direct particularly one decision that Hughes could not insulate himself from was the purchase of a new fleet of jets for TWA the selection and financing of the Jets again drove Hughes to the brink of mental collapse in a surprising turn of events he was fired Noah Dietrich his closest advisor of 32 years that same year used married longtime acquaintance Jean Peters there are all kinds of theories at the time that he was possibly going to be committed for some mental problems which is one of the reasons supposedly Noah Dietrich it's a lot of favor by being married can only get the cooperation of wife to assist in that process and I'm ever never forget one night she was walking out of the hotel I said hello Jean how are you and she third I mean she says have you seen Howard lately but it's very I thought was very strange you know because she was married gentleman at the time from then on you also see a gradual mental decline in terms of those problems in his personal fear of germs phobias about disease and illness an increasing desire to isolate himself from other human beings I found him in the garden of the Beverly Hills Hotel wandering around all alone dressed I said what are you doing here he said I just came here to look around I said come in and have a drink with him he says no I'm gonna pass Johnny that's the last time I saw home under the growing pressure of the TWA decision Hughes again sought a retreat from his problems he flew to the Bahamas and spent his time isolated in a darkened hotel suite he planned on making huge real estate investments and ex-cia man Bob May he was brought in to aid in these transactions Mayhew had been freelancing for Hughes for some time mainly spying on ex-girlfriends and recruiting naive starlets before leaving the Bahamas used telephone makeyou and asked him to play a much more important role in the empire he explained to me that he did not want to make any public appearances in the future that he wanted me to become his alter ego he wanted me to convince the world that when they spoke to me they in reality was speaking to Howard Hughes after six months in exile from the pressures of TWA Hughes returned to Los Angeles and took up residence in the Beverly Hills Hotel he began engineering a strange world within his rented bungalow although his room was cluttered with debris he declared it a germ-free zone and his staff of personal aides followed very precise methods while attending to Hughes for example if you're going to open a can of food you have to cover your hands with tissue paper you take the can opener to open the bowl that the food goes into must be clean vigorously before that happens when you open a car door for him to get into he must hold the tissues over the car door Israel main street staff prepared a thick procedures manual for those working closely with Hughes step number three washing of can he should first soak and remove the label and then brush the cylindrical part of the can over and over until all particles of dust pieces of paper and in general all sources of contamination have been removed he wanted the drapes closed so people couldn't look in from outside and at that particular time he had me instruct the people to dip rags and alcohol and wipe all the doorknobs so there'd be no germs on all the doorknobs and they had to be sanitized so to speak in other words yeah windows had to be closed they had to be Scotch taped down and so on etc etcetera you wouldn't shake hands with people and didn't want people touching him I think we bought up Ollie cause Mellie gloves in Beverly Hills I don't see how they can make any more movies till they order some more cosmetic clothes we're supposed to keep them on all the time little white clothes it is equally important to me that nobody ever opens any door or opening to any room cabinet or closet or anything used to store any of my things even for one thousandth of an inch for one thousandth of a second I don't want the possibility of dust or insects or anything of that nature entering open the door as little as you can and get in before the bugs know everything gets in and close it again quickly that's all he was rarely bathed and went naked with increasing frequency he spent a great deal of his time cleaning anything within reach with his endless supply of clean he stops screening films at the studio and instead had them delivered to the bungalow his drug use had increased at a constant stream of messengers hand-delivered bottles of codeine to the Hewes staff when lonely he would often call for an aide to sit silently in the bungalow well he was sitting at this table all around there and there's two other chairs in the room and he for some reason just said Chuck that's your stairs every time I went in there I would sit in that same goddamn chair and we didn't talk to him he talked to you he said Chuck yeah what time is it so we were there different hours back in front so I would get up to go over and show him my watch anyway then I'd start to say it's 3:30 mr. Hughes stop sitting you didn't tell him what it was you put your watch in front of him let him decide what time of us Howard Hughes built his own prison and he made sure that he couldn't escape from it he did it himself I mean he just he just had these aides surround him and if you needed to talk to Hughes you didn't talk to him and what's sad is that most of those around him at the time we're completely catering to this phobia there wasn't one person right into the Howard this is crazy this is silly these things that could body I mean