Howard Hughes - Biography - IMDb Howard Hughes Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (38) | Personal Quotes (4) Overview (5) 6' 4" (1.93 m) Mini Bio (1) Billionaire businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator, born in Humble, Texas just north of Houston. He studied at two prestigious institutions of higher learning: Rice University in Houston and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Inherited his father's machine tool company in 1923. In 1926 he ventured into films, producing Hell's Angels (1930), Scarface (1932) and The Outlaw (1943). He also founded his own aircraft company, designed, built and flew his own aircraft, and broke several world air speed records (1935-1938). His most famous aircraft, the Hercules (nicknamed "The Spruce Goose"), which was as he discovered, an under-powered wooden seaplane designed to carry 750 passengers.

That plane was completed in 1947, but flew only once over a distance of one mile despite having eight Pratt & Whitney Wasp Major engines, among the most powerful radial piston engines of the day. Throughout his life he shunned publicity, eventually becoming a recluse but still controlling his vast business interests from sealed-off hotel suites, and giving rise to endless rumors and speculation. In 1971 an "authorized" biography was announced, but the authors wound up in prison for fraud, and the mystery surrounding him continued until his death in Houston. He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery, Houston ( 1 June 1925 - 9 December 1929) (divorced) Trivia (38) Ice Station Zebra (1968) is reported to have been his favorite movie (the 2005 DVD release was packaged with a trailer for The Aviator (2004)). Before his death, he lived as a recluse, and Albert R. Broccoli (the producer of the James Bond franchise) used his reclusiveness from the public as a model for the character Willard Whyte in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

Hughes was a fan of the James Bond films, and he kept a 16mm print of the film as a part of his private collection. Broccoli also gave him 16mm print films of all the earlier Bond-films. Nephew of actor/screenwriter Rupert Hughes . The Las Vegas casinos he once owned were Castaways, Desert Inn, Frontier, Landmark, Sands and Silver Slipper. All have since been demolished. He bought Las Vegas television station KLAS (Channel 8), so that he could watch movies into the night. If he fell asleep during a film, he would call up the station and order that the scene he missed be replayed. While he was staying in Las Vegas' Desert Inn Hotel-Casino resort, he bought the establishment in order to avoid being evicted. His father was the inventor of the "Hughes Rock Eater," a self-sharpening drill bit used for drilling oil wells that is still in use today. Hughes inherited several million dollars but earned the vast majority of his wealth from his own business ventures. Hughes Aircraft and Hughes Helicopters alone were worth $5.5 billion when they were finally sold in the early 1980s.

Was a major stockholder in an airline that later became TWA. He once had an air purifier installed in a car with sealed windows. The purifier cost more than the car, and took up most of the trunk. In his later years, he insisted that his personal assistants be Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). Reportedly, this was because Hughes did not want any of his personal assistants drunk on the job, and Mormons are forbidden to drink alcohol. Attended the prestigious Rice University in the 1920s, before dropping out and moving to Hollywood and studying at Cal Tech. In public he would often speak with his hand covering his mouth, for fear of being lip-read. After Hughes died, Terry Moore claimed they had secretly married on a yacht in international waters in 1949 and never divorced; these "marriages" were ruses Hughes was known to employ in order to take advantage of young women. Despite the fact that Moore married two other men after she "married" Hughes, his estate settled with her for an undisclosed amount in 1984. Authorized to be awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, 7 August 1939 (53 Stat. 1525).

Award was "... in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country throughout the world[.]" Humble, Texas, where he was born, is pronounced "UM-bull." The 'h' is silent. Romantically linked with Katharine Hepburn , Bette Davis , Olivia de Havilland , Ginger Rogers , Ava Gardner , and Faith Domergue . He went out of his way to "discover" attractive young starlets. He continued this until he stopped producing films in the late 1950s. In the 1950s Robert Mitchum was selected by Hughes to appear in a series of films he was producing. Hughes considered Mitchum a "friend," but (as a paranoid recluse) hardly met the actor. Mitchum was halfway put off and halfway amused by this "crazy old man" and clearly saw that he was a surrogate for Hughes as the strapping actor "romanced" young starlets on screen. He became obsessed with the "Communist threat" in the early 1950s, having written a series of paranoid articles on the subject that he sent out to newspapers from seclusion.

It has variously been hypothesized that his crazed behavior in his later reclusive years was caused by brain damage resulting from a series of accidents; OCD; bipolar disorder; or even paranoid-schizophrenia. When he produced films, he became obsessed with busty actresses and famously invented a prototype of the push-up bra to make Jane Russell as busty as possible in The Outlaw (1943). Most of the movies he produced are typlified by beautiful, half-naked women and nonsensical action sequences. His reported appearance when he was found dead was extremely bizarre. He was covered in uncut, matted hair, had extremely long toenails, and the once strapping 6'4" billionaire weighed an incredibly low 90 pounds. The Aviator (2004), the movie based on his life, was released on the day after what would have been his 99th birthday. Houston has two major commercial airports: William P. Hobby Airport, and Houston Intercontinental Airport. For a brief period, Hobby Airport was renamed Howard Hughes Airport. Houstonians objected to it being named after a living person, so this change was short-lived and the name eventually reverted back to Hobby Airport.

In 1997 Intercontinental Airport was renamed Bush Intercontinental, after the still-living President George Bush , whose son was Governor of Texas at the time. Had a strong aversion to black people. For many years he had a private screening room at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood where he would watch movies by himself at night. In 1958 he found out that the cast of Porgy and Bess (1959), an all-black musical being made on the lot, was using the screening room each afternoon to watch the footage that had been shot the previous day. Horrified that blacks used the same room he did--and that some may even have sat in the same seat he did--he shut down the screening room, left the Goldwyn lot and, for the remainder of his life, never returned to it. Hughes was also known as a rabid anti-Semite but specific examples of him acting on his feelings are scarce; like many ultra-conservative anti-Communists of the post-WWII era, Hughes believed that many Jews were either Communists or sympathetic to Communism. Became obsessed with Communism during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era.

