By outward appearances, Howard Hughes lived a charmed life. Rich. Handsome. Successful. As the saying goes, men wanted to be him, and women wanted to be with him. But underneath the surface revealed a much darker — and bizarre — picture.
Here’s a look at one of the best-known but least understood public figures of the 20th century.
10. Secret Codes
Hughes used an elaborate system to communicate with his employees and inner circle. Categories were designated “Secret,” “Confidential,” or “Restricted.” He also assigned code names to key personnel and gave himself the moniker “The Shareholder” and called Actress Yvonne Shubert, one of his many girlfriends, “The Party.”
Whether negotiating complex business deals or lamenting over conspiracy theories, the notoriously paranoid multi-hyphenate wrote long, rambling memoranda on legal pads for his staff to decipher. A six-page directive established guidelines on how male employees were expected to conduct themselves: “Do not fraternize with persons outside the office. Do not engage in long, unnecessary conversations with secretaries. Be sure that all confidential and secret material from wastepaper baskets is properly destroyed and burned. Tell your wife as little as possible.”
9. Full-Figured Fetish
Typically, narratives about Billy the Kid revolve around gunfights and rustling cattle. However, Hughes’ film version, “The Outlaw,” which he directed and produced, focused on a different pair of subjects: Jane Russell’s breasts. He even designed a bra for her — a clunky wire contraption that she later described as “ridiculous.”
His obsession with female anatomy also extended to his harem of buxom Hollywood starlets. Hughes even instructed his chauffeurs not to exceed two miles-per-hour on bumpy roads because he believed any jarring motions might damage their prized assets.
8. Germ Warfare
Although living in today’s Covid-age has spawned a society of germaphobes, Hughes took precautionary behavior to another level. His staff were given a manual with highly detailed instructions on how his food had to be prepared before being served.
One of Hughes’ more bizarre memorandums involved a nine-step process for disinfecting and washing canned peaches. Step #3, “Washing of Can,” stated: “…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 label, and, in general, all sources of contamination have been removed.”
The industrialist also used vast amounts of Kleenex tissues to protect himself from the perceived bombardment of germs and re-purposed the boxes into footwear. His refusal to trim his toenails only made the cardboard shoes that much more ill-fitting.
7. Mormon Mafia
Hughes favored employing Mormons for his business enterprises because he believed their parochial lifestyle, which forbids drinking, smoking, and gambling, made them more trustworthy. One of his top executives, Frank “Bill” Gay, recruited other fellow members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) — a cadre that came to be known as the “Mormon Mafia.” Their ranks would greatly expand when Hughes began buying up Las Vegas in the late 1960s.
This exclusive hiring practice also led to the infamous “Mormon will,” which attempted to extort millions from the eccentric billionaire. Among those listed as beneficiaries was a gas station owner named Melvin Dummar, who claimed he had once rescued Hughes in the Nevada desert. Shortly after Hughes died in 1976, Dummar said he ‘mysteriously’ received an envelope containing the will, which he then took to an LDS church office in Salt Lake City.
Not surprisingly, a Nevada court later ruled the document a forgery. But the story doesn’t end there. Hardly. In 1980, the stranger-than-fiction tale was adapted into the film “Melvin and Howard” starring Paul Le Mat and Jason Robards.
6. I Scream, You Scream
To fuel his night-owl lifestyle, Hughes consumed copious amounts of ice cream, which included his favorite flavor, Baskin-Robbins’ banana nut. But when the company discontinued the item, Hughes threw a temper tantrum one might expect from a five-year-old or a fully grown adult not accustomed to hearing the word “no.”
The popular chain agreed to produce a private shipment — but under the condition that Hughes would buy enough to feed a small army.. Crisis mitigated. But no sooner had the supply arrived at the Hughes’ owned Desert Inn in Las Vegas than the fickle boss decided he wanted French Vanilla instead. As a result, it took several years for the hotel-casino to deplete its surplus of the rejected dessert.
5. Grounded Goose
On November 2, 1947, the Hughes-built and piloted “Spruce Goose” made its first and only flight in Long Beach, California. The colossal wooden seaplane (officially designated “H-4”) featured a wingspan longer than a football field and had been designed to shuttle troops and equipment across the Atlantic during WWII. But in the end, lengthy delays and the plane’s questionable operational status rendered the giant bird of little value.
Still, Hughes kept the plane flight ready and housed in a well-guarded, specially constructed climate control facility at the cost of $1 million per year for the remainder of his life. Some historians have speculated that Hughes permanently grounded the H-4 to prevent the discovery of possible design flaws. The behemoth aircraft can now be found on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.
4. Limited Menu
The ultra-wealthy are known for spending lavishly on expensive wines and indulging in the very finest gourmet cuisine. Not Hughes. The lanky Texan never imbibed and often ate the same dinner every night: steak (medium rare), salad, and precisely one dozen peas he arranged by size — a ritual stemming from his severe but undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Preparing the meal required scrubbing the grill to ensure his meat didn’t have contact with any other residual food. Additionally, the cart used to transport his dinner had to remain outside the kitchen while being prepared because he feared it might pick up debris, such as a cockroach or another insect getting stuck to the wheels.
3. Movie Madness
As a creature of habit, Hughes frequently watched the same movies over and over, including the cold war classic, Ice Station Zebra. His obsession with the film eventually prompted the tycoon to buy a TV station, allowing him to control the programming schedule day and night.
In 1968, Hughes purchased KLAS-TV, the local CBS affiliate in Las Vegas. Popular crooner Paul Anka recalled in his autobiography how he could always tell when Hughes was in town. “You’d get back to your room, turn on the TV at 2 a.m., and the movie Ice Station Zebra would be playing,” Anka wrote. “At 5 a.m., it would start all over again. It was on almost every night. Hughes loved that movie.”
2. Urine Trouble
Hughes couldn’t be bothered to get up and use the bathroom during his TV binge-watching marathons, which usually found him naked in a darkened room. So instead, he urinated in jars and had the specimens preserved and stored in his closet. Unfortunately for his staff, poor eyesight often caused him to miss his target.
Ironically, for someone so preoccupied with germs, Hughes lived in a cesspool of filth and bacteria. In addition to scattered bodily fluids, he rarely bathed or brushed his teeth and refused to have his room cleaned, fearing dust particles would become airborne and inhaled.
1. Nuclear Wedding
From the glitz of Las Vegas to the alpine splendor of Lake Tahoe, the state of Nevada has long been a popular wedding destination. Hughes, however, chose a more rural location for his 1957 marriage to actress Jean Peters, tying the knot in an area that had recently become a nuclear testing site.
The small village of Tonopah is located along U.S. Route 95, approximately halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. There, the discovery of precious metals in 1900 created a sudden bonanza of prosperity before being relegated to a dusty ghost town. The U.S. government later established a highly classified, restricted military installation just outside of Tonopah for the use of experimental aircraft, weapons stockpile, and a nuclear bombing range.
Despite their unconventional, un-romantic nuptials, Hughes and Peters managed to stay married for 13 years.