they treated this seriously like this was a matter of national security when his fear of germs subsided he was was able to lapse into periods of clear thought during one such period he was able to negotiate financing for the fleet of TWA jets the way he worked out the the financing was not was not acceptable in some ways to the TWA president and the executives of TWA suit was filed against Hughes for mismanagement wasn't too long after that when Hughes for various reasons sold all of his TWA stock at a figure which was about 86 for share higher than it had ever almost high that had ever been all the check was for five hundred and forty six million five hundred and forty nine thousand seven hundred and seventy one dollars and no cents which I believe was probably the largest business cheque ever written in the United States that was fir piece of change it's a fair piece of change Hughes was advised to leave California in order to escape the sizable tax that would be assessed for the newly found windfall in an action uncharacteristic of the once famous aviator Hughes traveled by train first to Boston and then on to Las Vegas under the direction of Bob Mayhew Hughes was taken by stretcher into a service entrance of the Desert Inn whereupon he and his aides settled into Suites on the penthouse floor Hughes would remain there in almost constant isolation for the next four years he soon overstayed his welcome as Desert Inn owners sought to regain control of their profitable high-roller Suites Kamath a time later where they had given an instruction to the security guards that if Hughes was not vacated in 48 hours that they would bodily come up to the ninth floor and kick him out of the hotel they were very unhappy when Hughes didn't want to leave so it ended up that we started negotiations and finally made the deal in March to acquire the hotel in other words he bought the hotel because he needed a place to sleep during negotiations for the Desert Inn Hughes tax attorneys informed him that casino receipts qualified as active income this effectively solved his tax dilemma he was in ecstasy he called me and he said imagine this is money from heaven are there any more of these joints available and so after that we started to buy more hotels he got excited about it and and had all this cash laying around so to speak about that time he made up his mind that he wanted to be the biggest in the gaming business he was embarked on a spending spree that resulted in the ownership of the desert in sands castaways frontier Silver Slipper and landmark casinos Las Vegas at that time had that image of being center of organized crime that organized crime was very deeply involved in it and mr. huge came in and purchased those casinos that the state felt they were having trouble with and he was very welcome in that regard he shifted the emphasis the public emphasis from Las Vegas the organized crime people to Las Vegas the billionaire industrialists the state of Nevada made exceptions for its most famous citizen historically everyone who asked for Nevada gambling license has to personally appear for the Gaming Control Board of Gaming Commission and in each case he refused to make an appearance he refused to furnish fingerprints contemporary photos or financials that was what my responsibilities well incidentally to convince the state Gaming licensing authorities not to require his personal appearance so they adopted what they call the Hughes rule Hughes was not content with being the biggest in the gaming industry he also sought to influence government citywide and statewide mr. Hughes wanted to have a summary of every bill introduced in Nevada Legislature and he wanted me to pass on his comments to the legislature which I did he had an insatiable appetite to once his used to be known and be accepted as far as a certain legislation was concerned he's very bright human being most of the things he requested me to do and mr. main you do not all of them but most of them were were were good recommendation some of them we couldn't carry out one of the more difficult requests to come out of the penthouse was to try to halt construction of the International Hotel Hughes felt that owner Kirk Kerkorian was stealing his limelight it was almost funny I mean when he gave me the assignment to try to dissuade the Quarian from building the big international I could not succeed because Kirk had made up his mind that that's what he was going to do and we said okay we'll go ahead but we really couldn't do it and we really didn't try because it was an embarrassing situation to tell to try and stop another hotel from being built he had me talk to Kirk on Assyria and on many many instances trying to discourage him because of the underground testing that although high-rise hotels would collapse and and Kirk just went about his business and although he was always very friendly to mr. Hughes but he didn't make a damn bit of attention to what we had to say Howard Hughes irrational thought process affected the profitability of his own hotels the Tournament of Champions was at the Desert Inn it was a regular annual golf tournament that brought in the best pros and a lot of stars and a lot of tourists and Hughes cancelled the tournament of champions and to think that you would take this kind of an asset and just say we'll turn it over gratis to someone else if they'll take us off the hook was incomprehensible to me yes it bothered me and of course the fact that his reason was that it would create too many germs bothered me even more Hughes seemed to