Howard Hughes
                     Howard Hughes
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.
Hughes’s penchant for privacy and seclusion often
entangled him in controversy. This culminated in 1971
in a scandal over what were purported to be his 
memoirs, which were bought for book and magazine 
publication at sums totalling $1 million. The 
manuscript and letters concerning it that supposedly 
had been written by Hughes were subsequently found 
to be fraudulent and forged.
In his final years Hughes abruptly moved his 
residence from one place to another (The Bahamas, 
Nicaragua, Canada, England, Las Vegas, Mexico). As 
was the case with the Desert Inn, he took elaborate 
precautions to ensure absolute privacy in a luxury 
hotel and was rarely seen by anyone except a few male
aides. Often working for days without sleep in a black-
curtained room, he became emaciated and deranged 
from the effects of a meagre diet and an excess of 
drugs. In 1976 he died on 
a flight from Acapulco, Mexico, to Houston, Texas, to 
seek medical treatment.
After his death there arose considerable legal 
debate over the disposition of his estate. Several 
“wills” appeared, including one found in the offices of 
the Mormon church in Salt Lake City, but all were 
eventually declared to be forgeries.
www.britannica.com/biography/Howard-Hughes