His film The Whip Hand (1951) was originally about a group of Nazi scientists who smuggled the body of Adolf Hitler into the US and worked to revive Hitler in order to try to take over the world again. After it was finished Hughes had it reshot, at great expense, to change the villains into Nazi scientists who are now working for the Communists and have taken over a small American town in order to test germ warfare experiments on its citizens before they unleash the deadly viruses in the US. The film was a major flop. On July 7, 1946, Rosemary DeCamp and her husband were in their house in Beverly Hills, California, when an aircraft piloted by Hughes crashed into the roof of the house next door, and its wing was torn off and sliced through the roof of her house, landing in the bedroom, where she and her husband were. The plane, an experimental model Hughes had developed called the XF-11, had experienced propeller reversal on the right engine after taking off from the airport at nearby Culver City. It finally came to rest after crashing through the wall of the house of another of DeCamp's neighbors and exploding. Hughes was rescued from the cockpit by Marine Sgt,.

William Lloyd Durkin. Hughes was severely injured with a broken leg, multiple cracked ribs on his left side, a dislodged heart, a fractured skull, burns and abrasions over 65% of his body. He was given a 50-50 chance to survive. He paid for the damage to the houses in the neighborhood out of his own pocket and sent Durkin a weekly paycheck until the day he died. The hangar that used to house his famous airplane, the "Spruce Goose," has been used in subsequent years as a filming studio. He was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party and an active anti-communist. Was Stan Lee 's inspiration for Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. Like Hughes, Stark inherited a business from his father. As a tribute to Hughes, Tony Stark's father was named Howard Stark. Restauranteur Dave Chasen reported that Hughes ate the same dinner all the time: a triple glass of tomato juice, a salad, a thin butterfly steak and coffee. Chasen also observed that, like most Hollywood gourmets, he was on the phone constantly.

In 2004 Guido Deiro claimed he flew Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch brothel, 150 miles north of Las Vegas, on 29 December 1967, then took a nap while Hughes enjoyed himself. After Deiro awoke, he said the madame told him that Hughes had left; Melvin E. Dummar would claim weeks after Hughes died that he found a man who claimed to be Hughes wandering seven miles south of the Ranch on 29 December 1967. Upon his return to Las Vegas, Deiro claimed a subordinate of Hughes executive Frank Gay ordered him to surrender his flight log to erase all evidence of the trip. Bolstered by Deiro's story and a book about Hughes and Dummar by Gary Magnesen , Dummar sued Gay and Hughes' cousin William Lummis--declared Hughes' primary beneficiary after the Clark County (Nevada) District Court ruled Hughes had died intestate--alleging fraud and conspiracy to conceal evidence proving the so-called "Mormon Will", which granted Dummar a 1/16th share of Hughes's $2-billion estate, was genuine.

On 9 January 2007 the United States District Court for the District of Utah dismissed the suit. "Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years," James Phelan's account of the elusive billionaire's final years, was written in co-operation with Hughes' waiter and barber, men who had intimate knowledge of the idiosyncratic Hughes' bizarre final days. The book was published in 1976, shortly after the tycoon's death. When he took over RKO Pictures, he canceled its most expensive project, a film version of the popular novel "The Robe." The producer, Frank Ross , was finally able to get the film made at 20th Century-Fox. It was the first film released in CinemaScope and became one of the biggest hits of the 1950s. Hughes was an avid golfer and wanted to play on the golf tour, but gave it up because Bobby Jones told him that he couldn't win. For a period of time in the 1940s-late 1950s, the Hughes Tool Co.

ventured into the film and media industry when it bought the RKO companies, including: RKO Pictures; RKO Studios; RKO Theatres, a chain of movie theatres; the RKO Radio Network and a network of radio stations. In 1948 multi-millionaire businessman, film producer, film director and aviator Hughes gained control of RKO, a struggling major Hollywood studio, by acquiring 25% of the outstanding stock from 'Floyd Odlum' (QV)'s Atlas Corporation. Universal Pictures acquired the American distribution rights in 1951 of the 1948 J. Arthur Rank-Archers feature film The Red Shoes (1948), originally released in a small London art house movie theater in September of 1948. Hughes, so impressed with Michael Powell 's dance film starring the Sadler Well's Ballet principal dancers Moira Shearer , Léonide Massine and Robert Helpmann that he wanted his own ensemble corps de ballet company. So he just decided to buy himself a ballet-dance company in an effort to expand the creative base of his RKO film studio acquisition.

Hughes had been impressed with the success of "Les Ballets de Paris de Roland Petit." An outstanding classical dancer as a youth, Roland Petit swiftly decided on a career as a rebel against the traditionalism of the Paris Opera Ballet, and before the age of 25 had created three of his most iconic ballets, "Le Jeune Homme et La Mort," world premiere on 6/26/46, Les Ballets des Champs-Elysee, Theatre des Champs-Elysee, Paris; the Jean Cocteau ballet "Les Demoiselles de La Nuit," world premiere Theatre Marigry, Paris 5/21/48, Les Ballet de Paris de Roland Petit, featuring Margot Fonteyn; and the ballet "Carmen," world premiere in London, Prince's Theatre, on 2/21/49, with the sultry young Jeanmaire as the lethal female destroying a hapless male. These ballets caused a sensation worldwide and Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire swiftly became the most exciting names in French dance, closely associating with Jean Cocteau , Édith Piaf , Yves Montand and the new intellectuals of Left Bank Paris.

Hughes contracted Petit and his Paris-based "Ballet de Paris de Roland Petit" for film assignments, including all personal appearances in North America. Petit and his core dance company's flight from Paris to Los Angeles' airport was on Hughes' own Trans-World-Airlines (TWA). Hughes acquired control of TWA in 1939, and after World War II led the expansion of the airline to serve Europe, the Middle East and Asia, making TWA a second unofficial flag carrier of the United States after Pan Am. The dance troupe, housed in a Culver City hotel, were assigned a film stage for intense preparatory workouts and dance rehearsals. After six months of isolation in Culver City, the troupe's enthusiasm for their new North American venture had dwindled, with their intense serious practicing, rehearsing, exercising and with no stage nor film scheduled assignments, the core of dancers became extremely mutinous. En masse the Parisian rebels packed their luggage, arriving at the TWA Los Angeles air terminal with their round-trip tickets in hand, checking in for their return flight to Paris. The troupe of Francophiles did not know that their boss Hughes owned TWA.