desire control of the whole state of Nevada as he sat in the darkened penthouse charting a map of his newest acquisitions which included huge tracts of undeveloped land the North Las Vegas Airport numerous mining claims and a television station which was bought not only for investment purposes he wanted to watch the movies that he wanted to watch on television he's watching a lot of television and so I think maybe that was the motivation for buying that that station Howard Hughes would watch the movies all night long and as a general he would have an aide call the next day complaining about the movie that ran last night and this wasn't it almost in everyday occurrence it would happen a lot he was the one that decided what movies were going to be shown what was available and and get this movie from California and so it ended up that whatever movie was scheduled if he didn't want to run that he'd say I want to see this as he was kept occupied by watching films broadcast by his newly acquired TV station Bob Mayhew took on an increasingly powerful and influential role in the Hughes Empire although he had never met Hughes he now held the title of head of Hughes Nevada operations and consequently we began using the remains Street office in Hollywood less and less he very strongly - upon his arrival in Las Vegas that not only did he want a complete severance from the group at 7,000 romaine which was Bill gay and his associates but he didn't want any of them to even come to Las Vegas and there was a power play going on between Bill gay Chester Davis and Bob Mayhew they were getting shunted farther aside and Mayhew was coming up in the ranks bill gay Frank William gay real name but every called me bill bill formulated his power that's the correct word power he finally his authority in that he controlled the aides and surrounded Howard used the aides really became his family they supplied his food they support they gave him the drugs he took every day whether it was the valium the coding or whatever they were his whole life support system nobody had direct access to use the aides had direct access to Hughes and Bill gay had direct access to the aides so if you wanted to talk to huge you had to talk to Bill and Bill in turn how to talk to the AIDS Hughes paid no attention to the double-dealing taking place within his empire and continued to focus his attention on television it was while watching TV that he was learned of a new round of atomic testing planned for Nevada he became paralyzed with fear he knew that unlike the germs that he fought to shield himself from radiation could not be prevented from entering his carefully guarded environment he declared war on the Atomic Energy Commission and pledged unlimited resources in stopping the tests that's one of the reasons you establish that power in the body is you know trying to pull on the political strings to get that atomic test and stopped I recall a particular test called it was codenamed boxcar and it was a large underground nuclear testing they were figuring is about equal to about a million tons of TNT Megaton and he was absolutely wanted that thing stopped he been every effort humanly possible to stop the test in Nevada at the test site but we were unsuccessful in that regard and we had to stop pushing too hard because it was becoming embarrassing I remember knew numerous briefings with the Department of Energy prior to the boxcar detonation and I know that the reason that occurred was on the other side of the street the use people are saying you can't do this you've got to stop this these were genuine concerns and he wrote memo after memo in these subjects in trying to get the attest stopped I say Nevada is no longer so desperate for mere existence that it has to accept and swallow with a smile poisonous contaminated radioactive waste material more horrible than human excrement unable to prevent the Boxcar test Hughes stepped up the battle and decided to garner support from whichever candidate would replace outgoing President Lyndon Johnson to put all this into perspective what happened is that Hughes made a decision on the same day wrote me a memo telling me that he wanted me to see Richard Nixon as soon as possible and offer him unlimited to help with his campaign because it was very important that he Richard Nixon be the next president of the United States the same day he sent me another memo saying to go see Hubert Humphrey and offer him unlimited support because it was very important that he be the next prey in order to cover all bases he was attempted a last-ditch effort to appeal to President Johnson well on two occasions he wanted me to offer a million dollars to then presidents to try to stop the underground testing and by that time I had reached a point in in my world with him where I knew that I had to give him the impression that I was doing it for fear that he'd give the assignment to someone who'd be stupid enough to try by 1970 Hughes health was clearly failing as evident by logs maintained by the aides he was taking an increasing amount of narcotics including m print an injectable form of codeine he was also ingesting massive amounts of Valium referred to as Blue Bombers by Hughes as a result of the drug use he was often constipated and required frequent enemas he insisted that his urine be preserved in jars and stored in the closet of the penthouse he was sleeping more and eating less his kidneys were shrinking as a result of his 20-year addiction to codeine Hughes was too far gone for wife Jean Peters who had not seen her