The idea of turning your back on wealth, fame, and society is incomprehensible for many. Notoriety isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, however, and for some people, the pressure of their lives in the spotlight seems to have been too much for them.

No one really understands why some people feel the need to withdraw from the world. It seems that some of the following may have suffered from mental health conditions, while others appear to have been perfectly happy to remain inside their homes for years at a time—even when they had enough wealth to do anything that they could want.

10 Huguette Clark

Huguette Clark was the daughter of a copper tycoon. She had immense wealth, with an estate worth over $300 million, but her life was not richer for it. Instead of surrounding herself with beautiful things, Clark chose to spend the last 20 years of her life in a hospital room, despite the fact that she wasn’t sick. She allowed very few visitors and had no personal possessions except her clothes, her dolls, and her collection of violins (which, to be fair, did at one point include Stradivarius’s greatest masterpiece, known as “The Virgin”). She owned a number of homes, including a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan and a mansion in California, but preferred the sterile environment of the hospital.

The cause of Clark’s reclusiveness is not known, but she once called money “a menace to happiness.”

After her death in 2011, Huguette Clark left over $30 million to her nurse, but this was challenged by distant relatives who hardly knew Huguette, and the nurse ultimately received nothing (but was able to keep most of the $31 million in gifts she’d received from Clark over the years.)^[1]

9 Ida Wood

Ida Wood had been a New York socialite at the very end of the 19th century, but in 1907, she suddenly withdrew from the world and moved into a room at the Herald Square Hotel with her sister and daughter and hid herself away. Each day, the bellhop would knock at the door and ask if the sisters wanted anything. Ida Wood would open the door a crack and request the same things—evaporated milk, crackers, coffee, bacon, and eggs. Each day, she would tip him ten cents and tell him that that was all the money she had in in the world.^[2]

The daughter died in 1928. In 1931, Ida Wood, now in her nineties, suddenly opened the door wide and called for help. Her sister was dying. When staff entered the hotel suite, they found that the bathroom had been turned into a makeshift kitchen, and the suite was filled with empty cracker boxes and rotting food.

Among the debris, they also found share certificates, bonds, and cash stuffed into shoeboxes, as well as diamond necklaces hidden inside the empty cracker cartons. Ida Wood even had $500,000 in $10,000 bills pinned to the inside of her nightgown.

That all seems incredible, but Ida Wood’s life was a series of incredible incidents. She met her husband after writing to him, at that time a stranger, to propose an affair, offering him “agreeable intimacy” and presenting herself as the daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family. In fact, she was the daughter of poor Irish immigrants. She made her money in a deal with her husband, who was a gambling addict. Every time he won at the tables, he shared the winnings with her 50–50, but if he lost, he also paid her half of his losses. When he ran out of money, she would loan it to him in return for shares in his newspaper business.

He died virtually penniless, while she kept a fortune hidden inside empty cracker boxes.

8 Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson grew up in a prosperous family in Massachusetts, where her father was a respected lawyer. The family were well-known in social circles, but Emily never wanted to be part of that world. After a miserable first year of college, she left and spent the rest of her life in her father’s house, leaving it only to visit a doctor on rare occasions.^[3]

Dickinson never married, though she did have friends. It is thought that she must have been in love at one time, because the poems for which she is famous appear to be addressed to a lover, but no one knows who it may have been. Dickinson appears to have made a definite decision to live this way, and though many have sought to find the reason in her work, it is not clear why.

Dickinson died in the house in 1886 and was buried in the white clothes that she always wore.

7 Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was certainly a genius. The benefits of his pioneering work on electricity are still being felt today. His reputation was never as high as that of his rival, Thomas Edison, mainly because Edison was a relentless glory hunter who was not averse to taking credit for other men’s ideas.

For Tesla, however, it was the idea that was important. He seemed to have little interest in celebrity or even money. While his inventions have generated millions or even billions of dollars, he seems to have benefited little from them. Tesla had an eidetic memory, could speak eight languages, and rarely made notes while inventing, as he didn’t need them, despite the fact that they would have been handy for establishing patents.

It is true that Tesla was always a little eccentric. He almost certainly suffered from OCD. He obsessively washed his hands and would only eat food that had been boiled. He had strange phobias, such as an aversion to pearls, which led to anxiety when speaking to society ladies. He believed that his greatest ideas were borne out of solitude, so he became solitary.^[4]

Tesla’s poor business skills led him to fritter away his fortune, and he spent his last years moving from hotel to hotel and skipping out before paying the bill. He once offered one of his inventions in lieu of cash—a box which, he claimed, contained a death beam but which was too dangerous to be opened. Not one of his more useful inventions.

Tesla died in one of his hotel rooms in 1943. He was, as he had always been, alone.

6 Bobby Fischer

It is probably fair to describe Bobby Fischer as a troubled genius. The chess prodigy became a national hero when he beat the Soviet grand master at the height of the Cold War to become World Chess Champion in 1972 and a traitor when he defied US sanctions to play a rematch in Belgrade during the Balkan Wars 20 years later.