The TWA passenger agents alerted Hughes that a horde of "French-speaking gypsies" were at the TWA air terminal, demanding a return flight to Paris with their original TWA round-trip flight tickets in hand. RKO's security division immediately descended upon the air terminal with a fleet of buses to round up Hughes' herd of cattle, "the RKO-Ballet de Paris de Roland Petit" dance company, confiscating all of the ticket bills the TWA ticketing agents had collected. Returning to their hotel, the troupe was assured that they would be put to work on a Hollywood musical film. Samuel Goldwyn , his production company located at RKO's "The Lot," 1041 North Formosa Avenue in Hollywood, was in pre-production to star Danny Kaye in an original musical film based on Hans Christian Anderson , with a story by Myles Connolly , a screenplay by Moss Hart and Ben Hecht , with words and original music composed by Frank Loesser . Goldwyn had initially offered the film's ballerina role to Moira Shearer . Since Goldwyn was under an RKO contract, Hughes ordered him to use Petit, Zizi Jeanmaire and Petit's Ballet de Paris dance troupe.

Petit insisted on his French stage production scenic and costume designer Antoni Clave be flown to Hollywood as his film design collaborator. RKO costume designer Mary Wills joined the art department; Barbara Karinska was brought from New York City to supervise and construct all of the film's ballet and principle's costumes. Art director Richard Day , another RKO film designer, collaborated with Antoni Clavé on all of the feature film's stage and ballet sets. Petit insisted hiring Danish danseur noble Erik Bruhn , one of the greatest premier male dancers of the 20th century, noted for his outstanding classical technique and immense stage presence. He epitomized the ethereally handsome prince and cavalier on the international ballet stage. The film's director, Charles Vidor was cursed with Petit's creative driving force, stimulus, momentum, Petit contributing in every scene and camera setup. Petit was the impetus for the movie's visual magic. Co-founded, with Preston Sturges , California Pictures, a low-budget production company. Technically speaking, Hughes was nominated for two Oscars, as he produced Best Picture nominees The Racket (1928) and The Front Page (1931).

However, until 1951, the Academy Award for Best Picture only recognized the film itself, and not its producers. Personal Quotes (4) The Spruce Goose | Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum | Wings & Waves Waterpark | McMinnville Oregon Contact The Spruce Goose At the center of our museum stands the original Spruce Goose. Built entirely of wood due to wartime restrictions on metals, this massive airplane stands as a symbol of American industry during World War II. Learn more about the history, first flight, and legacy of this mammoth plane. Its History The largest airplane ever constructed, and flown only one time, the Spruce Goose represents one of man’s greatest attempts to conquer the skies. It was born out of a need to move troops and material across the Atlantic Ocean, where in 1942, German submarines were sinking hundreds of Allied ships. Henry Kaiser, steel magnate and shipbuilder, conceived the idea of a massive flying transport and turned to Howard Hughes to design and build it. Hughes took on the task, made even more challenging by the government’s restrictions on materials critical to the war effort, such as steel and aluminum.

Six times larger than any aircraft of its time, the Spruce Goose, also known as the Flying Boat, is made entirely of wood. Originally designated HK-1 for the first aircraft built by Hughes-Kaiser, the giant was re-designated H-4 when Henry Kaiser withdrew from the project in 1944. Nevertheless, the press insisted on calling it the “Spruce Goose” despite the fact that the plane is made almost entirely of birch. The First Flight The winged giant made only one flight on November 2, 1947. The unannounced decision to fly was made by Hughes during a taxi test. With Hughes at the controls, David Grant as co-pilot, and several engineers, crewmen and journalists on board, the Spruce Goose flew just over one mile at an altitude of 70 feet for one minute. The short hop proved to skeptics that the gigantic machine could fly. Perhaps always dreaming of a second flight, Hughes retained a full crew to maintain the mammoth plane in a climate-controlled hangar up until his death in 1976. Its Legacy The Spruce Goose was kept out of the public eye for 33 years.

After Hughes’ death in 1976, it was gifted by Hughes’ Summa Corporation to the Aero Club of Southern California. The Aero Club then leased it to the Wrather Corporation, and moved it into a domed hangar in Long Beach, California. The Disney Company acquired the Wrather Corporation, thus taking over the lease of the Spruce Goose. Evergreen subsequently bought the aircraft from the Aero Club. In 1992, Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum co-founders Michael King Smith and Delford M. Smith submitted the winning proposal to provide the aviation icon with a proper home. The Flying Boat was disassembled and transported by barge up the West Coast, then up the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, to Portland, Oregon. It remained there for several months, until water levels permitted the huge structures to safely pass under the Willamette’s many bridges. Finally, in February 1993, the aircraft was transported by truck for the last 7.5 miles to McMinnville, Oregon. Temporary hangars were built as housing for the aircraft, while volunteers worked on the aircraft’s restoration.

In 2001, re-assembly of the Hughes Flying Boat was completed in its new home. Resources Howard Hughes Howard Hughes ▼ Primary Sources ▼ Howard Hughes Howard Hughes, the son of Howard Robard Hughes , was born in Houston on 24th December, 1905. Howard's father was the founder of founder of the Hughes Tool Company. His brother, Rupert Hughes , worked as a writer for Samuel Goldwyn's movie studios. His mother, Allene Gano , came from a prosperous family that were considered to be "monarchs of Dallas society". In 1908 Howard Robard Hughes patented a two-cone rotary drill bit that penetrated medium and hard rock with ten times the speed of any former bit, and its discovery revolutionized oil well drilling. The following year he joined forces with Walter Benona Sharp to establish the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company in Houston. After the death of Sharp in 1912, Hughes took full control of the company that now became known as the Hughes Tool Company . Hughes attended private school in Boston before moving to the Thacher School in California.

According to the principal's son, Anson Thacher, Hughes was "the brightest student in physics the school had in years". Although he idolized his physics teacher, Owen McBride, he was a poor student and never graduated from high school. However, his father arranged for him to attend the Rice University in Houston by donating money to the institution. Howard Robard Hughes died of an embolism of an artery on 24th January, 1924. when his son was 18. Howard inherited a controlling share in the Hughes Tool Company but his uncle, Rupert Hughes , supervised his business interests until he reached the age of 21. In 1924 Hughes bought out his relatives and became the sole owner of the Hughes Tool Company . On 1st June, 1925, Hughes married Houston socialite Ella Rice. The couple moved to Hollywood and in 1928 Hughes produced the academy award winning film, Two Arabian Nights . In 1930 Hughes wrote and directed Hell's Angels , a movie about pilots in the First World War . In order to make the movie Hughes obtained 87 aircraft used in the war and hired the world's best pilots.