husband in over three and a half years she filed for divorce another battle had begun between Bob Mayhew and Hughes personal aides were tightening their grip on Hughes I began to get the impression that some of my memos were not getting through to him that's probably where may humans may have misjudged as if they still controlled the flow of information and that was the ultimate they determined you know what information got to Hughes and and and weather may use information going to use and that was very critical absolutely communications shut down nobody could communicate I had some very important thing to have to communicate through Mayhew through about Mayhew and Mae who had no communication wouldn't need to shut us down and you'll obviously sense something wrong and that's a situation I think Mayhew was an empire builder and I think he enjoyed the power and the position that he had in representing Hughes's interests but I think he allocated to himself certain powers and privileges that were a little excessive I think jealousy envy and the fact that looked like me he was building his own empire within the Hughes Empire that caused the demise of bomb-maker there's no doubt in my mind that they convinced him that I in fact had stolen money from him and it breaks my heart to think that Howard Hughes died without knowing the difference on November 13 1970 approxi came over the telecom here in the desert in penthouse it finalized an action that had been in the planning stages for months upon receiving Hughes signature the proxy effectively placed executive bill gay and Chester Davis a huge TWA attorney in control of the Hughes Nevada holdings on November 25th 1970 the Desert Inn penthouse was empty they took this man out of here Thanksgiving Eve was a very cold night when his doctor had told me two days earlier that he was so sick but he would not move him from the desert in Sunrise Hospital which is not a mile away unless it were a dire emergency well he clearly was not in good physical shape when he left the desert and I mean you're laughing at someone who you know who is consuming that large quantities of Valium codeine other drugs curiously it was later revealed that despite his critical illness the amounts of codeine and Valium made available - and apparently used by Hughes during the weeks shortly before the proxy was obtained soared - among the highest levels of his life they took this man on this night walleston down nine flights of exterior fire escape and brought him to Nellis Airport and flew him to the bomb the contact that law enforcement and that media and at the public had as far as Hughes was Bob Mayhew and Bob Mayhew sincerely believed that Hughes was forced to leave here against his will but there were some confusion as to who was a leader who was in power who should the political people listen to I began getting calls from the casino managers saying that people were moving into the cages I called the governor I said has this been cleared with you know I call the Gaming Control Board has this been cleared with you know call the Gaming Commission No maybe was saying I'm in charge Holliday Davis and gay were saying oh we're in charge and it was like a war it was going on one campus headquartered at the sands and other campus had boarded the frontier without confusion laughter for several months until it finally the papers were sent in the powers of attorney were sent in to the government officials placing Chester Davis and others in charge so that was sufficient for them to feel comfortable that maybe without and the new people were in I was sick but then I realized that the battle was over I realized that somehow whatever they had done they had convinced him that I was on the wrong side of the fence in the beginning of December he was settled into a penthouse at the Britannia Beach Hotel on Paradise Island far removed from the troubles prompted by his leading Las Vegas little did Hughes know that a man whom he had never met would cause a far greater problem that man was Clifford Irving Irving was an author with eight books to his credit the most popular being fake a story about art forgeries in 1971 Irving himself was crafting a far more substantial hoax Irving announced that he was collaborating with Hughes on an autobiography and produced forged letters purportedly written by Hughes proving that he was a willing participant the mcgraw-hill Publishing Company felt satisfied with the documents and advanced Irving $100,000 for publishing rights although the Hughes Tool Company denied the authenticity of the book there was no way to bring Hughes out of isolation to prove it Irving seemingly crafted the perfect scam for no one had so much as seen Hughes for over a decade and many questioned his very existence then it got to be a concern too I don't know whether it was it was probably government officials as well as the public does Howard Hughes exist is he alive there was a very serious thought in the public and among many people who were in a areas of authority that thought he was probably dead and these people were merely speaking for him in an attempt to placate nervous Nevada Gaming officials he was placed a call to former governor Paul Laxalt he was mental condition at the time seems questionable given this memo that was passed to him before the call was placed your conversation should be exactly as the script was outlined to you make it most emphatic but no discussion as to why just a confirmation however it would be a good idea to mention your loss of confidence in Mayhew and