Howard Hughes life and biography

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer, film director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained prominence from the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big-budget and often controversial films like Hell's Angels, Scarface and The Outlaw. Hughes was one of the most influential aviators in history: he set multiple world air-speed records, built the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 "Hercules" (better known to history as the "Spruce Goose") aircraft, and acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines. Hughes is remembered for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle in later life, caused in part by a worsening obsessive–compulsive disorder. His legacy is maintained through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Depicted in the 2004 film The Aviator, the life of Howard Hughes comes to life showing both his genius in engineering, his uncanny business and financial behaviors, and his degrading mental state in his latter years. His life was one of obsession, wealthy dealings, and for a time, one of Hollywood’s most successful movie directors.

Born into the wealth his father had created in Texas with the Hughes Tool Company, young Howard would inherit his father’s wealth just as he entered university. With royalties from oil drilling operations in Texas and abroad, Hughes was able to invest in anything he thought worthwhile. Upon quitting university, he married and moved to Hollywood where he bought a studio and began making films.

His first films were all financial successes. He even won an Academy Award for his directing Two Arabian Nights. Spending a record of nearly four million dollars of his own money, he wrote and directed Hell’s Angels and within a year wrote and directed Scarface – both still movie classics, the latter being nearly banned for violence. His other great film works included a film entitled The Outlaw, nearly banned for its sexual content.

Working in film had its successes for the young director, but his other love was the love of aviation. Hughes became obsessed with learning to fly, and doing it fast. He broke several world-flying records, including a trip from New York to California and a trip around the world, which he beat by nearly four days. His work in aviation wasn’t limited to his amazing piloting, but his ideas were groundbreaking for his time. Some believe he alone advanced aviation by fifty or more years with his ideas on how to make planes bigger, lighter, and especially more aerodynamic.

It was suggested that one author had co-written the Autobiography of Howard Hughes. But, just before it’s release, it came to the media’s attention that the book was a hoax. The alleged author had to spend some time in jail for his actions. No other biography of Howard Hughes was released in his lifetime. By the end of his life, suffering much pain from a plane crash in his earlier days, Howard Hughes had extreme obsessive-compulsive disorders, but still made important decisions about the future of his company, most notably funding the now largest private medical center in the world-- the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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