Billionaire businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator, born in Humble, Texas just north of Houston. He studied at two prestigious.

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1. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an influential figure in the aviation industry.
2. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. He first became prominent as a.
3. Howard Hughes was an American aviator, business tycoon, philanthropist, and filmmaker. Check out this biography to know about his childhood, family, personal life, career, and achievements.

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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?

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.

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.

Howard Hughes Biography Amazon

Howard Robard Hughes Sr. (September 9, 1869 – January 14, 1924) was an American businessman and inventor. He was the founder of Hughes Tool Company. He invented the 'Sharp–Hughes' rotary tri-cone rock drill bit during the Texas Oil Boom. He is best known as the father and namesake of Howard Hughes, the famous American business tycoon.

Early life[edit]

Howard Robard Hughes Sr. was born on September 9, 1869, in Lancaster, Missouri, the son of Jean Amelia (née Summerlin; 1842-1928) and Judge Felix Turner Hughes (1837-1926). Hughes's older sister Greta, better known by her stage name Jeanne Greta, was a grand opera and concert singer.^[1] His younger brother, Rupert Hughes, was the famed novelist and screenwriter. Another brother, Felix Jr., was a baritone opera singer.^[1] Hughes was a classic entrepreneur, trying and failing at many things before eventually finding success. After spending his childhood and early adulthood in Keokuk, Iowa, he lived in various places such as New York City (where he was a member of the Harvard Club); Denver, Colorado; Joplin, Missouri; and Beaumont, Texas; before finally settling in Houston (where Howard Jr. was born).^[2]

Education[edit]

Hughes Sr. was educated at Missouri Military Academy, in Mexico, Missouri.^[3] He then entered Harvard University in 1893, dropping out the next year.^[4][5]

After leaving Harvard in '94, I found myself in the Law School of the Iowa State University. It was my father's wish that I succeed him in his practice. Too impatient to await the course of graduation, I passed the examination before the Supreme Court of Iowa and began the practice of law. I soon found the law a too-exacting mistress for a man of my talent, and I quit her between dark and dawn, and have never since been back. I decided to search for my fortune under the surface of the earth.

Career[edit]

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Hughes Sr. married Allene Stone Gano, on June 24, 1904, in Dallas County, Texas and engaged in various mining business endeavors before capitalizing on the Spindletop oil discovery in Texas, as a result of which he began devoting his full-time to the oil business. On November 20, 1908, he filed the basic patents for the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit, and on August 10, 1909 was granted U.S. Patent 930,758 and U.S. Patent 930,759 for this rock drill. Hughes's two-cone rotary drill bit, nicknamed 'rock eater', penetrated medium and hard rock with ten times the speed of any former bit, and its development revolutionized oil well drilling.^[4]

It is unlikely that he actually invented the two-cone roller bit, but his legal experience helped him in understanding that its patents were important for capitalizing on the invention. According to the PBS show History Detectives, several other people and companies had produced similar drill bits years earlier. In its initial tests at Goose Creek Oilfield in 1909 where the first offshore drilling for oil in Texas was occurring in Harris County, 21 mi (34 km) southeast of Houston on Galveston Bay, the Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit penetrated 14 ft (4.3 m) of hard rock in 11 hours which no previous equipment had been able to penetrate at all.

He co-founded the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company with Walter Benona Sharp in 1909, and after Sharp's death in 1912, took over management. Hughes began purchasing the Sharp stock immediately and by 1918 had acquired full ownership of the company. The essential assets of Hughes Tool Company (as it was renamed) were August 10, 1909 patents for his dual-cone rotary drill bit. The fees for licensing this technology were the basis of Hughes Tool's revenues, and by 1914 the dual-cone roller bit was used in eleven U.S. states and in thirteen foreign countries. Hughes himself whimsically remarked that one of his 'fond plans' was to 'drill the deepest well in the world', comparing his quest to the Earth's center to Amundsen's South Pole expedition and Robert Peary's North Pole expeditions.^[4]

Death and legacy[edit]

On January 14, 1924, Hughes Sr. died of a heart attack caused by an embolism at his company's offices on the fifth floor of the Humble Oil Building in Houston at the age of 54.^[7] After his death, his only child, Howard Jr., assumed control of the company as its 75% owner at the age of 19. In his will, Hughes Sr. had left the remaining 25% to his parents, Felix Sr. and Mimi, and his brother Felix Jr.^[7] A little more than a year after his father's death, Hughes Jr. had himself declared an adult (the age of majority at the time being 21) and bought out his grandparents and uncle, now controlling the entirety of Hughes Tool Company. The next year in 1925, Hughes Jr. appointed Noah Dietrich as CEO of Hughes Tool while he himself left for California to pursue filmmaking and aviation.^[7]

In 1933, Hughes Tool engineers created a tri-cone rotary drill bit, and from 1934 to 1951 Hughes's market share approached 100%. The Sharp-Hughes Rock Bit found virtually all the oil discovered during the initial years of rotary drilling, and Hughes Jr. became one of the wealthiest people in the world from its revenues. Returning to play a more central role in Hughes Tool in the 1940s, Hughes Jr. diversified the company's holdings by expanding into filmmaking, aviation, and the casino industry in Las Vegas, although his father's core tool manufacturing business remained by far the company's chief source of revenue. In 1972, by which time Hughes Tool had become widely diversified, Hughes Jr. sold the nucleus tool division and realized $150 million from the sale. In 1987, Hughes Tool merged with Baker International to form Baker Hughes, a large oilfield services company still based in Houston.^[8]

Awards and achievements[edit]

The 'Sharp–Hughes' patent rotary rock drill bit was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers on August 10, 2009 at The Woodlands, Texas.^[9]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abSaerchinger, César (1918). International Who's who in Music and Musical Gazetteer. Current Literature Publishing Co. p. 293.
2. ^Harvard College Class of 1897, Second Report. Cambridge, Massachusetts: University Press. 1903. p. 97.
3. ^Missouri Military Academy Alumni Directory, 2009. Mexico, Missouri: Missouri Military Academy. p. 82 – via Harris Connect.
4. ^ ^abcdHarvard College Class of 1897, Fourth Report. Boston: Rockwell & Churchill Press. 1912. pp. 218–220.
5. ^Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele. Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.
6. ^'1952 Purchase of Hughes House'. alumni.stthom.edu. Retrieved April 21, 2018.
7. ^ ^abcHack, Richard (2007). Hughes The Private Diaries, Memons and Letters. Phoenix Books, Inc. p. 48. ISBN978-1-59777-549-6.
8. ^Texas Monthly: Read Me. Texas, Texas Monthly
9. ^'Hughes Two-Cone Drill Bit: Designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers'(PDF). The Woodlands, Texas: Baker Hughes. Aug 10, 2009. Retrieved Feb 21, 2016 – via Mechanical Engineering Magazine.

External links[edit]

Howard Hughes Biography Mental Illness

• Howard R. Hughes Sr. at Find a Grave
• Howard R. Hughes Sr. at the Handbook of Texas

Howard Hughes Biography Book