you could end by emphasizing your intention to return to Las Vegas after your business trip one of them said to me they said wait a minute you know he talked on the phone to your predecessor and you know he was satisfied well I said I can't I'm not my predecessor I like my predecessor Paul Laxalt but I can't tell in the film whether this is Howard Hughes or not in order to end the confusion caused by the herbing hoax it was decided that Hughes would speak by a telephone to a group of reporters who had known him before he became reclusive huge called me up from the Britannia Beach Hotel in the Bahamas a day before and he says but I have it I'm going to come out expose Clifford Irving is big oaks and he said I'm going to have a press conference which I'll talk on phone he said I want you want it we settled this room and all the other reporters you know asked all kinds of quick questions make sure it was Howard he was not rich little and of course when came my turn I said I know that voice anywhere you know I've heard it too many times that's in my memory when asked about Clifford Irving he was simply responded I don't know him reporters however took the liberty of asking far more personal questions someone asked him about the report he had fingernails ten inches long and you know he laughed about he said Hana how could I write my name and all the correspondents chuckle in it as well like these stories are exaggerated but the stories weren't exaggerating he was just that loony at the time but what is intriguing about is that he was able he knew the outside world would frown on him if they knew he was that way and I at that time made a remark that as far as I was concerned is nothing but a big circus this oh yeah that's his voice well you know what's the big deal why why don't we just see this voice why if everything is fine and so we had some doubts on whether or not he was really in control of his company the next seven months he was and his aides circled the globe in exile of corporate lawsuits and the ever-present horde of photographers attempting to snap a picture of the elusive billionaire in each location Hughes returned to his familiar world of a darkened hotel suite he was constantly drugged and spent most of his waking hours viewing films projected on a screen at the foot of his bed Hughes was oblivious to the ongoing TWA lawsuit and was in no condition to fight as executives pressured him to sell his namesake the Hughes tool division tell me all the sushi and was awarded a substantial judgment and Hughes Tool Company which had provided all the money through the years to fund all of Howard's various enterprises from the filmmaking to the airplanes to everything Howard gets enormous pressure to sell it and this is at a time when he's really totally isolated under the control of the basically people who are around him every day but I'm sure he had he had long-standing feelings of closeness and he probably had some regret and having to let it let it go he lost roughly a third of a million dollars as a result of that sale was probably one of the worst business decisions ever made in the five years after he sold the company it made more than he received for it which was a 150 million dollars and one of the really this is one of the times you see the really tragic side of Hughes's life because they he's convinced he has to sell it he sells it the judgment of course his weight overturned he really didn't after one person who gained from the sale was bill gayde who now became executive vice president title of president was reserved the Howard Hughes everything Bill said was supposedly based on word from on high it wasn't until after his death that we began to wonder if anybody ever did if he was ever did make those pronouncements the new executive committee decided to consolidate the remaining Hughes Nevada holdings into an umbrella corporation the new company that is created for the remainder of his holdings is called Simha corporation and when he first sees the name he doesn't even understand what it is if you stop and consider all of the companies that he was owned prior to Sumer we're all huge there was huge aircraft use helicopters huge this he's all company Hughes Tool Company Hughes that whatever was had Hughes in the name Summa suddenly became the first company that didn't have a huge name on soon it's one of those really sad points when you realize her as here is the business that provided the basis for everything that he did is gone in the surviving business he doesn't even know what the name means in March of 1973 he was moved again this time to the N on the Park Hotel in London he briefly broke out of his self-imposed isolation and agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Governor o Callaghan we went up late at night it's after midnight to to meet with him and they brought him in he walked in and we shook hands and we sat down and I asked the questions that had to be asked to make sure that that we had the right person here's a man who was alive it was his money and he want to do this with his money that's fine he had to find some place where a now deteriorating individual and his health was deteriorating could in fact live easily there's last protocol for Mexico Hughes was told that he had been moved to Acapulco because drugs were no longer available in Freeport in actuality the drugs were supplied by a New York pharmaceutical house he is no longer probably mentally in control I mean of his complete faculties I really would it certainly appear that way when you're