During the filming, a stunt man, Phil Jones, was killed. The movie cost $3.8 million and although a box-office success, it lost over $1.5m. Carole Lombard While making Hell's Angels , Hughes developed a strong interest in aviation. In 1932, Hughes formed the Hughes Aircraft Company. In 1934 Hughes built and personally test-piloted the world's most advanced plane, the H-1. On September 13, 1935, he set a new speed record, taking the plane to 352 mph. Three years later Hughes piloted a Lockheed 14 with a crew of four on a flight around the world. During the flight he broke the New York to Paris record that had previously been held by Charles Lindbergh . Lilian Bond On 11th June 1936 Hughes was driving on Wilshire Boulevard when he struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel Meyer. Hughes was arrested and charged with manslaughter. Despite the fact that pedestrians had right-of-way in Los Angeles and that he had broken the law through reckless driving, Hughes was released without charge.

In his book, Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (2004), Charles Higham argues: "In those days, the District Attorney could be bought and sold, and anyone with sufficient money could get away with almost anything." In 1938 Hughes began living with Katharine Hepburn although he continued to sleep with Cary Grant , Fay Wray , Ginger Rogers and Olivia de Havilland . Later that year Hepburn discovered what was happening she left him and moved back to her home in Connecticut. In her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life , she pointed out that her "love for him had turned to water." Gene Tierney By 1938 Hughes was worth about $60 million. Most of this came from Hughes Tool Company , which was run by Noah Dietrich . He also served as an executive for RKO Pictures and Hughes Aircraft . In 1939 Dietrich began buying shares in Trans World Airlines (TWA) on behalf of Hughes. Eventually, Hughes held 78% of the stock in the company. During the Second World War Hughes became interested in building military aircraft.

He was awarded two contracts, of $18m and $22m each, to create and build two revolutionary aircraft - a giant plywood cargo seaplane that could carry thirty-five tons of men and weapons (HK-1), and a very fast photo-reconnaissance aircraft (F-11). Hughes also returned to film making and in 1943 produced and directed The Outlaw . The film starred Jane Russell and because of her conspicuous cleavage was initially banned. The following year Hughes formed a production company with Preston Sturges . During this period he had sexual relationships with Tyrone Power , Russell Gleason , Richard Cormwell , Linda Darnell and Rita Hayworth . However, Hughes was turned down by Lana Turner . His biographer, Charles Higham , pointed out: "The beautiful blonde actress, feisty, strong-willed, wildly ambitious, was a far cry from the placid, pliable stars he was sharing his busy bed with.

In fact she made it clear she had no interest in having a physical affair with him." Jane Russell in The Outlaw (1943) In 1945, the journalist, Westbrook Pegler , claimed that he had seen FBI files that said that Hughes had used his wealth to corruptly obtain government contracts. The following year Owen Brewster , chairman of the Senate War Investigating Committee, announced that he was very concerned that the government had given Hughes $40m for the development and production of two aircraft that had never been delivered. Brewster also pointed out the President Franklin D. Roosevelt had overruled his military experts in order to hand out the contracts to Hughes for the F-11 and HK-1 (also known as the Spruce Goose). Brewster also pointed out that Hughes had provided "softening-up parties" for government officials. Howard paid movie starlets $200 to attend these parties. Their duties included swimming nude in Hughes's swimming pool. Julius Krug, the chief of the War Production Board, was someone who often attended these parties.

One congressman who was also a frequent guest at Hughes's home claimed: "If those girls were paid two hundred dollars, they were greatly underpaid". Hughes, accused of corruption, leaked information to journalists, Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson , that Owen Brewster was being paid by Pan American Airways (Pan Am) to cause trouble. According to Hughes, Pan Am was trying to persuade the United States government to set up an official worldwide monopoly under its control. Part of this plan was to force all existing American carriers with overseas operations to close down or merge with Pan Am. As the owner of Trans World Airlines, Hughes posed a serious threat to this plan. Hughes claimed that Brewster had approached him and suggested he merge Trans World with Pan Am. When Hughes refused Brewster began a smear campaign against him. Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson believed Hughes and began their own campaign against Owen Brewster . They reported that Pan Am had provided Bewster with free flights to Hobe Sound, Florida, where he stayed free of charge at the holiday home of Pan Am Vice President Sam Pryor. These charges were repeated by Hughes when he appeared before the Senate War Investigating Committee. He also accused Brewster of trying to blackmail him into merging Trans World with Pan Am.

Brewster denied the charge but it helped divert attention away from the charge that Hughes had wasted $40m of government money. The Senate War Investigating Committee never completed its report on the non-delivery of the F-11 and the HK-1. The committee stopped meeting and was eventually disbanded. Hughes continued to use his power to seduce Hollywood stars. When Jane Greer , who was married to Edward Lasker , rejected his advances, she asked him: "Will that mean the end of my career?" He replied, "Yes, I guess it will". Greer retorted: "Well, I'll just keep having babies". Hughes' girlfriends in the early 1950s included Yvonne De Carlo , Rita Hayworth , Barbara Payton , Jean Peters and Terry Moore . When Hayworth became pregnant Hughes and Harry Cohn , her studio boss, forced her to have an abortion. He also had a brief relationship with Zizi Jeanmaire . However, she later claimed he was impotent with her. Hughes became involved in politics and was a secret supporter of Richard Nixon .

In 1956 the Hughes Tool Company provided a $205,000 loan to Nixon Incorporated, a company run by Richard's brother, Donald Nixon . The money was never paid back. Soon after the money was paid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reversed a previous decision to grant tax-exempt status to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1956 Hughes began to employ Robert Maheu , a former FBI agent and veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, on a freelance basis. This included intimidating would be blackmailers and obtaining information on business rivals. According to the author of Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (2004), Maheu "was his most trusted telephone companion apart from Jean Peters". Robert Maheu was asked to spy on Ava Gardner and Stuart W. Cramer, the former husband of Jean Peters . Maheu discovered that Cramer was a CIA agent. In 1956 Hughes employed Maheu to undermine the campaign to replace Richard Nixon with Christian Herter , as President Eisenhower's running-mate. Hughes proposed marriage to Jean Simmons and Susan Hayward . After being rejected by these women he eventually married Jean Peters in 1957.

