His mother constantly monitored his health, terrified that he would come down with polio. Hughes did experience a brief period of paralysis as an adolescent, but this condition which had no medical basis simply disappeared after a few months. Hughes also showed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
As he grew older, he became increasingly worried about being exposed to germs from other people. He would insist that anyone serving him food cover their hands with paper towels, and he even wrote a manual for his employees on the proper procedure for serving canned peaches: first remove the label, then scrub the can thoroughly and wash it again, and finally pour the peaches - without letting the can touch the bowl. Later in life, Hughes reportedly walked around with Kleenex boxes on his feet, which he believed offered protection from germs, and even incinerated clothing that came into contact with sick people.
One of the most famous Howard Hughes stories involved a specific flavor of ice cream. Once Hughes decided to live at the Desert Inn full-time, his meals would be prepared in the hotel's kitchen and transported to him in his suite.
Hughes especially liked Baskin-Robbins Banana Nut ice cream. For a long time, Hughes's personal assistants would buy this flavor in bulk, storing it in the hotel's freezers. One day, when these employees went to buy more gallons of Banana Nut, they were stunned to find out that the company had discontinued the flavor.
The frantic aides contacted Baskin-Robbins's main office and pleaded for them to sell them some more Banana Nut. Baskin-Robbins would only agree to manufacture its usual industrial-sized batch of a single flavor: gallons. Two Hughes employees were sent to LA in a refrigerated truck to pick up the order.
Kitchen employees had to jam the ice cream into any available space in the hotel restaurant freezer, but finally, Hughes's employees breathed a sigh of relief. But, within days after the shipment of ice cream arrived, Hughes notified his personal assistant that he no longer wished to have Banana Nut ice cream; from now on he would like French Vanilla.
It took the Desert Inn a year to get rid of all of the Banana Nut. Hughes once reportedly said, "There is no person in the world that I can't buy or destroy. Since his business dealings spanned many distinct industries, he donated to whichever politicians might be able to affect him in some way. The money would be spent on fixing up Nixon's Key Biscayne home, meaning it was not a legitimate political contribution but a bribe and therefore illegal.
Maheu had worked closely with O'Brien, who in was tapped to run the Democratic presidential campaign. When DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel were burgled by operatives connected to Nixon's re-election team on June 17, , five men were arrested. It would take over two years, but the ensuing scandal would ultimately force Richard Nixon to resign. Some believe many of Hughes's unusual personal habits manifested late in life, when he was overcome by addiction to codeine and physical and mental illness.
However, an incident in the late s suggested Hughes may have faced challenges long before he disappeared entirely from public life. Hughes really enjoyed watching films; in fact, he so enjoyed this practice that he reportedly moved into a projection room he leased at Goldwyn Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard and began a marathon movie-watching session that lasted for four months. He would recline on a chair in the dark, sometimes naked, subsisting on milk, chocolate bars, and pecans.
Hughes did not even stop for bathroom breaks, allegedly urinating into containers and bottles. Robert Maheu was a former FBI agent who built a business performing covert operations around the world. Typically, he was retained when the US government or CIA wanted to keep certain clandestine activities at arm's length. Maheu was heavily involved in such enterprises as the Bay of Pigs and the recruitment of the American Mafia to kill Fidel Castro.
Howard Hughes initially retained Maheu in to investigate business rivals and romantic interests. Over time, Maheu became a major advisor to Hughes, especially when the billionaire began to buy up mob-controlled casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. It was up to Maheu to delicately remove underworld influence over Hughes's properties. Hughes would talk daily to Maheu for hours, send the man numerous memos, and entrusted him with the most sensitive negotiations.
In , the two had a falling out. Maheu was fired, and Hughes left Las Vegas for good - you might think this was the last time the two saw each other. But, in the 15 years that Robert Maheu worked closely with Howard Hughes, the two had never met face to face. Although it did reasonably well at the box office and helped Rock Hudson's flagging career, the film was described in a review by Roger Ebert as "a dull, stupid movie.
Nevertheless, it was reportedly Howard Hughes's favorite. That probably isn't too surprising considering the film takes place in the sterile Arctic where there are no germs or IRS agents.
You'd get back to your room, turn on the TV at 2 am, and the movie Ice Station Zebra would be playing. At 5 am, it would start all over again. Hughes would evidently call the station and have them rewind to a certain scene if he wanted to see it again.
In the final months of his life, his employees said the film ran through a projector on a seemingly never ending loop. Many of Hughes's habits were unusual, but few stand out more than his alleged fixation on his own urine. In the last decade of his life, Hughes disappeared from public view, moving from hotel to hotel around the world with his entourage, starting at the aforementioned Desert Inn, always staying in the penthouse.
Worried about nuclear testing near Vegas, he offered million-dollar bribes to Lyndon B Johnson and Richard Nixon to stop them. They went to great pains to satisfy his every whim, once persuading Baskin-Robbins to produce a special batch of their banana nut ice cream after HH became obsessed with it. A few days later Hughes announced himself bored of the flavour, saying he only wanted French vanilla from then on, and the Desert Inn ended up distributing free banana nut ice to casino customers for a year.
Unsurprisingly, Hughes has inspired several films and movie characters, including the tall, Texan reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte who operates his business empire from the penthouse of a Vegas hotel in the picture Diamonds Are Forever. Get a weekly round-up of stories from The Sunday Post:. Thank you for signing up to our Sunday Post newsletter. Something went wrong - please try again later. Sign Up. Howard Hughes was the original eccentric billionaire. The roll call of his lovers reads like a Hollywood Who's Who.
Hardly surprising perhaps, as his sex "habit" would average several women a week. More surprising however, is that so many succumbed. These were by no means one night stands but serious relationships marriage was usually suggested, many believed they were engaged, rings were bought and wedding dates set.
But although Hughes would spend vast sums of money to see off rivals or turn husbands into ex-husbands on the signature of a fat cheque, he could never commit. The pattern remained constant.
All on the go at the same time. Breasts were Hughes particular predilection. He would scour newspapers, magazines and B pictures for likely candidates for the touch of the Hughes magic wand. Neither could act, but Hughes had identified the quality that would made them stars overnight.
In Hollywood he was a maverick tailoring his movies to no one else's cloth. It was his own money so he could do what he liked, and what he liked was sex. He was denied the official censors' Seal of Approval because he refused to make cuts. But cinemas showed them anyway, and the money rolled in. In doing so he changed the twin bedded, romance but no sex Hollywood puritanism for ever.
As with everything Hughes touched, obsession quickly set in. By the time he was running RKO, young hopefuls began to be imported, put into apartments, "educated" and virtually held prisoners for months, sometimes years. This "harem" was managed by a team of aides, drivers and spies who would control every movement of the women's lives their phones tapped, their rooms bugged curiously mirroring the surveillance Hughes himself was under as a major US Defence Department contractor by the CIA.
It was the beginning of a private surveillance army staffed by non drinking, no smoking Mormons whose power eventually superseded even Hughes's jurisdiction and whose greed for more probably killed him. At one time Hughes had such starlets under contract Few ever made it to the studio, let alone the screen, although most would eventually find themselves in bed with the big boss. All willingly wooed by his money, his charm and well documented skill and consideration as a lover.
However, the close physical contact necessitated by the nitty gritty of sex was the last bastion of normality. By the s his ever present fear of germs was spiralling out of control. It would today be described as an obsessive compulsive disorder and is eminently treatable with therapy. In those days it went unrecognised. He never saw a psychiatrist.
Things began to go wrong at his first serious crash in when test piloting a proposed spy plane commissioned for the US Government.
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