looking at the memos he's writing and when you're looking at all the drugs he's consuming I'm not so sure the new people that came on board thought about protecting him at all they may have thought only about themselves and how they could enhancer their own mind you also saw this but we've heard to the fact that the people back in those days trying to get him to where's your will get the will wall in shape there was a lot of concern huge never gave anything of the company away he never gave anything of the company away so he everybody was trying to get a secure position those aides at some of those aides at that time we're making seventy five thousand dollars a year for delivering messages taking telephone calls it you know it seemed like a lot of money today but if you go back in time in that year median family income meaning the average family in the US was earning twelve thousand so if you were looking at that today he would be paying these people to do these errand jobs almost a quarter of a million dollars I can go down that whole list if I were in the headhunting business I don't know where I start to find any one of them at ten thousand dollar job the last days of Howard Hughes lie in sharp contrast to a man who once controlled his life with such vigor Hughes lay so weakened he could no longer muster the strength to inject himself with codeine there was a story on the wire about a doctor in Mexico that had examined Hughes and he was the first indication that I read this is prior to many books that were published that Hughes was definitely in very poor physical condition when he got to it he's got bed sores all over him he's got a gaping sore on his head bruises and although the doctor doesn't see those he's got broken hypodermic needles in his arm it wasn't the kind of physical condition that had just developed during a week or so of illness it was the kind of physical condition that apparently developed over many years of either a lifestyle or neglect the doctors just looking at him physically and saying why isn't this man in a hospital and that's really a sad picture of a person who is deteriorated to that point and no one knows seems to care and it's not the Howard use it I knew he was helpless really helpless probably those striking things is this picture of a man who basically is all alone while there are the aides around him and people who have been around him for a long period of time there isn't what you would call anybody really close to I hate to think so but I think he probably was very sad at the end he had no more to w-a Nomos was good no more studio he just had a lot of money on April 5th 1976 Hugh slipped into a coma his body lay still except for tremors in the muscles of his face Hugh's personal physician was called to the penthouse but instead of immediately attending to the comatose Hughes he spent nearly two hours rummaging through the files kept in the suite he began shredding documents that were in the hotel and they were feeling that there was a lot of this going on throughout the Hugh's organization in those last days a lot of documents were being destroyed and the question was is and what were they four hours after the doctor arrived news was loaded into an air ambulance charted for Houston where arrangements had been made for a hospital admission had a beard long scraggly type hair gray hair and just a very shriveled up type of appearance like he'd lost a lot of weight he looked almost deadly for the airplane you know if his eyes were wide open and there was really very little life at all if any left any month he was alive though because I didn't notice his mouth move just a little bit once or twice as we were taxing into the customs ramp the doctor in the back so just take your time listener need to hurry any longer that's how we knew at that time he died apparently as we were descending in Houston just as we're coming in approaching the airport the preliminary autopsy findings demonstrated that mr. Hughes died of chronic renal disease one of the interesting things on that original autopsy was the report said that he had a very minimal amount of codeine in his body and it was about basically commensurate with anyone taking a therapeutic dose of codeine something like those is recommended but what you see is that the value he had in his body that people in the past had died from such volumes we did the story he had a potentially lethal dose of codeine in his body and up until that point that hadn't been reported also concealed in the original autopsy reports with these x-rays showing the remains of hypodermic needles that had been broken off in both arms I think you look at the man's physical condition when he arrives in Houston aboard the plane and and you I think anybody has to ask the question how does someone get in this condition can you imagine a man with seven broken hypodermic needles in his arm a man who's responsible for having built the biggest Medical Foundation in the history of man having a sore that oozes a a bone that's sticking out of his shoulder this is not the picture of someone who was being really careful the question is why I've often said that people have asked me do you think they killed this man and my answer is it very I believe fair one if sheer negligence qualifies as a weapon yes they did you

Channel: Beryl Lippa

Views: 877,924

Rating: 4.5184941 out of 5

Keywords: Howard, Hughes:, The, Man, and, the, Madness, Documentary, Biography

Id: tFUtk7vuSyI

Length: 82min 27sec (4947 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2015