The couple lived in a large bungalow in Palm Springs. He was already showing signs of extreme hypochondria and paranoia. This included a fear of flies. According to Charles Higham Hughes "hired three strapping Mormons to work in eight-hour shifts at the bungalow (where he lived), not just to make sure he wasn't killed, but to intercept the insects." The Hughes loan to Donald Nixon was revealed by during the Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson during the 1960 presidential campaign. Richard Nixon initially denied the loan but later was forced to admit that this money had been given to his brother. It was claimed that this story helped John F. Kennedy defeat Nixon in the election. In 1960 Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles decided to work with the Mafia in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro . Maheu was employed by the CIA to organize the conspiracy. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own.

On 25th September, Robert Maheu arranged for two CIA agents to meet Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana , at the Fountainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach. Maheu told Roselli and Giancana that the CIA was willing to pay $150,000 to have Castro killed. According to Bernard Barker Hughes worked with E. Howard Hunt in the secret CIA war against Fidel Castro . This included Operation Mongoose and Operation Pluto . This included Hughes making available his Sal Cay island in the Bahamas . The Miami Herald reported on 25th August 1963: "Cay Sal has served a dual purpose, as a rendezvous and arms storehouse for exile raiders, and, for anti-Castro refugees, the first stop to freedom, a gateway similar to the Berlin Wall to anti-Communist East Germans." Hughes made a fortune selling helicopters to the government during the Vietnam War . However, accused of overcharging and slow to delivery the necessary helicopters, he found himself excluded from a contract that went to his chief rival, Bell Helicopter . Hughes' companies lost $268 million in three years. Assassination of John F.

Kennedy Encyclopedia Hughes sold his Trans World Airlines stock in 1966 for $546m. He now moved to Las Vegas where he used his money to buy up four hotels and six casinos. He employed Robert Maheu to oversee this business. Maheu explained later what his role was in the operation: "When he came here, he wanted to tie up all the property on the Strip to develop it properly. He didn't want it to be honky-tonk or like Coney Island. Hughes was a catalyst in the city cleaning up its act." In 1965 the Atomic Energy Commission announced it was going to begin nuclear tests at Pahute Mesa , only 150 miles from the home of Howard Hughes. He contacted Richard Nixon but he refused to oppose these tests. During the 1968 presidential campaign Robert Maheu met with Hubert Humphrey in Denver . Maheu told Humphrey that Hughes was willing to pay him $100,000 if he was willing to do something about these nuclear tests. Humphrey promised that if he was elected he would appoint a committee of scientists to study the effects of radiation.

According to the author of Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (2004): "Hughes was delighted and pledged $300,000 to that committee. Now an elated Hughes dreaded that Bobby Kennedy would defeat Humphrey, who, in every way, lacked the glamour, charisma and ineffable name of his rival candidate. If only Bobby would die." On 4th June, 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Hughes was worried that Edward Kennedy would takeover from his brother and so he decided to buy Larry O'Brien , Kennedy's expert campaign manager. Robert Maheu met O'Brien in Las Vagas on 4th July, 1968. As a result of the meeting it was agreed that Hughes would pay O'Brien $15,000 a month Hughes also employed Larry O'Brien to protect his interests in Washington. O'Brien was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee. On 20th March, 1972 Frederick LaRue and John Mitchell of the Nixon's re-election committee decided to plant electronic devices in O'Brien's Democratic campaign offices in an apartment block called Watergate .

Frank Sturgis , Virgilio Gonzalez , Eugenio Martinez , Bernard L. Barker and E.Howard Hunt were later arrested and imprisoned for this crime. Hughes became a recluse but continued to run his business interests from sealed-off hotel suites. His health deteriorated and he died April 5, 1976, en route by private jet to a hospital in Houston. He left an estate estimated at $2 billion. Primary Sources (1) Mark Fisher, Howard Hughes (April, 2003) As fantastically wealthy manipulators go, Howard R. Hughes was king. The billionaire's Midas touch had less to do with his fabled technical and financial genius than with endless secret deals and covert political bribes. "I can but any man in the world," Hughes liked to boast. Indeed, Hughes's conspiratorial authority stemmed from his ability - and eager inclination purchase loyalty from anyone, including the president of the United States, in a position to advance his, well, idiosyncratic designs. Everything about Hughes was larger than life, including his paradoxical legend.

Heir to a Houston fortune based on a drill bit patent that revolutionized oil mining, the dashing young Hughes captured the American imagination during the Great Depression years. Cowboy aviator, Hollywood playboy, patriotic military contractor, maverick financier, Hughes was a comic book hero whose can-do exploits knew no limits. Later in life, as his eccentricities metastasized into madness, the darker portrait emerged: the stringy-haired old man, a real lunatic with a mortal fear of germs holed up in a penthouse hermitage. Throughout his life, Hughes's obsession with control expressed itself in a mania for espionage and spookery, especially as it applied to nurturing his substantial neuroses. However, despite his seeming omnipresence in the eye of many a stormy conspiracy, Hughes was just as manipulated by others. Known to spooks as the "Stockholder," Hughes fronted for CIA covert operations, sometimes unknowingly; Hughes, the demented shut-in, saw his empire manipulated by remote control. We join the Hughes saga during the late 1950s, with the arrival of the shadowy and some sleazy Robert Maheu, fountainhead of many real and imagined Hughes conspiracies.

In the fifties, Hughes hired Maheu to intimidate would-be blackmailers and spy on dozens of Hollywood starlets toward whom Hughes felt possessive. Maheu was a former FBI man whose private security firm fronted for the CIA on ultra-sensitive (read: illegal) missions. By the time he became Hughes's private spook, Maheu already had impressive credentials supervising contract kidnappings for the CIA and acting as the Agency's literal pimp, hiring prostitutes to service foreign dignitaries and their peculiar sexual appetites. Maheu's most notorious CIA job was a go-between in a failed 1960 plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, which recruited the Mafia to do the "hit." Friendly with the darndest folks, Maheu enlisted the aid of Vegas mobster John Roselli ("Uncle Johnny" to Maheu's children), Chicago godfather Sam "Momo" Giancana, and powerful Florida mob boss Santos Trafficante. Apparently, Hughes had no involvement in Maheu's freelance CIA work but delighted in the spook's exploits and connections, which only enhanced the billionaire's reputation and influence.

