Howard Hughes: Eccentric aviator

Summary

Good Bad Billionaire: Howard Hughes – Eccentric Aviator

Episode Overview Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast that delves into the lives of some of the world's most influential billionaires. In the episode titled "Howard Hughes: Eccentric Aviator," hosts Simon Jack and Zing Singh explore the extraordinary life, business ventures, and complex personality of Howard Hughes, a man whose legacy is as vast and varied as his wealth.

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Introduction: The Final Moments of Howard Hughes [00:00 – 02:56]

The episode opens with a vivid and somber depiction of Howard Hughes's final moments:

"He's a billionaire, once the richest man in the USA and maybe even the world. But money can't buy him anything now. These are his final breaths." – Simon Jack [02:56]

This dramatic narrative sets the tone for an in-depth exploration of Hughes's life, highlighting the juxtaposition between his immense wealth and personal struggles.

Early Life and Inheritance [03:08 – 11:54]

Howard Hughes Jr.: Born on December 24, 1905, in Houston, Texas, Howard Hughes was the only child of Aileen and Howard Hughes Sr. His father, an innovator in the oil industry, had struck gold with the invention of a cone-shaped drill bit, leading to significant profits from the Hughes Tool Company.

"By 1910, the Hughes Tool Company was making annual profits of $500,000. Now, adjusted for inflation, that is around $17 billion a year." – Simon Jack [05:26]

From a young age, Hughes exhibited a passion for engineering, building a wireless broadcast at 11 and a motorized bicycle as a teenager. His affluent upbringing allowed him to indulge his interests extensively.

At 19, after his father's death, Hughes secured control of the family fortune by outmaneuvering his relatives, marking the beginning of his journey to becoming a millionaire.

Hollywood and Film Production [14:35 – 33:22]

With a substantial inheritance, Hughes ventured into Hollywood in 1925. His initial foray involved financing films, starting with the poorly received "Swell Hogan," which he ultimately scrapped:

"Hughes didn't even let it become a box office flop. After a series of test audience laughed at how bad it was, he refused to release it and apparently ordered all copies to be destroyed." – Simon Jack [16:41]

Despite early setbacks, Hughes founded his own film company, producing successes like "Swell Hogan" and "Two Arabian Nights," the latter winning an Oscar at the first Academy Awards in 1929. His most ambitious project, "Hell's Angels" (1929), was lauded for its groundbreaking aerial stunts but drained his finances due to its exorbitant production costs.

"Hell's Angels had started out filming in 1927 as a silent movie, but was reshot as a sound movie. The film took three years to make, had cost $2.8 million, at a time when films often shot in a month and budgets rarely topped 400,000." – Simon Jack [18:01]

Hughes's lavish spending extended beyond films to luxury cars, furs, jewelry, and personal indulgences, culminating in significant financial strain by 1930.

Aviation and Hughes Aircraft [24:08 – 33:22]

Hughes's love for aviation led him to purchase a military pursuit plane from Boeing in 1932 and establish the Hughes Aircraft Company as a subsidiary of Hughes Tool Company. He aimed to create the fastest plane in the world, setting multiple speed records with the Hughes H-1 and breaking the transcontinental flight record.

However, his ambitious projects were not without failures. The Spruce Goose, a massive wooden flying boat built during World War II, only flew once in 1947, garnering both notoriety and ridicule:

"He bought his way out of that situation." – Simon Jack [28:10]

Despite setbacks, Hughes Aircraft thrived post-war, becoming a pivotal player in military aviation and electronics, significantly contributing to the U.S. Air Force's capabilities during the Vietnam War.

Personal Life and Relationships [19:08 – 37:35]

Howard Hughes's personal life was tumultuous, marked by a series of high-profile relationships and marriages:

• Ella Rice: Married in 1925, their union ended in a costly divorce in 1929.
• Billy Dove, Jean Harlow, Hedy Lamarr, and others: Hughes was notorious for his manipulative and controlling relationships, often using his wealth to influence and control women.

His treatment of women was particularly egregious, exemplified by his relationships with Faith Domogue and Rene Rossou, where he isolated and stifled their careers.

"He was also notorious for using his money and position to control people." – Simon Jack [22:29]

Business Ventures and Challenges [33:22 – 38:24]

While Hughes's film and aviation ventures had their highs and lows, he continued to expand his empire. By the late 1940s, Hughes Aircraft was a booming enterprise, securing substantial government contracts and playing a crucial role in defense technology.

However, Hughes's erratic behavior and obsessive control began to hamper his businesses:

"Despite his wealth, Hughes positioned himself as if you like the underdog being unfairly targeted by political elites and framed the investigation as a politically motivated attack." – Simon Jack [30:39]

Ultimately, his mismanagement led to conflicts with the U.S. Air Force, forcing him to restructure Hughes Aircraft and establish the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Later Life and Reclusiveness [38:24 – 41:28]

In his later years, Hughes became increasingly reclusive, isolating himself from the public and conducting business remotely. His obsession with cleanliness and health, likely stemming from his germophobia, led to extreme behaviors:

"He often sat naked in the dark. He used layers of tissues to touch doorknobs and demanded his aides pass him items wrapped in tissue and paper towel." – Simon Jack [40:21]

Hughes's reclusiveness extended to his ventures in Las Vegas, where he amassed significant real estate and controlled a substantial portion of the Las Vegas Strip. Despite his business successes, his deteriorating mental health plagued his final years.

Death and Estate [41:38 – 42:21]

Howard Hughes died on April 5, 1976, aboard a private plane en route to a New York hospital, succumbing to kidney failure likely caused by his prolonged use of painkillers. At his death, his estate was valued at approximately $2.5 billion.

The absence of a will led to prolonged legal battles over his fortune, not settling until the year 2000.

