hughes the private diaries memos and letters

He was also honored with a ticker-tape parade down Broadway in New York City. This won the man a congressional medal, the Harmon Trophy and the Collier Trophy for Aviation. In 1938, prompted by the success of Charles Lindbergh, Hughes set a new record for an around-the-world flight. In fact it wasn’t uncommon for Hughes to actually be engaged to two even three women at once. Hughes romantic conquests included Lana Turner, Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Katherine Hepburn, Terry Moore, Yvonne DeCarlo, Kathryn Grayson, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Linda Darnell, Billie Dove, and so many more. Hughes goes on to make many other profitable films and in 1948 he buys RKO Studios which establishes him as a major film maker. In Hollywood, Hughes produces and directs several films including Two Arabian Nights that wins an Oscar as well as the infamous Hell’s Angels - considered the best special effects film of the decade.

Soon Hughes was so involved in his golf and movie making endeavors - as well as other women - that he had little time or interest left for Ella or any of his extended family. Though already in love with someone else, Ella was persuaded by her mother that Howard was a better catch. At that time his goals were to be the world’s greatest golfer, the world’s greatest pilot and the world’s greatest movie-maker.Īt nineteen, Hughes decides that a serious, young businessman needs a wife so he chooses Ella Rice, a pretty, socially prominent young lady in Houston. When his overprotective mother died in 1922 and his workaholic father two years later, Hughes became heir to the Hughes Tool Company fortune - then valued at half a million dollars - at nineteen years of age. But do it in such a way where even the smallest facet is both fascinating and lures the reader deeper down the path.

In his book Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire, author Richard Hack has been able to juggle a few difficult objectives. He has supplied a never ending minutia of detail about the man - from specifics of Hughes’ father in the late 1800’s through day to day accounts of the man himself. And after that - the details become foggy. We know he was a test pilot, a record holding aviator and we know he was a famous recluse in his later years. We know that Howard Hughes was the wealthiest man in the country. There are certain names in American history that we have a vague knowledge of.

Hughes the private diaries memos and letters