Howard Hughes is not just a name, but a brand that once ruled the world of business. His brilliance was not just limited to being a successful businessman, but also an exceptional aviator who achieved a milestone of flying around the world in 91 hours.
Apart from achieving excellence in both fields, he expanded his career and entered the movie production industry, which also brought him success. However, a great part of his life was spent in misery and depression, and we will be exploring all that here. Let’s dig deeper into his life, professions, and net worth.
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Early Life
Howard Hughes was born on 24th December, 1905, in Houston, Texas, and had a life influenced by wealth and privilege. As the only child, he got all the love and attention from his parents, and his father, Howard R. Hughes Sr., was an accomplished inventor and businessman himself and was the founder of the Hughes Tool Company. He is the name behind revolutionizing the oil drilling industry and the patented rotary bit. His mother, Allene, was from a prominent family.
Since his childhood days, Hughes showed his exceptional intelligence and built his first wireless radio transmitter at the age of 11. His father became his guiding star and pushed him more towards technical innovation, but all hell broke loose when he lost both his parent when he was just a teenager. His mother died when he was 16, and his father when he was 18. His father’s death made him struggle to take ownership of his wealth, which later became a case of dispute.
His formal education was not consistent, and he attended Thacher School in California for a small period and then went to Fessenden School in Massachusetts. He was later admitted into Rice Institute in Houston and took up engineering, but dropped out and later went to California Institute of Technology for some programs, but again dropped out. At the age of 19, he completely left school and became an adult managing his own affairs.
Evolution of Career
At the age of 19, Hughes became the authority figure in the Hughes Tool Company in 1924 and moved to Los Angeles. Simultaneously, he pursued aviation and film production and launched his career in films by establishing RKO Pictures in 1926, and produced “Swell Hogan,” a film that was never released. He quickly moved on to produce his next project, “Hell’s Angels” in 1930, becoming the most expensive film of all time, and later produced “Scarface” in 1932 and “The Outlaw” in 1943.
In parallel, he founded “Hughes Aircraft Company” in 1932, which in later years would become a major defense contractor. He himself was an accomplished aviation innovator and broke several airspeed records throughout the 1930s. In 1935, he set a new landplane speed record of 352 mph in his Hughes H-1 Racer, a custom-built aircraft. In 1938, he achieved another record for taking a flight around the world in just 91 hours, which put him under the international limelight while earning him a Congressional Gold Medal.
His company, Hughes Aircraft, received a huge government contract during World War II, but his company was severely criticised for mismanagement. His H-4 Hercules, also nicknamed “Spruce Goose,” was specifically designed during this war as a huge cargo plane, but the construction wasn’t completed at the given time, and it flew only once in 1947 for about a minute. In the same year, Hughes survived a fatal crash while testing XF-11, which left him struggling with chronic pain his entire life and made his life dependent on painkillers.
He spent his 1950s and 1960s focusing on business and defense and took his company Hughes Aircraft to become a major contractor for the U.S. military, excelling in missile and radar, and started the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 1953, a non-profit organization. At the same time, he acquired control of Trans World Airlines, where he invested back in the 1930s. With his mentorship, he took the company into a leading international airline, but his ways resulted in legal battles, and he was forced to sell his stock in TWA in the 1960s, following the court ruling.
Hughes’ physical and mental health started to decline in the 1960s, and he started living in isolation and was also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive behaviour. From 1966, he started living in hotels in different places like Nicaragua, Bahamas, Las Vegas, and Mexico. During this period, he hated making any public appearance, but continued with his business and investment, and bought several casinos and eliminated many crime elements from the Las Vegas.
In later years, when he was living in Las Vegas, he became highly dependent on drugs and suffered from paranoia. His final years were catastrophic, and it was mainly because of drug abuse and untreated medical conditions. His life came to an end on 5th April 1976, and despite suffering from a long battle of isolation, tragedies, and depression, he left behind a legacy.
Shot to Fame
Though coming from an influential family, Hughes came into the limelight when he produced one of the most expensive films Hell’s Angels” in 1930, which also got international fame. His other shot to moment came when Hughes H-1 Racer in 1935 and set a record of world landplane speed of 352 mph. However, the major blow of fame came when he set another world record of flying around the world in 91 hours in 1938, which also won him the Congressional Gold Medal.
Relationships
Hughes had multiple affairs, but complex ones. He first married Ella Rice in 1925 when he was 19, but the marriage didn’t last long, and they got divorced in 1929. After entering the film productions, he got involved with many actresses like Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and others. Hughes remarried again in 1957 to the Hollywood actress Jean Peters, but they got separated in 1971. He didn’t have any children from any marriages.
Major Sources of Income and Net Worth
At the time of Hughes’ death, his net worth was about $2.5 billion, and he acquired his wealth through different modes. He was a successful businessman and inherited Hughes Tool Company from his father, and he himself established a very accomplished company, Hughes Aircraft Company. He also produced a couple of very successful movies that also contributed to his net worth, and by the end of his life, he invested heavily in buying casinos and hotels.