Hosts' Evaluation: Good, Bad, or Just Another Billionaire? [42:21 – 46:54]

Simon and Zing conclude the episode by evaluating Hughes on various categories:

• Wealth: "Nine out of ten." – Zing Singh [43:08]
• Controversy: "Nine out of ten." – Simon Jack [43:19]
• Philanthropy (Giving Back):
  • Simon: "Three out of ten."
  • Zing: "Two out of ten." – Zing Singh [44:05]
• Power and Legacy:
  • Simon: "Seven out of ten."
  • Zing: "Eight out of ten." – Zing Singh [46:22]

Verdict:

"He’s more than eccentric. ... Possibly, I'm gonna give him a seven." – Simon Jack [46:51]
"I think I would give him an eight out of ten." – Zing Singh [46:54]

Howard Hughes is portrayed as a complex figure who embodies both the ingenuity and the darker aspects of billionaire influence.

Listener Interaction and Closing [47:23 – 49:20]

The episode wraps up with messages from listeners praising the podcast's insightful storytelling and suggestions for future episodes, highlighting the show's global reach and engagement with its audience.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Every day, innovators are redefining what's possible." – BBC Announcer [00:00]
• "He’s the world’s most famous eccentric billionaire." – Zing Singh [03:50]
• "He never would ever again." – Simon Jack [11:54]
• "He created the archetype of the eccentric billionaire." – Zing Singh [46:22]

Conclusion

The Howard Hughes: Eccentric Aviator episode offers a comprehensive look into the life of one of America's most enigmatic billionaires. Through meticulous research and engaging narration, Simon and Zing present a balanced portrayal that invites listeners to ponder the complexities of wealth, power, and personal demons. Howard Hughes's story serves as a cautionary tale of how immense fortune and unbridled ambition can shape, and often distort, one's legacy.

Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

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[Simon Jack]

It'S the 5th of April 1976. A private plane flies low over the grand vistas of Texas. Inside, a skeletal figure takes a last look out at the country of his birth, a west that was still just about wild when he was born. The old man takes in the canyons, the valleys, the plains and the plateaus. He's 70, but with white hair down to his waist, a wispy beard, and the emaciated appearance of a man weighing just 90 pounds. He could pass for a decade or even two older. He clasps a Kleenex tissue box close to him. Inside that is a syringe wrapped in tissue. The old man has already used it several times in the short time it's taken to fly from Mexico, dosing himself up with Valium. The plane is due to land in New York, but this passenger will never see that city again. He's frankly a stinking, filthy figure. His teeth are rotted and so is his liver. But he's also a billionaire, once the richest man in the USA and maybe even the world. But money can't buy him anything now. These are his final breaths. In seconds, he will be dead.

[Zing Singh]

FOREIGN welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.

[Simon Jack]

We take them from zero to their first million, then from a million onto a billion.

[Zing Singh]

My name is Zing Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.

[Simon Jack]

My name is Simon Jack and I'm the BBC's business editor.

[Zing Singh]

And on this episode, we're talking about Howard Hughes, a man who was honestly larger than life.

[Simon Jack]

Probably one of the most famous eccentrics of all time. He was a businessman, an inventor, aviator, of course, filmmaker, property tycoon and tool maker, and was once the richest person in America.

[Zing Singh]

So when he died on that plane, he was worth $2.5 billion, which is about $15 billion adjusted for inflation.

[Simon Jack]

Today, he's the latest dead billionaire we're covering in this special mini season about five of the founding billionaires of US industry.

[Zing Singh]

As much as his wealth, Hughes is known for his incredible life. He was a playboy, beloved of newspaper gossip columns, a world record breaking aviator and an obsessive germaphobe who died an eccentric recluse.

[Simon Jack]

But the reason he's on this series is because he made a lot of money. He had hit films, he owned a studio, developed military planes and owned a major commercial airline.

[Zing Singh]

And his is a story that is truly extraordinary. So let us start at the beginning. So Howard Robart Hughes Jr. Was born on the 24th of December, 1905 in Houston, Texas. He was an only child and his mother, Aileen was just 22 when Howard was born. Now, Aileen came from one of Texas's first families. She'd married Howard Hughes senior a year before Howard's birth.

[Simon Jack]

Howard Hughes Sr. Was 14 years older than his wife. And although he was also from a well respected family, Howard's grandfather, for example, was a Supreme Court judge. Howard Sr. Had been regarded as an underachiever at the time of his marriage, he left a career in law and and set out to find himself a foothold in that burgeoning Texas oil boom of the early 20th century.

[Zing Singh]

Now, Howard was especially close to his mother, but she was a hypochondriac who constantly worried about his health. And over time, as we'll see, Hughes came to share his mother's hypochondria. He'd go on to suffer from germaphobia throughout his life. It culminated in an extreme form of obsessive compulsive disorder. And according to the Hughes biography by Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broska, a childhood friend said Howard was a strange boy. Very shy and very lonely.

[Simon Jack]

But he was also very rich. And that's because while Howard was just a toddler, his father, metaphorically at least, had struck gold. Along with a business partner, Hughes senior had invented a cone shaped drill bit that cut through granite easily and that enabled drilling rigs to reach previously untapped oil reserves thousands of feet below the ground. And it became an essential tool of the booming oil trade. So by 1910, the Hughes Tool Company was making annual profits of $500,000. Now, adjusted for inflation, that is around $17 billion a year.

[Zing Singh]

Wow.

[Simon Jack]

And by 1915, he had sole ownership of the company, and his drill bits were in use across 11 US states and 13 countries worldwide.

[Zing Singh]

So life was pretty good. The Hughes family moved into a lavish Houston mansion, and young Howard was allowed to indulge in his passions as he would for the rest of his life. So from childhood, Howard was passionate about engineering. So aged just 11, he built the first wireless broadcast in Houston. He taught himself Morse code and was communicating with ships in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not sure how some ships would have responded to it.

[Simon Jack]

Here's a small child just calling in, what's going on?

[Zing Singh]

What's the weather like?

[Simon Jack]

I must say that this sounds to me like the kind of almost ideal childhood. You've got enough money to indulge all your passions for putting things apart, putting them back together. And as we'll see, you know just about every toy that any child could ever want. And some of them are more than toys. And as a teenager, his experiments became more complex. He built a motorized bicycle, then an intercom system for his family's mansions. When he was just 14, he got his father to buy him an early sports car, a machine called a Stutz Bearcat, which cost $7,000. That's the equivalent of over $120,000 today. Imagine spending 120 grand on a 14 year old.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, come on, just how far was this guy allowed to indulge his passions when he was a kid?

