Howard Hughes Mother

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Broeske believes Hughes' fascination with women began during his childhood, when his mother, Allene, doted on him. Broeske writes that Allene bathed her son and slept with him until he was 10 years. Howard's mother Allene died in 1922 from pregnancy complications, and his father died suddenly two years later of a heart attack. At just nineteen years old, Howard inherited three-quarters of the.

Howard Hughes

The fabulously wealthy Howard Hughes may have turned into a disturbing recluse. H-4 Hercules, I don't get the controversy over the derogatory name of Spruce Goose after all it was made of birch, so media for the win, again.Also, it was t. Mother of Howard Hughes ∼ Allene Stone Gano was the spouse of Howard R. And mother of Howard R. Mother of Howard Hughes ∼ Allene Stone Gano was the spouse of Howard R. And mother of Howard R.

American manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer
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Alternative Titles: Howard Robard Hughes, Jr.
Howard Hughes Mother

Howard Hughes, in full Howard Robard Hughes, Jr., (born December 24, 1905, Houston, Texas, U.S.—died April 5, 1976, in an airplane over southern Texas), American manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer and director who acquired enormous wealth and celebrity from his various ventures but was perhaps better known for his eccentricities, especially his reclusiveness.

Why is Howard Hughes significant?

Extremely versatile, Howard Hughes was a successful manufacturer, aviator, and film producer and director, and he acquired enormous wealth and celebrity through his various ventures. He set numerous aviation records, and his Hughes Aircraft Company built such notable planes as the Spruce Goose. However, he was perhaps better known for his eccentricities, especially his reclusiveness.

What was Howard Hughes’s early life like?

Howard Hughes was born in 1905, and four years later his father invented a rotary bit for oil well drilling that made the family extremely wealthy. Hughes showed a talent for engineering, but, after his mother (1922) and father (1924) died, he quit school to run Hughes Tool Company, which became a multibillion-dollar venture.

What was Howard Hughes like?

Howard Hughes was intelligent, ambitious, and adventurous. He was also a loner. In 1950 Hughes went into complete seclusion, and his mental health declined. Typically living in luxury hotels, he sought absolute privacy and was rarely seen by anyone except a few male aides. He often worked for days without sleep in a black-curtained room.

How did Howard Hughes die?

Life

In Howard Hughes’s later years he became emaciated and deranged from the effects of a meagre diet and an excess of drugs. In 1976, at age 70, he died in flight from Acapulco, Mexico, to Houston, Texas, to seek medical treatment. Legal battles over his estate ensued, and several “wills” were declared to be forgeries.

Early life

In 1909 Hughes’s father, Howard R. Hughes, Sr., invented a rotary bit for oil well drilling that made the family extremely wealthy. The younger Hughes early showed a talent for engineering, and he later studied at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and at the Rice Institute of Technology, Houston. During this time, both his mother (1922) and father (1924) died. Hughes quit school and took control of his father’s business, Hughes Tool Company, in Houston. By the time he sold the company in 1972, it had become a multibillion-dollar venture.

Hollywood

In 1926 Hughes moved to Hollywood, where he became known for making films that ran both over budget and afoul of censors. He produced several movies—notably the Academy Award-winning Two Arabian Knights (1927)—before beginning work on Hell’s Angels in 1927. Numerous problems plagued the shoot. Originally intended as a silent film, it had to be reshot as a talkie. In the process, Greta Nissen was replaced by Jean Harlow. Several directors also left the production, and eventually Hughes took over. The film was finally released in 1930. While the storyline—two British pilots fall in love with a socialite during World War I—proved uninspired, the film’s stunning aerial sequences were considered groundbreaking. The drama was a box-office hit, though it failed to recoup its production costs, which were in excess of $3 million.

Hughes then produced a series of movies, notably Scarface (1932), which was based on the life of Al Capone. The shoot was marred by frequent arguments between Hughes and director Howard Hawks. In addition, its release was delayed by censors at the Hays Office, who demanded various changes to the violent and brutal film. In the end, it was a huge hit, and Paul Muni, who was cast in the title role, became a major star. Hughes later produced and directed The Outlaw (1943), about Pat Garrett, Doc Holliday, and Billy the Kid. However, most of the attention was focused on newcomer Jane Russell, whom Hughes cast as a love interest and outfitted in highly provocative clothing. He designed a special brassiere to accentuate her assets, though the actress later stated that it was never used during filming. Unsurprisingly, Russell’s wardrobe ran afoul of censors, and the lengthy battle between Hughes and the Hays Office generated much publicity, helping make The Outlaw a huge success.

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Although Hughes never directed another film, he continued to work as a producer. In 1948 he bought a controlling interest in RKO Pictures Corporation but sold the shares in 1953. The following year he bought the whole company only to sell it again in 1955. He remained chairman of the board of RKO until 1957, when he left the film industry. That year Hughes, who had relationships with a number of prominent actresses, married Jean Peters; the couple divorced in 1971.

