Many say he was eccentric, a recluse, a germ free paranoid with OCD, hypochondriac, womanizer, while others may give of him the title of aviation great, test pilot, film director/producer, inventor, financial wizard, industrialist, philanthropist. Who is right? Who was this mystery man? In all honesty – they’re all correct. Be it in his youth or later in life, even while suffering from mental illness, Howard Hughes was a man with a mission.
Born in Houston, Texas, in 1905, Howard Hughes excelled in mathematics and had a great aptitude in engineering. At the early age of 11, he built Houston’s first radio transmitter. At 12, he gained local attention after building, by himself from parts taken from his father’s steam engine, a motorized bicycle. While he never finished high school, he did attend Caltech and Rice University. At the death of his father in 1924, his father’s company (Hughes Tool Company) was managed by his uncle Rupert. On Howard’s 19th birthday, he was declared an emancipated minor, enabling him to take full control of the company.
To his credit, Howard received awards in aviation such as the Transcontinental Airspeed Record, the Harmon Trophy, the Collier Trophy, the Octave Chanute Award, Congressional Gold Medal, and Round-The-World Flight (1938) which put him on par with Charles Lindburgh. In films, he is credited for discovering Jane Russell and Jean Harlow, winning the first ever Academy Award for Best Director of a Comedy, and being the owner of RKO studios. In real estate, he owned numerous casinos, hotels, and bare land in and around Las Vegas. He is credited with cleaning up Las Vegas and reducing mob influence in the gambling capital. But his greatest gift to society, some may argue, is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland where they try to understand the “genesis of life itself.”
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