[Simon Jack]

But in fact, instead of driving it around, he completely disassembled the car, then put it Back together again. A month.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, that's not bad. Another lifelong passion was sparked on his 16th birthday when Howard was given a flight in a seaplane. So he immediately asked his dad for flying lessons but was refused. So this was still the early days of airplanes and although flying was becoming a popular pastime for the rich, it was still incredibly dangerous. But you know, Hugh Senior was trying to soften the blow here. So he increased Howard's monthly allowance to $5,000, a sum which still seems incredible by today's standards, but at that time actually well above the annual income for a middle class family.

[Simon Jack]

That is amazing. $5,000 a month in the early 20th century for a kid that's insane. You've got no excuses if this kid turns out to be a bit spoiled.

[Zing Singh]

Exactly.

[Simon Jack]

So, you know, from his position, things are looking pretty good for the young 16 year old Howard Hughes. But then tragedy struck. Not once but twice. First his mother Aileen died suddenly from an ectopic pregnancy.

[Zing Singh]

Young Howard seemed to cope with this bereavement and it was even noted that he became less shy at his boarding school. But his dad struggled with the loneliness. He pulled Howard out of school and moved them to Pasadena in California. And it was there that Howard Sr. Bribed the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech for short, to accept Howard, who was at this point yet to even take his high school diploma.

[Simon Jack]

Oh, good old bribery, eh? Howard soon settled into a routine. Caltech lectures in the morning, tennis at midday, golf in the afternoon. Then every evening he'd indulge another passion that would shape his life. He'd go to his local cinema and watch silent movies all night.

[Zing Singh]

But then in 1924, just two years after his mother's death, a heart attack killed off Howard Hughes Senior. Inevitably, the death of both his parents took a toll on 18 year old Howard Hughes. But it's difficult to actually quite say how later in life he was described as cold and emotionless. But while he was certainly always an unusual child, it's hard to say if that was a response to being orphaned or, or if he was always that way.

[Simon Jack]

You just think that a combination of great wealth, being orphaned and being all alone and being quite shy and nerdy, it's quite a volatile cocktail of things. You know, I would say, you know, it's not, it's not a normal childhood.

[Zing Singh]

It's certainly a toxic chemical combination, I think for a life that would later be led in quite an odd idiosyncratic way.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. What we can say for certain that after his father's Death, Hughes acted swiftly and decis to secure his hold on the family fortune. Now, the estate was valued at $860,000. Probably an intentional undervaluation for tax avoidance reasons, we think. But his father's will left Howard 75% of the shares in the Hughes Tool Company. The other 25% went to Howard's grandparents and one of his dad's brothers.

[Zing Singh]

Technically, although he was 18, Howard was still considered a minor. And the well specified a guardian had to ensure he completed university before inheriting that.

[Simon Jack]

At 21, like many of our billionaires, he was impatient and didn't want to wait for that. He told a friend he wanted his family out of his life and that he finds someone to run this goddamn tool company too. So then, with the help of his father's attorney, he found a legal precedent that 18 year olds could be declared adults by convincing a court that they were responsible. So Howard went to court to prove his maturity.

[Zing Singh]

And there in front of the judge, he stated his case. And the judge overseeing it said that he was unable to ask Howard any questions he couldn't answer and declared Howard Hughes an ad just two days after his 19th birthday. And with that inheritance confirmed, Howard set about using the company's $325,000 in cash reserves to buy out his relatives shares.

[Simon Jack]

And his uncle and grandparents reluctantly agreed. In fact, his grandparents found talk of money that soon after his father's death so distasteful they actually only took $10.

[Zing Singh]

His uncle, however, did take the full amount.

[Simon Jack]

Took the full amount. There we go. So at 19, Howard Hughes is now the sole owner of his father's company mansion and all other assets. And in the coming Hughes Tool Company would deliver profits of $5,000 a day or 1.8 million a year. And these are big numbers for the early 20th century.

[Zing Singh]

So it's safe to say that at this point, aged 19, Howard Hughes is a millionaire. Not only that, he was also in control of his own company, his finances, his destiny, all at this young age, he had no one to tell him what he could or couldn't do. And he never would ever again.

[Simon Jack]

What could possibly go wrong with that set?

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[Zing Singh]

So let's take him from a million to a billion.

[Simon Jack]

Yes, Having moved back to Houston to confirm his inheritance, Howard Hughes now wanted to get back to California. But he had no intention of completing his degree as his father had wanted. Instead, he wanted to head to the bright lights of Hollywood.

[Zing Singh]

However, at this point, Howard still felt the need to abide by the social mores of society and got himself married. So marriages of convenience were actually commonplace in Texan high society at the time and Hughes knew a wife would come of give him this front of maturity of respectability and it would also allow him to get rid of the attentions of overly concerned aunts and gossip mongers and let him pursue his Hollywood dreams.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, so he wed local debutant ella Rice on 1 June 1925. The couple immediately moved to a suite of rooms in the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood. This would not be the last time that Hughes took up residence in a hotel and actually that's actually quite common amongst for example the, the rich or famous, they would take a suite of rooms at a hotel because you kind of get built in security. You have everything on tap, you have cleaning, you have a fleet of people to do what your bidding is. So it seems crazy now, but it was actually not that uncommon back then.

[Zing Singh]

Now, around this time, Howard Hughes reportedly said he had four aims in life. To be, in his words, the greatest golfer in the world, the finest film producer in Hollywood, the greatest pilot in the world, and the richest man in the world. But not in that.

[Simon Jack]

At that time, the one at the top of his list seemed to be becoming the finest film producer in Hollywood. So it's probably worth just thinking about Hollywood in 1925. That was the year that Hughes moved there.

[Zing Singh]

So this is just two years after the famous Hollywood sign had been put up. Back then it actually said Hollywoodland.

[Simon Jack]

Great pub quiz question.

[Zing Singh]

Very good. Stole that away in the back of your mind. But Hollywood already had all the glamour and allure it's famous for today. So film was a brand new industry, but the business was already huge. It was estimated to be the USA's fifth largest industry. And Hollywood is already at its center.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, but remember in 1925, motion pictures are still silent, black and white, but the sound and color eras are just around the corner. And our teenage millionaire wants in. So he uses a fraction of his vast cash reserves and finances a movie. He invests $80,000 to produce a sentimental comedy called Swell Hogan. Have you seen Swell Hogan?