(According to journalist Jim Hougan, Maheu informed Hughes of his efforts on behalf of the CIA to kill Castro.) By some accounts, however, the Stockholder was the Agency's largest contractor. In dedicating his resources to the CIA, though, Hughes wasn't guided entirely by selfless motives. During the late sixties, he asked Maheu to offer his empire to Agency as a CIA front. At the time the Hughes fortune was threatened by major legal trouble the beleaguered billionaire hoped to deflect the nettlesome litigation with a "national security shield". (2) Spruce Goose , Flight-Line Online ( 2004) When America entered the second world war our geographic isolation from the areas of conflict gave us a distinct advantage over our enemies. The technology of the time simply made it too difficult for those fighting against us to mount serious action against our homeland. In the end, this advantage left us the time and manufacturing power to smother our foes with an unending supply of the materials necessary to wage war. But we also had to overcome the vast distances, we had to find ways to safely deliver these materials, and men to use them, to the areas of conflict around the world.

At the time, ships were the only way to get the job done and the men doing it were finding that it was very dangerous work! Shipyards across America were at full production but enemy submarines were sinking the critical vessels nearly as fast as they could be built. Something had to be done. The idea for the HK-1 flying boat came from Henry Kaiser... Head of one of the largest shipbuilding firms of the time, Kaiser thought a ship that could fly over the danger might be the answer. Howard Hughes was known as an innovator in aircraft construction and design. These two men, both legends in their own time, would launch the venture to build the huge craft (originally three were to be built). The new plane's official name bore the initials of the principals in the project HK-1....But to most of us it's always just been "Spruce Goose". The huge plane would be made primarily of wood, saving materials critical to the war effort. The difficulties creating such a large airframe made of wood were unknown at the beginning of construction and would prove to be many. The final product is a tribute to the efforts of the team in overcoming the problems they faced.

A structure made of lumber was created that, even on close inspection, bears little resemblance to any form of wood! Hughes would prove to be a demanding taskmaster during the period of development and construction. His attention to detail and insistence everything on the new plane be nearly perfect, was largely responsible for both the beauty of the finished product and it's not being ready to fly until after the war had ended. The timing of completion and final cost brought Hughes and the project under the critical eye of the post-war congress, one Senator grudgingly referring to the plane as "The flying lumberyard". Howard Hughes was called to Washington D.C. to defend both the project and himself. During a break in the hearings, he flew back to California to conduct a test on the "Goose", it was during this test the accidental flight took place. This event, whether intended or not, put a halt to critics of the project and served as the finale for this gigantic aircraft ...... the project was dead. Though his feathers had been ruffled by the intense questioning he had endured, the flight had vindicated Hughes and the project. The HK-1, which by now would be known forever as the "Spruce Goose", was put into storage .

It remained hidden from public view, carefully preserved, until after Howard Robard Hughes death in April of 1976. (3) Jack Anderson , Confessions of a Muckraker (1979) My mentor's sympathies, then, lay with (Howard) Hughes, but Drew (Pearson) felt stranded in an unsatisfying posture. It was his nature to want to play an important part in the great political brawls of the time, to put his mark on them, to help shape their outcome toward the benefit of his causes or the distress of his foes. Yet he would not take Brewster's side and could not take Hughes's. For though Hughes was probably the victim of an unsavory gang-up, his own conduct in the matter was too shabby to defend and he was not even making a fight of it himself. Grumbling at each day's leaks, Drew held back, watching the thing spin, looking for a handle to pick it up by. At this point in his disintegrating fortunes, Howard Hughes phoned Drew from one of his West Coast redoubts.

He had long considered Pearson to be journalism's leading molder of public opinion and the man most knowledgeable about the Byzantine twists of conspiratorial Washington. And since Drew's animus against Hughes's tormentors was clear, there was a mutuality of interest present that encouraged him to seek Drew's help and advice. In the manner of cornered men whose expense accounts have already been made public, Hughes admitted to misdemeanors but pled innocent to felonies. He had indeed wined and wenched government officials and military brass, sometimes to excess. It was necessary, he said; his competitors did it, and as a relative newcomer trying to buck long-entrenched interests and liaisons, he had to play the game in order to get a hearing on his proposals. He had never looked on aviation as a moneymaker, he insisted; he was in it because he had a passion for it. He yielded to no man in his mastery of the dark arts of making money, as the astronomical profits of his other businesses showed, but in aviation, he had lost $14 million in thirteen years.

Then he got to the nub: three months before, Brewster had attempted to lobby him in behalf of Pan Am, he said, and having failed, they were both out to destroy him. Pan Am had put great pressure on him to merge Trans World with Pan Am and co-sponsor the chosen-instrument plan. Brewster himself had told him at the Mayflower Hotel that the probe would be dropped if he joined forces with Pan Am. (4) Drew Pearson , Washington Merry-Go-Round (18th September, 1950) Senator Brewster in 1947 was chairman of the powerful Senate War Investigating Committee. He was also the bosom friend of Pan American Airways. Brewster and Pan American wanted Howard Hughes's TWA to consolidate its overseas lines with Pan Am. This Hughes refused to do. Whereupon Brewster investigated Hughes, and, during the period when he was before Brewster's Senate committee, Hughes's telephone wire and that of his attorneys were tapped, apparently under the off-stage direction of Henry Grunewald, who admits that at various times he checked telephone wires for Pan American Airways. Grunewald and others deny this.

Nevertheless this is the conclusion which Senators are forced to arrive at. No wonder businessmen who come to Washington are worried about talking over telephones. They never know when some competitor, perhaps with the cooperation of a Senate committee, is listening in. Yet this is supposed to be the capital of the USA not Moscow. (5) Hank Greenspun , Las Vegas Sun (18th December, 1977) There was no way to tell, from one day to another, while Mr. H. R. Hughes was resident among us earthlies, what would come from the mind and pen of the world's most famous recluse. As in a memo introduced in the Mormon Will trial from a collection of original writing owned by this columnist, one day he would recommend you for a Nobel Peace Prize and the next day he would be plotting a means for your total destruction. It would take a gyrating mind like his to keep up with the course he had laid out and which was subject to change at a moment's notice through will and caprice.