It is unlikely that Fischer was moved by either description. He was not a man who cared for others’ opinions. He became paranoid, obsessed with conspiracy theories, and angry with the world. Having beaten the best chess players in the world, he seemed to lose his purpose. He no longer played chess but could not find anything else to absorb his mind.

After making inflammatory remarks about 9/11 during interviews, he ended up in Iceland, where he spent the rest of his life as a recluse. He invented his own form of chess, which, with his trademark modesty, he named Fischerandom.^[5]

Although in his final years, his appearance had suggested that he was penniless, he left an estate worth several million dollars. He was found dead in his hotel room in 2008. Even in death, however, Fischer rejected the regard of others. He arranged his own secret burial, without regard to the law. His grave was dug during the night, and only five people attended the service, which took place at first light. Even the minister at the church was not informed until it was over.

5 Theo And Karl Albrecht

Theo Albrecht founded his grocery empire, Aldi, with his brother Karl after World War II. They began by running their mother’s grocery shop, which they expanded into a business that made them both multibillionaires.

Theo was kidnapped in 1971. He was freed by his captors after paying a ransom of seven million German marks, 17 days after he had been abducted. He might have been released sooner, but it seems he haggled over the amount and later tried to claim the ransom money as a business expense on his tax return.

After the kidnapping, both brothers kept a very low profile. They were rarely photographed, and they did not give interviews. They traveled separately in cars that never took the same route twice.^[6] The two brothers spent at least some of their time on a remote island in the North Sea, where they played golf, grew orchids, and collected typewriters. Both men died in Essen, Germany, Theo in 2010 and Karl in 2014.

4 John G. Wendel II

At the turn of the 20th century, John Wendel II had a property empire in the heart of Manhattan that would be worth around $1 billion today. He built his fortune on four firm principles—never mortgage, never sell, never repair, and always remember that premium real estate prices on Broadway will move uptown ten blocks every decade.^[7]

Wendel had equally firm principles when it came to his family. Their house was in a commercial district, surrounded by shops and hotels, and thus completely unsuitable as a home but worth a fortune. He did not hold with wasting money on fripperies such as electricity, telephones, or newfangled automobiles. There was no fence around the house, and passersby often pressed their noses against the windows to catch a glimpse of the strange inhabitants, who they dubbed the “Weird Wendels.”

Wendel had seven sisters, who all lived in the house with him. Wendel was referred to as “the hermit of Fifth Avenue.” They lived quietly together, refusing to change with the times.

3 Ella Wendel

After John Wendel’s death, the sisters remained in the house, until Ella Wendel was the only one left. Only one of the sisters had married—and not until she was well past childbearing age because John Wendel had been concerned about gold-diggers. This meant there was no one to inherit the vast fortune. Despite this, Ella Wendel carried on living exactly as she had before.

She had a fortune valued at $100 million, but she continued to live in the vast house alone, without modern amenities. Her only pleasure seemed to be her dogs over the years, all of which were named Toby. At night, she would walk Toby on a vacant lot that they owned, which, following her brother’s business principle, she would never sell, despite it being worth millions.^[8]

After Ella’s death in 1931, over 2,000 “relatives” came forward to claim their share of the inheritance, almost all of whom were totally bogus. A large chunk of the estate was spent in legal fees fending off the claims, and the remainder went to charity.

So, totally worth it.

2 Eliza Donnithorne

Eliza Donnithorne is said to be the inspiration for the Charles Dickens character Miss Havisham, the jilted bride who wandered forlornly around her house in her wedding dress, waiting for her groom to return.

Donnithorne moved to Australia during the 1840s with her father, an official of the East India Company, and continued to live there after he died. In 1889, the Illustrated Sydney News published an article about her being left at the altar, leaving her “completely prostrated.”

Eliza had formed an attachment to a young man of whom her father disapproved, and after resisting his attempts to split them up, the couple set a date for the wedding. Mr. Donnithorne was such an important official that a great deal of interest was held in the wedding, and crowds are said to have lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the bride. Eliza Donnithorne, dressed in her finery, waited excitedly at the altar for her lover.^[9]

He didn’t show.

The article maintained that she had left the wedding feast upon the table “until it mouldered into dust,” after which she never left the house again. She was said to be mortified at the thought of what people’s reactions. Her only interest was her books, and at her death, she left a large collection of books behind.

She probably avoided the romances.

1 Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust was a famous French writer and a celebrated recluse. The author of In Search of Lost Time spent a number of years in an apartment on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris until his death. He rarely went out. Proust suffered from crippling asthma and was said to have been acutely affected by the deaths of his parents and retreated into himself. He soundproofed his workroom with corkboard and put up layers of heavy curtains to blot out daylight so that he could work uninterrupted. He would stay up for days on end, working on his masterpiece, desperate to complete it before his death.^[10]

Nevertheless, time caught up with Proust, and the final three volumes of In Search of Lost Time were left in “an advanced but not final stage of revision.”

Proust died in 1922 in his apartment. Though he did not finish his seminal work completely, the final volumes were sufficiently complete to be published after his death, and the novel has become one of the most important pieces of literature in the world.

Pass the corkboard.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

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.