[Zing Singh]

I honestly do not think anybody has seen it.

[Simon Jack]

I think that's probably right. The film apparently was so aw. Hughes didn't even let it become a box office flop. After a series of test audience laughed at how bad it was, he refused to release it and apparently ordered all copies to be destroyed. So if anyone's got a copy of Swell Hogan out there, you're sitting on potential gold mine.

[Zing Singh]

Now, despite the initial failure of Swell Hogan, Hughes kept going. He actually launched his own film company in 1926, and his next two films actually did a lot better. So everybody's acting turned a $70,000 investment into a $160,000 return. And two Arabian Nights cost $500,000, but ended up taking home $800,000. So that film would actually also win an Oscar at the very first Academy awards ceremony in 1929.

[Simon Jack]

But Hughes next film was his most ambitious yet. It was a first World War epic filled with incredible airplane stunts. Important that. And this time he wasn't just producing, he directed too. It starred upcoming starlet Gene Harlow and was called Hell's Angels.

[Zing Singh]

And when it came out, it was regarded as a pretty good film. It actually got some Oscar nominations. And it was lauded for its groundbreaking dog fight scenes, which used real aircrafts and daring stunts. And it did really well at the box office. But there was a problem. It may have been a hit, but it cost a fortune.

[Simon Jack]

And guess what Howard Hughes, the director, is said to have been demanding. Hell's Angels had started out filming in 1927 as a silent movie, but was reshot as a sound movie. And after the first talkie sound film, the Jazz Singer, became a hit that year, Hughes also had custom built planes made for the movie. And having finally got his pilot's license, he'd even flown and crashed them in some sequences himself.

[Zing Singh]

And there were even color sequences which were incredibly expensive at the time. In all, the film took three years to make, had cost $2.8 million, at a time when films often shot in a month and budgets rarely topped 400,000. So it was expensive. And despite the success, the film would never recover its costs. And although Howard was incredibly rich, you know, that wealth was not bottomless.

[Simon Jack]

It sounds like the sort of water world of its time. By 1930, he'd spent about $6 million on movies. But it wasn't just films Hughes had thrown money at as soon as he'd arrived in Hollywood. He'd spent in a way his father had never allowed. He had spent $100,000 on luxury cars, $20,000 on furs and jewelry. He's a kind of real life Jay Gatsby in a way.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, he really is. And you know, at one point, he become obsessed with creating a steam powered car and had actually invested $550,000 in its development. But then he just seemed to lose interest. He'd also put a lot of money into speculating on Wall street. He once lost $4 million in an hour after he got a bad tip from a guy on a golf course. And those lavish living expenses were racking up. In 1929, he'd had an expensive divorce from wife Ella. He had to give her a settlement of 1.2 million do.

[Simon Jack]

Meanwhile, he spent 1 1/2 million dollars on his new girlfriend, an actress called Billy Dove. He bought her out of her existing film studio contract, remodeled a yacht for her. Oh, and he also gave money to her husband to divorce her.

[Zing Singh]

Lucky Billy Dove. So all in all, some $20 million had been spent. Now, when he'd moved to Hollywood, Hughes had put a man called Noah Dietrich in charge of his tool company, Dietrich was a former prize fighter turned accountant who had kept things on track. But in the winter of 1930, he had to warn Hughes that he spent all the cash reserves and was nearly broke.

[Simon Jack]

The executives of the company, though, had a plan. They proposed Hughes hand over the company to them in exchange for a guaranteed annual payment of $500,000. But Hughes already had five more films in production and needed 2 million right away.

[Zing Singh]

He also understood the true value of his father's company. He said, this is a cash cow and it will eventually make me one of the richest men in the world. So while he's throwing money away on things that most of us wouldn't spend money on, he's still kind of got that now. So business.

[Simon Jack]

And in fact, this is the point where Howard Hughes starts to take his business quite seriously. First, he takes out a bank loan against the company to pay for those film productions he's got in train. Then he begins to reign in his spending. That must have been a shock. And he no longer ignores the reports he has sent from the Hughes Tool Company. In fact, he studies them in detail and sends Dietrich out to Houston to assess where cuts and improvements can be made. And over the next five years, he doubled the company's research staff, modernized its factory and had hundreds of new drill bits added to its catalog. So he's really zeroing in on the source of his wealth here.

[Zing Singh]

And after all these investments, profits begin to rise. 6 million in 1935, 9 million in 1936, and 13 million in 1937. So the company certainly proved itself a cash cow throughout Howard Hughes's life. But let's face it, it's not like he was ever fully focused on his tool company.

[Simon Jack]

No, he's got much better things to do because during the 1930s solidified his reputation as a playboy. Remember that starlet Billy Dove? The one whose husband Hughes paid to divorce her? Well, she became his fiance, but she was just one of many film stars he's romantically linked to.

[Zing Singh]

There were also rumors of an on and off on set romance with Jean Harlow, the star of Hell's Angels. And then came Hedy Lamar, the leading lady who had a parallel career as an inventor. Hughes actually inadvertently helped that second career by introducing her to numerous engineers at his company.

[Simon Jack]

Through the 30s, 40s and 50s, Howard Hughes dated some of the most famous women in in the world. This is quite a list. Check this out. Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, who apparently once smashed an ashtray over his head. Jane Russell, Gina Lollobrigida. Ida Lupino and Gene Turney. That is quite a list.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, that's like a who's who of Hollywood, isn't it?

[Simon Jack]

Blimey.

[Zing Singh]

And while Hughes maintained friendships with a few of the women in his life, I assume Ava Gardner wasn't one of them. He was also notorious for using his money and position to control people. So his controlling treatment of actresses he put under contract was an open secret in Hollywood. They'd be assigned a furnished flat and an encore driver. But the driver was also doubling up as a spy for Hughes. And every moment of their days and nights was scheduled by Hughes.

[Simon Jack]

I don't think this would pass muster after the MeToo era, do you?

