Hughes, Howard Robard (1905-1976), an American businessman, became known as one of the world’s richest people. During the 1930’s and 1940’s, he gained fame as a motion-picture producer and aviator. Then, in the mid-1950’s, Hughes deliberately dropped out of sight. He became a mysterious figure who never appeared in public and even refused to have his photograph taken.
Hughes was born on Dec. 24, 1905, in Houston. His father died in 1924, leaving him the Hughes Tool Company, an oil-field equipment firm. The firm became the basis of Hughes’s financial empire. He later owned the Hughes Aircraft Company, RKO Pictures Corporation, and a controlling interest in Trans World Airlines.
Hughes led a varied life. He became a Hollywood film producer after his father’s death. His most successful movies included Hell’s Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1943). Hughes also designed and raced airplanes. He set several speed records, including an around-the-world mark of 3 days 19 hours 14 minutes. In the 1940’s, he designed the plane that still holds the record for the largest wingspan of any plane ever built—319 feet 11 inches (97.57 meters). This eight-engine wooden flying boat, nicknamed Spruce Goose, had room for 700 passengers. In 1947, Hughes piloted the plane on its only flight. It flew 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) at a height of 70 feet (21 meters). Today, the Spruce Goose is on display at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinville, Oregon.
At the time of Hughes’s death on April 5, 1976, estimates of the value of his estate went as high as $2 billion. But in 1984, the United States Internal Revenue Service and the states of California and Texas valued the estate at $380 million for taxation purposes. California and Texas worked out an agreement to share the inheritance taxes from the Hughes estate.
In 1971, the McGraw-Hill Book Company paid about $750,000 to Clifford Irving, a writer, for a manuscript he presented as Hughes’s autobiography. Irving claimed he worked on it with Hughes, but Hughes denied knowing Irving. In 1972, Irving and his wife admitted to misrepresenting the manuscript to the publisher. They were fined and imprisoned.