In the memo placed in evidence, and reproduced on the front page of Friday's SUN, he referred to the fact that "Hank has allied himself with us." For the record, this editor had not allied himself with anyone but his own beliefs. Hughes was discussing an editorial I had written suggesting we should proceed cautiously on nuclear testing until we learned what caused the sudden deaths before any more tests were made. The mere suggestion that a slowdown is indicated caused Mr. Hughes immediately to assume that I now was in his corner insisting that the Test Site be shut down. What I was indicating was most sensible and legitimate because a few days later, when news had come out that the sheep had died of a nerve gas being tested in Utah, I immediately wrote that the underground program in Nevada must proceed as long as Russia was continuing with nuclear exploration. I did believe that we must not rush pell mell into radiation destruction until we learned what happened to the sheep. Humans should not be subjected to a similar fate. There will be other memos produced in court before the trial is concluded which will show the almost irrational behavior of the man who caused more battles in the courts of the nation than any single individual or even corporate establishment.

Most of the legal involvements were instigated by his past General Counsel Chester Davis and also a few Las Vegas law firms, holdovers from the Davis-Bill Gay combine who are still sucking at Summa's financial resources for all they can get, but many were still caused by Hughes' own brilliance at one moment and his downright Machiavellian behavior the next without changing pens or paper. One memo will show from his own writings how he tried to stop Kirk Kerkorian from building the International, now the Hilton, and other hotels from being built unless he had total control over the gaming industry. For too many years since his departure, I have permitted myself to be pictured as the villain in the relationship waiting for some opportunity to prove by a jury of my community peers where the fault lay. On national TV, whenever I was questioned as to the effect Hughes had on the Nevada scene, I would respond that it was positive in many areas but detrimental in others. By his own writings, the people of Las Vegas and the entire state will now be able to judge for themselves which man had the community interest at heart.

I was his strongest advocate in the good he wrought, but also his severest critic in his monopolistic endeavors and his attempt to corrupt every public official at every level in local, state and national government. (6) Carl Oglesby , The Yankee and Cowboy War (1976) Howard Hughes's name surfaced in the story of Watergate on May 20, 1973, when James McCord told the Ervin committee and its media audience of an abandoned 1972 White House plot to steal certain documents from the safe of editor Hank Greenspun's Las Vegas Sun. Greenspun was an ally of Robert Maheu, the top Hughes aide who connected the CIA and the Mafia in 1960, who came to prominence in the Hughes empire during the Las Vegas period, and who then lost out in the Las Vegas power struggle that violently reconfigured the Hughes empire late in 1970. McCord testified that his fellow Plumbers, Hunt and Liddy, were to have carried out the break-in and theft of the papers and that Hughes interests were to have supplied them with a getaway plane and a safe hideout in an unnamed Central American country. What could the Greenspun documents have been?

Why should both Hughes and Nixon have been interested enough in them to attempt a robbery? Liddy said (testified McCord) that Attorney General John Mitchell had told him that Greenspun had in his possession blackmail type information involving a Democratic candidate for President, that Mitchell wanted that material, and Liddy said that this information was in some way racketeer-related, indicating that if this candidate became President, the racketeers or national crime syndicate could have a control or influence over him as President. My inclination at this point in time, speaking as of today, is to disbelieve the allegation against the Democratic candidate referred to above and to believe that there was in reality some other motive for wanting to get into Greenspun's safe. Howard Hughes Biography - life, family, childhood, death, school, mother, information, born, drugs, movie Howard Hughes Biography Houston, Texas American entrepreneur and inventor Howard Hughes was a colorful and flashy businessman and inventor who used an inherited fortune to achieve a national reputation in the motion picture and aviation industries. Childhood Howard Robard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas, on December 24, 1905, the only child of Howard Robard Hughes and Alene Gano Hughes.

His father earned millions by inventing special machinery for the oil industry. He attended private schools in California and Massachusetts and was very inventive as a child. At the age of twelve he made a radio transmitter out of an electric doorbell, and later he made a self-starting motor for his bicycle. At the age of fourteen he made his first airplane flight. Hughes then attended the Rice Institute in Houston, and the California Institute of Technology. His mother died when Hughes was sixteen and his father just two years later, leaving him an orphan with an estate worth $871,000 and a patent (right to ownership) for a drill bit used in most oil and gas drilling that brought large revenues to the family's Hughes Tool Company, manufacturers of the bit. The movie business Hughes left school to take control of the company, using its profits to finance a variety of projects, which he hoped would make him a legend in his own time. In 1925, at age twenty, Hughes married Ella Rice and moved to Los Angeles, California, (they separated in 1928).

In 1927 Hughes entered the motion picture business and produced such films as Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1941), and the box-office smash Hell's Angels (1930). He discovered actors Jean Harlow (1911–1937) and Paul Muni and made Jane Russell (1921–) a well-known star. While living in Hollywood, California, the multimillionaire movie producer led a relatively quiet lifestyle. He lived in small apartments or rented homes and rarely participated in Hollywood's social world of the rich and famous. Aviation In 1928 Hughes obtained a pilot's license. His interest in aviation (flying) led him to found the Hughes Aircraft Company in Glendale, California, in 1932 and to design, build, and fly record-breaking airplanes. He set a world speed record in 1935, transcontinental (crossing a continent) speed records in 1936 and 1937, and a world flight record in 1938. Hughes was honored with the Harmon Trophy and a New York City ticker-tape parade after his world flight.

He was awarded the Collier Trophy in 1939, the Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a Congressional Medal in 1941. In 1939 Hughes began work on an experimental military aircraft, and in 1942 he received a contract to design and build the world's largest plane, a wooden seaplane, later nicknamed the "Spruce Goose." It was supposed to serve as a troop carrier in World War II (1939–45). Hughes suffered a nervous breakdown in 1944 and was critically injured in the crash of his experimental military plane in 1946, but he recovered and flew the huge seaplane the next year. As a result of these aviation activities, Hughes became a popular public figure because his image represented the traditional American qualities of individuality, daring, and imagination. He was named to the Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973. The Hughes Aircraft Company became a major defense contractor after World War II.

As the profits of the company increased, Hughes became obsessed with avoiding taxes and in 1953 created the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a sophisticated tax shelter to which he transferred the profits of the aircraft company. In 1956 Hughes loaned $205,000 to future President Richard Nixon's (1913–1994) brother Donald in a successful effort to influence an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruling on the medical institute. Hughes made secret contributions of $100,000 to the successful Nixon presidential campaign in 1970 and was able to prevent enforcement of the Tax Reform Act against the medical institute. Hughes continued to use profits from the tool company for other ventures, including the creation of Trans World Airlines (TWA), in which he had begun investing in 1939. Life in seclusion In 1950 Hughes began a strange life of isolation, beginning a lifestyle which would ultimately turn him into a recluse (one who retreats from the world), although he did marry actress Jean Peters in 1957, divorcing her in 1971.