[Zing Singh]

Absolutely not. So one example I think came in 1941 with an upcoming star called Faith Domogue.

[Simon Jack]

Hughes gave her an engagement ring and bought her out of her contract with Warner Brothers. She later said, suddenly my professional and emotional future were completely in his hand. He kept her isolated, blocked her career, all the time carrying on with other women. When she read gossip column reports of his relationships with other actresses, he'd pay the papers to write new reports saying the first reports were publicity stunts. And of course he had no intention of marrying her and he never did.

[Zing Singh]

Another example comes in 1953 with a 19 year old called Rene Rossou. She actually attempted suicide a few months after arriving in Hollywood, saying that cues keeping her from working was partly to blame. She survived, but her career didn't.

[Simon Jack]

Pretty horrific stories these, it's fair to say. Say we could have done a whole program on Hughes's romantic entanglements, but on good, bad billionaire, we need to focus on the business side of things. Martin Scorsese did actually make a 2 hour 50 minute movie you may have seen called the Aviator, which is mainly about Hughes's relationship with Katherine Hepburn. And as the title suggests, it's also about his passion for flight. And that is the next business venture we'll discuss.

[Zing Singh]

In 1932, Hughes had purchased a military pursuit plane from Boeing. Although the plane was restricted for Air Force use, Hughes had made special arrangements with the Department of Commerce to own one.

[Simon Jack]

He then formed the Hughes Aircraft Company as a subsidiary of the Hughes Tool Company to improve the Boeing plane for racing. And he'd go on to use the Tool company as a kind of holding company for all his other business interests. A bit like if you remember, Warren Buffett bought this old company called Berkshire Hathaway as the huge kind of holding company, central investment company. Even though, for example, Berkshire Hathaway was originally A textile company and ended up being the biggest shareholder in Apple. For example, example.

[Zing Singh]

Now, after Hughes won a race in his upgraded plane, aviation becomes more than just a hobby. He hired engineers and mechanics to build the fastest plane in the world, in his words, and planned to sell his new plane to the Army Air Corps as a military pursuit vehicle.

[Simon Jack]

At a cost of $120,000. He creates the Hughes H1 and sets the world record speed for land planes at then unheard of 352 miles per hour. He then broke another record in the H1, flying across the USA in 7 hours 28 minutes. That cut 2 hours off the previous record which by the way was also set by Hughes. And in 1938 he set another record flying around the world in 91 hours, this time in a plane built by another company, Lockheed. But by now he's this famous aviator.

[Zing Singh]

But despite these record breaking feats, when Hughes pitched the H1 plane to the US Air Force, they actually turned him down. So in 1939 he decided to refocus and buy into commercial airlines instead.

[Simon Jack]

Welcome to transworld Airlines or twa, which older listeners will remember as a brand name. On the tail fin of many planes. It was a major passenger airline of the era that had been undervalued since the Great Depression. He was able to buy 21% of the company for $1.6 million. He later upped his stake to 45% and would ultimately hold over 3/4 of the shares by 1963.

[Zing Singh]

But way back in 1939, Hughes came in with a 10 year plan for TWA which included making it the leader in US coast to coast flight flights, his record breaking route. So their planes were made by Lockheed. So he has worked with their engineers there to design a plane with transcontinental range that fitted 20 sleeper compartments and flew 100 miles per hour faster and 10,000ft higher than the then market leader. Now under his guidance, TWA doubled its income by 1940 and increased passengers by 57% in 1941. He went on to make TWA the first American airline to provide non stop transcontinental flights to the public. And oh yeah, also the first to provide freshly brewed coffee. And in flight movies. Things that we all take for granted today for sure.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, the in flight movie. Of course he's a big movie buff himself. But for every success, Hughes seemed to have a failure. And Hughes next aeronautical venture was a giant, literally giant dud. When the USA entered World War II in 1942, German U boats were sinking Allied ships at A very alarming rate. And there was a desperate need for aircraft that could transport goods and troops over long distances without relying on those vulnerable sea routes across the Atlantic. It's called the Battle of the Atlantic. The whole thing. U boats everywhere. An industrious called Henry Kaiser had the idea of building a flying boat, a massive plane that could land on water.

[Zing Singh]

Kaiser approached Hughes and thanks to Hughes's aviation reputation, they won a government commission to build the plane in 1942. The H4 Hercules. An A engine, 200 ton, 750 person plane. This thing is huge. Was the one, the world's largest airplane with a wingspan of 320ft. And it was nicknamed the Spruce Goose because it was built mostly from wood due to wartime restrictions on aluminum and other metals.

[Simon Jack]

Can you imagine having a 200 ton plane which can fit 750 people made of wood?

[Zing Singh]

It sounds like a cruise ship.

[Simon Jack]

Have you seen it? I mean, the pictures of it are actually amazing. This thing is giant. And if you look at it, you think, how on earth did that ever get off the ground? And actually, in a way, it didn't.

[Zing Singh]

Yep, two years into the project, Kaiser actually left, didn't he?

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. He was frustrated the plane was still not completed. The delays were largely due to Hughes's micromanagement of the project. By the time the plane was complete in 1946, the war it was designed to be a part of was over.

[Zing Singh]

Oops. So Hughes was placed under investigation by the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. As well as the Spruce Goose, Hughes had also failed to complete another plane for the government.

[Simon Jack]

Now, Hughes himself nearly died in a crash on a test flight for that second plane in 1946. He was left with serious injuries. And the high doses of morphine he was given in hospital left him with an addiction to painkillers many believe directly or indirectly caused his death.

[Zing Singh]

But in August 1947, still in recovery from multiple fractures and third degree burns, Hughes was brought in to testify at a Senate committee investigating war profiteering. So the government had spent $40 million of taxpayers money and Hughes hadn't delivered a single working plane. The Spruce Goose alone was estimated to have cost $25 million, 18 million from the government and 7 million from Hughes own funds.

[Simon Jack]

Defense procurement is a famously risky game. But Hughes still wanted to prove his enormous plane could work. So during a break in the hearings, he flew back from Washington to California for a publicity stunt to test the plane. 29 passengers on board, mostly journalists. The plane lifted 70ft into the air and flew for 30 seconds at 100 miles an hour. It was never flown again. And Hughes ended up paying $1 million a year to keep it in a climate controlled aircraft hangar. The danger of making a plane out of wood.

