50 Fun Facts About Howard Hughes

Howard Hughes was born in 1905 in which state?

A 1941 affidavit puts his birth in Harris County, though even his birth date has been disputed.

The Hughes family fortune came from what invention patented by Howard Hughes Sr.?

Hughes Sr. shrewdly leased the bits to drillers rather than selling them, and the Hughes Tool Company funded everything his son later did.

Which school did Hughes drop out of shortly after his father's death in 1924?

His first wife, Ella Botts Rice, was a great-niece of the university's namesake William Marsh Rice.

At what age did Hughes sign a will that already called for a research body in his name?

The deaths of both parents within two years apparently inspired the clause; the institute finally launched in 1953.

Hughes poured a then-enormous budget into which 1930 aviation epic?

Three stunt pilots and a mechanic died during the three-year shoot; it earned an Oscar nomination for cinematography.

Which actress replaced Greta Nissen as female lead of Hughes's 1930 air-war epic over Nissen's accent?

The film contains the only color footage of Harlow's career; Hughes's aide Noah Dietrich said the producer personally disliked her.

Hughes produced the 1932 gangster film Scarface, whose title character was inspired by whom?

Ben Hecht wrote the script in 11 days; censors forced an alternate title, The Shame of a Nation.

Which director made Scarface for Hughes and was later replaced by Hughes himself on The Outlaw?

Hughes also swapped out cinematographer Lucien Ballard for Gregg Toland on The Outlaw.

Which actress starred in The Outlaw, and stayed under personal contract to Hughes for years?

Her revealing costumes drew the censors' attention, and the film premiered in 1943 but had no national release until 1946.

What garment did Hughes design for The Outlaw's star because he felt the camera missed her figure?

He sewed curved metal supports under each cup and connected them to the shoulder straps.

Which struggling major studio did Hughes buy control of in 1948?

He shut production down for six months to investigate every employee's politics; output fell from about 30 films a year to nine.

By the end of 1954 Hughes had become the first person since the silent era to do what?

Buying out RKO's minority shareholders cost him nearly $24 million; he later claimed to have walked away with a profit.

Hughes bought every copy of one flop film, shot near a Utah nuclear test site, and watched it on repeat. Which film?

So many cast and crew later developed cancer that it was dubbed an 'RKO Radioactive Picture'.

In 1932 Hughes founded Hughes Aircraft in a rented corner of whose hangar in Burbank?

The company began as a division of Hughes Tool, set up to build a single racing plane.

What speed did Hughes reach in the H-1 Racer to set the landplane record on September 13, 1935?

It was the last time an aircraft built by a private individual set the world air speed record.

In January 1937 Hughes flew the H-1 non-stop from Los Angeles to Newark in about how long?

He beat his own previous transcontinental record of nine hours 27 minutes; the plane now sits in the Smithsonian.

Hughes's 1938 round-the-world flight took about 91 hours, beating whose 1933 record by almost four days?

He flew a twin-engine Super Electra with a crew of four and got a ticker-tape parade in New York on his return.

Which honor did Congress vote Hughes in 1939, which he then declined to collect at the White House?

Harry Truman finally handed it over after the 1946 crash.

Which airline did Hughes quietly buy a controlling stake in, starting in 1939?

He never held an official position but hand-picked the board and issued orders directly to staff.

Hughes is credited as the driving force behind which long-range airliner ordered for TWA in 1939?

He personally financed 40 of them for $18 million, the biggest aircraft order in history to that point.

How much did Hughes receive when he was forced to sell his TWA shares in 1966?

His stalling on jet payments had led the airline's banks to demand his removal from management back in 1960.

Which actress was aboard Hughes's Sikorsky S-43 in May 1943, hours before it crashed into Lake Mead?

He dropped her off in Las Vegas first; the crash killed a CAA inspector and a Hughes employee.

Hughes's near-fatal July 1946 crash of the XF-11 came down in which neighborhood?

He was aiming for the Los Angeles Country Club golf course, destroyed three houses and was pulled from the wreck by a Marine sergeant.

Which painkiller, first taken after his 1946 crash, did Hughes depend on for life?

He eventually injected it into his muscles with glass syringes whose metal needles easily detached.

The giant H-4 Hercules flying boat began as a partnership between Hughes and which industrialist?

The original 'HK-1' designation stood for Hughes-Kaiser; Kaiser withdrew after disputes.