Aviation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Las Vegas

While making films, Hughes was also involved in aviation. In 1932 he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City, California. On September 12, 1935, in an airplane of his own design, he established the world’s landplane speed record of 352.46 miles (567.23 km) per hour. On January 19, 1937, in the same craft, he averaged 332 miles per hour in lowering the transcontinental flight-time record to 7 hours 28 minutes. Flying a Lockheed 14, he circled Earth in a record 91 hours 14 minutes in July 1938. The following year Hughes bought a share of Trans World Airlines (TWA), and he eventually acquired 78 percent of its stock.

During World War II, Hughes’s focus turned to military aircraft, and his company had several government contracts, notably for the Hughes XF-11 and the H-4 Hercules. The planes ran over schedule, however, as did his movies, and were not completed until after the war. In 1946 he flew the Hughes XF-11, a reconnaissance plane, on its maiden test flight and suffered a nearly fatal accident. The Hercules, an eight-engine wooden flying boat intended to carry 750 passengers, was not finished until 1947. That year Hughes was brought before a Senate committee investigating war profiteering. In the highly publicized hearing, he sparred with Sen. Owen Brewster and ultimately prevailed. Hughes subsequently piloted (1947) the Hercules, popularly known as the Spruce Goose, on its only flight—1 mile (1.6 km).

Always something of a loner, Hughes went into complete seclusion in 1950. However, in 1953 he established the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, using profits from the Hughes Aircraft Company. According to Hughes, the centre was established to explore “the genesis of life itself.” It became a leading biological and medical research institute and was one of the world’s largest and most powerful charities. The following decade he refused to appear in court to answer antitrust charges concerning TWA and thus lost control of the business by default. In 1966 he sold his shares for more than $500 million.

The following year Hughes bought the Desert Inn, a resort casino in Las Vegas. He reportedly made the purchase after being told to vacate its penthouse. This sparked a buying spree that included other casinos and large swathes of undeveloped land; in the 1950s he had purchased property outside Las Vegas, and it would later become the planned community known as Summerlin. Hughes subsequently played an influential role in Las Vegas’s development, changing the city’s image—which was strongly linked to the Mafia—and bringing more corporate investment.

Quick Facts
born
December 24, 1905
Houston, Texas
died
April 5, 1976 (aged 70)
Texas
Cite this
Dittmann, M. (2005, July). Hughes's germ phobia revealed in psychological autopsy. Monitor on Psychology, 36(7). http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug05/hughes

Howard Hughes--the billionaire aviator, motion-picture producer and business tycoon--spent most of his life trying to avoid germs. Toward the end of his life, he lay naked in bed in darkened hotel rooms in what he considered a germ-free zone. He wore tissue boxes on his feet to protect them. And he burned his clothing if someone near him became ill.

The phobia grew so severe that it might have contributed to Hughes's increasing addiction to codeine and his reclusiveness in the two decades before his death from heart failure in 1976. Nearly two years after his death, Hughes's estate attorney called on former APA CEO Raymond D. Fowler, PhD, to conduct a psychological autopsy to determine Hughes's mental and emotional condition in his last years and to help understand the origins of his mental disorder. Fowler's findings were used in civil lawsuits filed by people who made claims to the billionaire's estate. Hughes had died without a will.

Fowler, who at the time was a professor and chair of the University of Alabama's psychology department, was recommended to conduct the psychological autopsy by an attorney he had worked with previously on mental health right-to-treatment cases. Fowler worked full time for one year conducting the autopsy and then on and off for five years following that.

To complete the autopsy, Fowler interviewed Hughes's former staff and evaluated newspaper reports, court depositions, old letters Hughes's mother wrote about him and other documents ranging from transcripts of Hughes's phone calls to his pilot logs.

'A picture gradually emerged of a young child who pretty much was isolated and had no friends, and a man who increasingly became concerned about his own health,' Fowler says.

That research led Fowler to believe that Hughes's fear for his health most likely emerged from his childhood. Hughes's mother was constantly worried about her son's exposure to germs, terrified that he would catch polio, a major health threat at the time. His mother checked him every day for diseases and was cautious about what he ate.

In adolescence, Hughes was paralyzed for several months and unable to walk. After a few months, the symptoms disappeared. Fowler believes Hughes's paralysis--for which no physical basis was found--was psychologically based and an early manifestation of his lifelong pattern of withdrawing in times of stress.

Hughes's fear of germs grew throughout his life, and he concurrently developed obsessive-compulsive symptoms around efforts to protect himself from germs, Fowler notes. For example, he wrote a staff manual on how to open a can of peaches--including directions for removing the label, scrubbing the can down until it was bare metal, washing it again and pouring the contents into a bowl without touching the can to the bowl.

Ironically, Hughes ended up neglecting his own hygiene later in his life, rarely bathing or brushing his teeth. He even forced his compulsions on those around him, ordering staff to wash their hands multiple times and layer their hands with paper towels when serving his food.

'He didn't believe germs could come from him, just from the outside,' Fowler explains. 'He was convinced that he was going to be contaminated from the outside.'

--M. DITTMANN

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