[Zing Singh]

As a journalist, would you get onto the Spruce goose?

[Simon Jack]

Do you know what I think? It depends what point in my career it was now? No way. As a young journalist, I think that if I didn't go, there would be plenty of hungry journalists like yourself who would have taken my place.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, I don't know. As a nervous flyer, I don't think I could handle the idea of being on a plane that big. Maybe I would have gotten onto the. I think you would have done, but nervously. I wouldn't be happy about it. Well, that 32nd flight, which did not end in tragedy, it's important to say, was shown on newsreels across the country. And that was enough because he was came out of the Senate hearings victorious in the most important court of all, the court of public opinion. So his testimony was broadcast nationally. He appeared calm and charismatic. He often used humor and plain language. You know, this really contrasted with the way the Senate committee worked. You know, dry, bureaucratic, boring, in other words.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. And despite his wealth, Hughes positioned himself as if you like the underdog being unfairly targeted by political elites and framed the investigation as a politically motivated attack. Does this remind you of anyone? Anyway, as I say, he framed this investigation, saying it was a politically motivated attack rather than a legitimate inquiry into wartime profiteer hearing.

[Zing Singh]

Now, the Senate hearings themselves were essentially inconclusive. And the lead investigator, a senator called Owen Brewster, actually suffered more reputational damage than Hughes himself.

[Simon Jack]

But beating Brewster wasn't enough for Hughes, who pursued a vendetta against the senator. When Brewster came up for reelection five years later, Hughes secretly funded his opponent to the tune of $60,000 in a primary campaign that saw Brewster beaten and his political career brought to an end. Take that, Bruce.

[Zing Singh]

Talk about vindictive.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

But even while Hughes was pouring money away on vendettas and unsuccessful airplanes, money was pouring in from other parts of his empire. So the Hughes 2 company's annual profits grew from 33 million in 1942 to 55 million in 1948. A subsidiary company, the Gulf Brewing Company, boomed during the war, selling 483,000 barrels of beer for a profit of 2.3 million. And in 1943, Hughes had returned to film production with a western called the Outlaw, starring Jane Russell, with whom, of course, he was having an affair.

[Simon Jack]

Of course. I think I've heard of the Outlaw. It's quite a famous film, isn't it?

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, well, you'll be interested to know that he has famously designed a special.

[Simon Jack]

Bra of all things, using his engineering skills to great effect.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, she maybe should have worked for Triumph, actually. He actually wanted to emphasize Russell's figure and he fought with the censors to retain scenes highlighting her chest. That battle actually delayed the film's release until 1946. But when it finally came out, Outlaw was actually a big box office hit.

[Simon Jack]

Then in 1948, Hughes became a studio owner himself when he paid nearly $9 million for a controlling stake in RKO. Very famous name in film history. He soon though cut star from 2,500 to just 600. But his micromanagement of the studio and egocentric decisions destroyed this once great studio.

[Zing Singh]

And this is a moment when we start to see his germaphobia becoming a real issue. Apparently, he would do insanely expensive things like shutting down the whole studio lot for weeks at a time to try to control dust.

[Simon Jack]

Blimey. In 1955, Hughes finally sold RKO for $25 million. Now that may look like he made a bit of a profit, but it's thought he lost three to four million dollars every year that he owned the company. And RKO closed for good in 1959.

[Zing Singh]

So while he did have a lot of hits, film is not the industry that made Howard Hughes a billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

And in the late 1940s, it seemed unlikely that the airplane industry would either.

[Zing Singh]

The Hughes Aircraft Company had shrunk down from 6,000 employees to just 800, but Hughes was desperate to keep it going. So when an engineer suggested they pivot into electronics, Hughes agreed.

[Simon Jack]

And this is a smart move. Despite his run in with the Senate committee, Hughes now planned again to secure government contracts. He would make Hughes Aircraft an unofficial test lab for the U.S. air Force and begin to employ research scientists. Soon the company had 3,000 scientists on staff. They also had a near monopoly on Air Force electronic systems.

[Zing Singh]

Noah Dietrich, who, remember, was kind of Howard Hughes's right hand man in business, had to take out a $35 million bank loan to help with the expansion. But the company was soon grossing $1.7 million a day. Then US President Harry Truman even described Hughes as the human linchpin of America's air defenses. So he's come a long way from being hauled up before a Senate Committee. By 1953, Hughes Aircraft was employing 17,000 people and had a backlog of 600 million DOL federal contracts to provide radar, missiles and other advanced electronics to The Air Force while The CIA ordered $250,000 in espionage equipment.

[Simon Jack]

And back then, while the company were no longer making planes in 1948, they'd started making helicopters. Their first designs in the early 50s weren't that successful. But the 1956 Model 300 with a clear bubble enclosed cockpit design, you can see that in your mind's eye, was successfully marked marketed to television crews, police departments and private owners.

[Zing Singh]

The company would go on to provide the military helicopter Central to the US's operations during the Vietnam War.

[Simon Jack]

I think, in fact, you know, being a bit of a nerd about this stuff, I think those, those Vietnam helicopters are called Hueys. And I'm pretty sure that is because of the Hughes influence.

[Zing Singh]

Wow. So Hughes actually had a dastardly plan to undercut his competitors bids by building these Huey helicopters at a significant loss and thus become the army's sole supplier of helicopters. And then hike up the. That actually backfired on him. He delivered about 1,500 helicopters to the army at a loss of millions of dollars and he still never got that exclusive deal. So he's making mistakes in business nonetheless.

[Simon Jack]

But even when things were going well financially, Hughes himself was the problem. In 1953, Hughes Aircraft was booming, but staff were leaving. They often cited working with Hughes as the reason they quit. The Secretary of the Air Force issued an ultimatum. Hughes had 90 days to reorganize the company so he would not be actively involved in its management or Air Force contract would be cancelled.

[Zing Singh]

That is quite the ultimatum.

[Simon Jack]

I mean, yeah, it's quite something that the U.S. air Force saying either you get lost or the contracts are out.

