Howard Hughes: The Secret Life
Though the author claims he aims to show his subject's "crucial role not only in aviation and movie-making but in major political affairs," this gossipy book mainly concerns the bisexual lusts and personal quirks of Howard Hughes (1905-1976). In sometimes overwrought style, Higham, biographer of Katherine Hepburn and Errol Flynn, describes how the eccentric tycoon, who backed such films as The Outlaw , indulged his sexual tastes on screen, how his favors for the CIA (e.g., leasing a Bahamian island as a base for dirty tricks in Cuba) aided his companies, Hughes Tool and Hughes Aircraft, and how he bought large chunks of Las Vegas in 1967. Hughes apparently spent six-hour stretches on the toilet, made humiliating demands of his bodyguards and stashed underage starlets in isolated, elegant houses in Bel Air and Beverly Hills. While some of Higham's contentions are buttressed by witnesses, some of the most incendiary--such as his claim that Hughes's sexuality was malformed as a teenager, when his uncle seduced him; that Hughes may have died of AIDS; and that Hughes played a key role in the Watergate break-in--are speculative. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to National Enquirer.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.