The 'Spruce Goose' was in fact built mostly from which wood?

The contract required 'non-strategic materials', ruling out aluminum; mechanics allegedly had a ruder, more accurate nickname for it.

How many times did the H-4 Hercules ever fly?

On November 2, 1947, Hughes lifted it about 70 feet off the water and covered roughly a mile.

Where has the H-4 Hercules been on display since the 1990s?

It sat in Long Beach from 1980 to 1992 before moving to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

Which Maine senator did Hughes turn the tables on at the 1947 Senate war-contracts hearings?

The hearings asked why $22 million had produced only two XF-11 prototypes; they were widely read as a Hughes victory.

In 1953 all the aircraft company's stock was given to what new body, making it tax-exempt?

The institute sold Hughes Aircraft to General Motors in 1985 for $5.2 billion and became one of the world's biggest biomedical funders.

Which actress did Hughes marry in a small hotel in Tonopah, Nevada, in January 1957?

She filed for divorce in 1970 and asked for $70,000 a year, waiving any claim on the estate.

In 1957 Hughes shut himself inside a studio screening room for how long?

He lived on chocolate bars, chicken and milk, surrounded by boxes of Kleenex he stacked and re-stacked.

Which 1968 film did Hughes reportedly run on a continuous loop in his home?

A Cold War submarine thriller starring Rock Hudson, it became the movie most associated with his reclusive years.

On Thanksgiving 1966, Hughes moved into which Las Vegas hotel, which he then bought rather than leave?

Staff later found his drapes had never been opened and had rotted through.

What was Hughes's status among Nevada employers by the end of his four years in Las Vegas?

He spent roughly $300 million buying properties, many of them formerly mob-connected, and pushed the city toward a more cosmopolitan image.

Which casino did Hughes reputedly buy just to move its neon sign, visible from his bedroom?

The rumor is not considered credible; his real Vegas holdings included the Sands, Frontier, Castaways and Landmark.

The 1972 salvage ship Glomar Explorer, built under Hughes's cover, was really intended to recover what?

The CIA's Project Azorian targeted K-129, lost near Hawaii in 1968; the manganese-mining cover story proved oddly influential.

Which author was jailed for fraud after selling a fake 'authorized' Hughes autobiography in 1972?

Hughes finally denounced the book in a teleconference with reporters he knew; Richard Gere played Irving in the 2006 film The Hoax.

How long did the fake-autobiography author actually serve in prison?

He had been sentenced to two and a half years and later befriended art forger Elmyr de Hory, the subject of his book Fake!

A $205,000 Hughes loan to which politician's brother caused embarrassment before the 1960 vote?

Some Watergate investigators think Nixon's fear of what Democrats knew about his Hughes dealings helped motivate the break-in.

Hughes's inner circle of aides was nicknamed what, for the faith of many members?

Led by Frank William Gay, it operated from 7000 Romaine Street in Hollywood as his private secret police.

Hughes died in April 1976 aboard a jet flying from Acapulco to which city?

He was headed for Methodist Hospital; the cause of death was recorded as kidney failure and he is buried beside his parents at Glenwood Cemetery.

At his death Hughes's 6 ft 4 in frame weighed roughly how much?

His hair, beard and nails had grown so long that the FBI needed fingerprints to identify him.

The so-called Mormon Will left $156 million to Melvin Dummar, who ran what kind of business?

Dummar said he had found a dishevelled Hughes beside a Nevada highway in 1967 and driven him to the Sands; his tale became the film Melvin and Howard.

In 1978 a Nevada court ruled on the Mormon Will. What was the outcome?

The $2.5 billion estate was finally divided in 1983 among 22 cousins.

Who directed The Aviator, the 2004 Hughes biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio?

It led the 77th Academy Awards with 11 nominations and won five.

Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for playing which of Hughes's romantic partners in The Aviator?

The film also led the BAFTAs that year with 14 nominations.

Which billionaire character in the 2007 video game BioShock is loosely based on Hughes?

Ryan builds the underwater city of Rapture to escape governments and religions.

Warren Beatty wrote, directed and played Hughes in which 2016 film?

It covers Hughes between 1958 and 1964; Jason Robards had played him in Melvin and Howard back in 1980.

Which famous novelist, screenwriter and film director was the aviator's uncle?

Hughes's father, meanwhile, made the family fortune by leasing rather than selling his drill bits through the Hughes Tool Company from 1909.