[Zing Singh]

Well, on the 90th day, Hughes extracted the aircraft division from the Hughes Tool company umbrella and he made Hughes Aircraft a standalone company. And then he established the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a non profit medical research organization and assigned all of the aircraft stocks to the institute. And finally he made himself the institute's sole trustee. So doing quite a lot of behind.

[Simon Jack]

The scenes work, making some moves here. And this sleight of hand seemed to appease the Air Force. It also created a tax shelter because by transferring ownership to this non profit institute, he shielded its profits from corporate income tax because at that point non profit companies were tax exempt.

[Zing Singh]

So while the new arrangement saved Hughes a lot in taxes, it actually didn't help those working for him. In 1957, Noah Dietrich, remember he's this right hand guy, finally quit. The pair fell out over money. And after an aggressive phone call he was had the locks changed at the corporate headquarters and fired all of Dietrich's associates.

[Simon Jack]

Dietrich didn't forget this. He wrote a biography of Hughes in which he said that Howard Hughes's, in his words, arteries pumped ice water and that he never knew a man who was so totally devoid of emotion.

[Zing Singh]

Well, talk about a takedown. Now, that same year, when he was 51, he was married 30 year old actress Jean Peters. The pair wed under fake names and they didn't live in the same house initially. And when they did, they only saw each other for just 20 minutes each day. They eventually divorced in 1971, having not seen each other for nearly four years.

[Simon Jack]

That all sounds to some like the perfect marriage and not a marriage at all. But after losing Dietrich, Hughes had effectively become a recluse. He gave his last in person interview in 1958 and began conducting all of his business by telephone.

[Zing Singh]

A real work from home pioneer, you might say.

[Simon Jack]

Yes.

[Zing Singh]

Now, Hughes may have been hiding his appearance, also fearing it would reveal his mental and physical health struggles. So Hughes had suffered serious head injuries in three separate plane crashes and as discussed, was becoming increasingly addicted to various painkillers.

[Simon Jack]

And soon his erratic behavior would cost him TWA, too. He'd bought the company. Great success. But a series of overblown purchases, a refusal to cooperate with regulators, his erratic management style led to increasing tension with the airline's board and government authority.

[Zing Singh]

In fact, although Hughes had been essentially running the company since the 1930s, he'd never attended a single board meeting. He'd never had an office at TWA, and was never officially an officer or director of the company. So when he entered into various legal battles with TWA's trustees, they actually had the upper hand. And in 1960, in 1966, Hughes was forced to sell his shares for just over $500 million, ending his direct involvement with the company.

[Simon Jack]

But for our purposes, that sale did confirm one thing. Howard Hughes was a billionaire. The 500 million he made added to the value of Hughes Tools and its subsidiaries meant he was worth at least a billion. And just two years later, Fortune magazine declared Hughes to be the richest man in America, with an estimated net worth of 1.3 billion dol.

[Zing Singh]

Now, beyond a billion is where Hughes's story gets really weird. And to be honest, where better to get weird than Las Vegas, Nevada? Hughes moved there to avoid California state taxes on the money he got from selling twa. Get this. He traveled by private train in blue pajamas and was carried by stretcher into a service elevator of the Desert Inn Hotel casino to the ninth floor plan, 10th house suite.

[Simon Jack]

That's how I get to work every morning. He was. He was meant to stay just 10 days, but when staff asked him to leave after four months, he bought the whole hotel and ended up living in that room for four years. Plus, he went on a shopping spree. He spent $65 million in one year, acquiring various properties, businesses, four large casinos, real estate to build more casinos, the North Las Vegas airport, several luxury ranches, 200 Nevada Mining Club claims, and the local television station.

[Zing Singh]

Apparently, he bought the TV station because he was an insomniac who wanted to watch TV all night and it actually stopped broadcasting at 11pm so talk about molding the world in your image.

[Simon Jack]

All of this made Hughes the state of Nevada's biggest private landowner, with almost 2,000 hotel rooms and 20% of the Las Vegas Strip under his control. In fact, a researcher from the University of Nevada credits Hughes with changing the perception of gambling in Las Vegas, saying Hughes bought a new respectability that encouraged public corporations to buy or invest in Nevada casinos as they never had done before.

[Zing Singh]

But Hughes mental health was deteriorating. During his time at the Desert Inn, he had the windows darkened. He often sat naked in the dark. He used layers of tissues to touch doorknobs and demanded his aides pass him items wrapped in tissue and paper towel. For months, he refused to bathe and would only have his hair or nails cut once a year.

[Simon Jack]

Oh, this is the gross bit. In two years, his bed sheets were only changed five times. The carpet in his bedroom wasn't vacuumed, the room wasn't dusted, the bathroom never cleaned. Worse still, he filled his closet with jars in which he had urinated and the room stank of his rotting teeth and fungus, contorted nails. You're forgiven if you want a wretch.

[Zing Singh]

At this point in 1970, exactly four years after he entered the Desert Inn, he left for the Bahamas, where he spent the next few years on and off, still conducting business via telephone.

[Simon Jack]

We go back to the scene at the beginning. He was 70 years old when he died on that plane. It was headed to a New York hospital where he was being taken for an emergency medical treatment. He died of kidney failure, almost certainly caused by his extensive use of painkillers. And it was a matter of chance that he died flying over Texas. Remember the state where he was born? But possibly fitting that the famous aviator died as he lived on a plane.

[Zing Singh]

At the time of Howard Hughes's death, his estate was estimated to be worth two and a half billion dollars. But he had no children or wife and There was no will. Now we could do a whole show about all the false claims to his estate. It actually took 34 years before the last payment was settled in the year 2000.

[Simon Jack]

So what an incredible story. No wonder they made a film out of him. And he became so famous. But now it's time to judge him. This is where we go through a bunch of categories. So we're going to give him a ranking out of 10 on those categories. Let's start with wealth. Two and a half billion. Barely entry level for these days. But he was the richest man in America at the time.

[Zing Singh]

But to be fair, he did inherit quite a lot from his dad.

[Simon Jack]

He did. But sometimes we in this look at how he spent it and there's no flies on him when it comes to this.

[Zing Singh]

Oh yeah, he loved to spend money.