Hughes refused to appear in court or even give a statement, and in a 1963 antitrust case over his ownership of 78 percent of TWA, his failure to appear resulted in a ruling that led him to sell his holdings in 1966. The $566 million received from this sale was invested by Hughes in hotels, gambling casinos, Howard Hughes. Library of Congress . golf courses, a television station, an airport, and land in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 1972 the Hughes Tool Division, the basis of the Hughes fortune, was sold. The holding company was renamed Summa Corporation and its headquarters relocated to Las Vegas, where Hughes had moved his residence. From this point on Hughes's career accomplishments were minimal. His obsession to control every aspect of his environment turned him into a recluse. He was seen only by a few associates and remained isolated from the operations of his company. In 1970 he left the United States, and moved from place to place—the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Canada, England, and Mexico. He always arrived unannounced in luxury hotels and took extreme precautions to ensure privacy.

Hughes saw only a few male aides, worked for days without sleep in a black-curtained room, and became emaciated (thin from starvation) from the effects of his diet and the excessive use of drugs. Hughes's concern for privacy ultimately caused controversy, resulting in a scandal over his supposed memoirs (writings of personal experiences) by author Clifford Irving that sold for $1 million before being proven to be fake. The Hughes conglomerate (a group of diverse businesses) became involved with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and in 1975, built an undersea exploratory drilling ship which was actually used by the CIA to attempt to recover a sunken Soviet (Russian) submarine. The company retained a Washington, D.C., public relations firm that was also involved with the CIA, which led the Hughes corporation to become involved in the "Watergate" affair, a scandal that ultimately lead to the resignation of President Nixon in 1973. Hughes died on April 5, 1976, on an airplane that was taking him from Acapulco, Mexico, to a hospital in Houston for medical attention. Hughes was controversial even after his death.

Several wills appeared, one of which was found in the Mormon church in Salt Lake City, Utah, but all were later declared to be forgeries. For More Information Spruce Goose: Where Is It Now? Scheduled only for engine and water handling tests, Howard Hughes surprises the world by flying for over a mile, the giant craft known by then as...... Author's Note: This is the oldest and, over the course of years, the most visited story on this website. The Spruce Goose was the motivation for beginning All Aviation FlightLine OnLine. At the time I wrote this, the "Spruce Goose" was sitting, seemingly forgotten, under a temporary structure at the Evergreen Aviation facility on Highway 26, across the highway from the museum that was completed in 2000 in which it now resides as the centerpiece of the wonderful Evergreen vintage aircraft collection. It seemed to be begging to have its story told and even more, the airplane seemed to be asking for help. I could not resist.

I invite you to read about how it got where it is today and to CLICK HERE for a look at its new home, or as it was being prepared for display within that new home several years ago when I last visited the airplane that wound up changing my life. On further note, pardon our dust, this website is receiving a long-overdue face lift and some pages on it may not have been completed yet. The Hughes Racer, Hughes H-1 was the first aircraft designed by this amazing man. In 2001, Jim Wright and a group of builders created a perfect full scale replica which was so accurate, it was given the serial number H-1 sn#2 by the FAA. Before the airplane and Jim Wright were lost in a tragic accident, we were able to spend much time with the man and his airplane. Click Here or on the image above for many more photos and details. SPRUCE GOOSE When America entered the second world war our geographic isolation from the areas of conflict gave us a distinct advantage over our enemies. The technology of the time simply made it too difficult for those fighting against us to mount serious action against our homeland.

In the end, this advantage left us the time and manufacturing power to smother our foes with an unending supply of the materials necessary to wage war. But we also had to overcome the vast distances, we had to find ways to safely deliver these materials, and men to use them, to the areas of conflict around the world. At the time, ships were the only way to get the job done and the men doing it were finding that it was very dangerous work! Shipyards across America were at full production but enemy submarines were sinking the critical vessels nearly as fast as they could be built. Something had to be done. The idea for the HK-1flying boat came from Henry Kaiser....Head of one of the largest shipbuilding firms of the time, Kaiser thought a ship that could fly over the danger might be the answer. Howard Hughes was known as an innovator in aircraft construction and design. These two men, both legends in their own time, would launch the venture to build the huge craft. (originally three were to be built ) The new plane's official name bore the initials of the principals in the project HK-1....But to most of us it's always just been "Spruce Goose".

The huge plane would be made primarily of wood, saving materials critical to the war effort. The difficulties creating such a large airframe made of wood were unknown at the beginning of construction and would prove to be many. The final product is a tribute to the efforts of the team in overcoming the problems they faced. A structure made of lumber was created that, even on close inspection, bears little resemblance to any form of wood! Hughes would prove to be a demanding taskmaster during the period of development and construction. His attention to detail and insistence everything on the new plane be nearly perfect, was largely responsible for both the beauty of the finished product and it's not being ready to fly until after the war had ended. The timing of completion and final cost brought Hughes and the project under the critical eye of the post-war congress, one Senator grudgingly referring to the plane as "The flying lumberyard". Howard Hughes was called to Washington D.C. to defend both the project and himself. During a break in the hearings, he flew back to California to conduct a test on the "Goose", it was during this test the accidental flight took place.

This event, whether intended or not, put a halt to critics of the project and served as the finale for this gigantic aircraft ...... the project was dead. Though his feathers had been ruffled by the intense questioning he had endured, the flight had vindicated Hughes and the project. The H-4, which by now would be known forever as the "Spruce Goose", was put into storage . It remained hidden from public view, carefully preserved, until after Howard Robard Hughes death in April of 1976. With the war ended, the need for this type of craft was gone....or was it? Modern cargo transport planes bear striking resemblance to the old wood flying boat in some important ways. (squint your eyes just right and the H-4, shown in this picture, begins to look like a C-5) With the optional doors installed, the large opening front would have allowed drive-on access for large vehicles and quick load and unload times. The Spruce Goose was intended to carry up to 750 fully equipped troops, or two Sherman class tanks . Hughes and his team had broken ground in the development of this plane, that they did it in wood is even more remarkable.

Though the project finished behind schedule....they were ahead of their time!

Question: SG. What was the name of the huge seaplane owned by Howard Hughes?
Answer: SPRUCE GOOSE