[Simon Jack]

I mean, you know, fast cars, planes, movies, movies, movie starlets, you name it. I mean, I feel exhausted just reading this story. Thank you. A little bit.

[Zing Singh]

He certainly had quite a life. And also the thing I keep coming back to is paying a man to divorce his wife so that he could get with the woman.

[Simon Jack]

Buying at the local TV station because it used to stop playing movies at 11. Buying a hotel, basically. Whatever happened, whatever resistance he ran into, he would buy his way out of.

[Zing Singh]

So I think he would score quite highly for me. He's a nine out of ten for sure.

[Simon Jack]

Nine, yes, definitely nine. I agree.

[Zing Singh]

Controversy, terrible treatment of women.

[Simon Jack]

The worst.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, even though he seemed to just attract women non stop, you know, all these Hollywood stars, that was the.

[Simon Jack]

First thing that attracted you to the richest man in America.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. I mean, also, putting aside his treatment of women, sounds like he wasn't a great person to work for either.

[Simon Jack]

Let's face it. I think he's definitely more than eccentric.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, he's not a harmless eccentric by any means.

[Simon Jack]

And there seems to be no limit to what he would buy his way out. Apparently in the 1930s he ran over and killed a pedestrian. Bought his way out of that situation.

[Zing Singh]

Wow. So he really has a score pretty highly, I think.

[Simon Jack]

Controversy. I mean, they've made films about how weird he was. I think it's a 10.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I would say.

[Simon Jack]

Or maybe a nine.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I would say probably a nine out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Nine out of 10.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah.

[Simon Jack]

So giving back. This is like philanthropy, stuff like that. He set up this non profit Howard Hughes Medical Institute. But the irs, the taxman in the US investigated it for years as congressmen accused it of channeling only a small fraction of its earnings from Hughes Aircraft into Medical research.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. Apparently during its first full year, it actually spent less than $45,000 on research. By the end of 1963, its 10 years of charitable donations totaled less than $5 million, which is actually not very much.

[Simon Jack]

Since then it's been a Center of Excellence. 28 current and former scientists who have worked at Hughes Medical Research Institute Institute have been awarded Nobel prizes. So some good came of it.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, but I have to say, it's probably not anything that Howard Hughes did himself other than setting it up.

[Simon Jack]

I'm gonna give it a three out of ten.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I'm gonna give it a two out of ten. Even though it is doing good work today. I feel like Howard Hughes had nothing to do with more than.

[Simon Jack]

More by accident than design.

[Zing Singh]

Exactly.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, so two for you, three for me. Power and legacy. This is an interesting quote from him. He once said, you just remember that every man I can buy, I, Howard Hughes, can buy any man in the world or I can destroy him.

[Zing Singh]

God, talk about ego.

[Simon Jack]

Oh, blimey, that's kind of like Roman emperor type ego, isn't it?

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. I mean, he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians. He gave to President Nixon. He had a relentless drive for political influence. He was even, get this, indirectly linked to the Watergate scandal through his secretive contributions to Nixon's association.

[Simon Jack]

But interestingly, his right hand man, Noah Dietrich, said he manipulated politicians but never voted. I mean, his legacy is probably as one of the world's most famous eccentrics. I would say that's his legacy. Although his company's helicopters were absolutely instrumental in the Vietnam War for good or ill. And his passion for aviation, probably through his mistakes, people learned from them.

[Zing Singh]

It's an interesting one because it almost feels like he had so much energy that he put towards so many different things that if he just focused all of them on a single thing, he could have actually just absolutely dominated a certain industry. But he had a scattergun mind.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, well, let's face it, he's pretty weird. So I think almost sort of culturally, he's an important person because he personifies the crazy billionaire who can do whatever they like because they've got limitless financial resources and it doesn't stop them. They can buy and sell their way out of just about and indulge their every whim, fantasy and failing. So for that, as the world's weirdest billionaire, possibly, I'm gonna give him a seven.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, I feel like I'd go higher than that.

[Simon Jack]

Right, okay.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. I mean, if he basically created the archetype of the eccentric billionaire who spends his money as he wants and just changes the world in his wake because he's got the cash. I feel like that created a real mold for other billionaires to avoid, to avoid, to try to avoid. So I think I would give him an eight out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, seven for me, eight for you. So we know he's weird, we know he's dead, but is he good, bad or just another billionaire?

[Zing Singh]

So we want to hear from you. Email goodbadbillionairebc.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001-917-686-1176 to let us know what you think.

[Simon Jack]

And I've got a message here which is on the good bad billionaire phone, the dedicated bat phone if you like to the program. This is from Heba. She says hey Hebba Mohsin Waze here, a 19 year old listener and student from India. Amazing episodes. Loved your episode on George Soros. Great presentation, amazing narration.

[BBC Announcer]

Thank you.

[Simon Jack]

I often used to hear your podcast all throughout my preparation. I really appreciate your efforts. Well, we really appreciate you getting in touch. Heber. Thanks very much for that. And we've also got one from Jonathan Onsarigo, a proud listener. He describes himself from Kenya. He says, dear the Good, the Bad and the billionaire team. I like that. Hope this message finds you well. Huge fan of the podcast. Thank you. You truly appreciate the balanced, in depth storytelling you bring to each billionaire's journey. The episode on Aliko Dangote, Nigerian billionaire, particularly stood out to me not only because the insight into his business empire, but also because how fairly and comprehensively you're portrayed his story within the broader African context. I appreciate that because often this is about context. Often these billionaires are ways of telling wider stories about what's going on in the society, in the world. Definitely. And Jonathan has given us an idea for a Kenyan billionaire. We will have a look into that and we may well do that. And thanks in the meantime time Jonathan for getting in touch with us.

[Zing Singh]

So email goodbadbillionairebc.com or drop us a text or WhatsApp to 001-917-686-1176 that is good bad billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

All one wordbc.com or 001-917-6861176 and don't forget to include your name and your message may be featured on a future program.

[Zing Singh]

Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast. It's produced by Mark Ward with additional production by Tamsen Curry. Paul Smith is the editor and it's a BBC Studios audio production for the BBC World Service.

[Simon Jack]

The senior podcast producer is Cat Collins and the commissioning editor is John Mennell.