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Hughes Sr. converted his Peerless into a speedster (see cut), raced it against one owned by Financier Hetty Green's son, and won. He raced against Barney Oldfield, the celebrated professional, and lost. The Hugheses moved to Houston, where Hughes Sr. looked for oil. With his partner, Walter Sharp, he struck oil in the Goose Creek field, but the two-edged "fishtail" bits used in those days broke on subterranean rock. Thereupon Hughes designed a conical bit with 166 cutting edges. That tool is the original source and still the main prop of the Hughes fortune, which now amounts to about $145,000,000. The bit is leased, not sold, and accounts for some 75% of the rock bits used in drillings all over the world. The present Hughes enterprises include Hughes Aircraft at Culver City, Calif.; Hughes Productions (movies); a controlling interest in Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc., and a brewery, the largest in Texas. There is an exceedingly large but unknown amount of cash out of which Howard Hughes paid for his RKO stock. The net income of Hughes Tool, the parent company, is estimated at $8-10,000,000 a year, but since Howard Hughes owns 100% of Hughes Tool he does not have to publish balance sheets.
Red & Black. Howard Robard Hughes Jr., an only child, was born in Houston on Christmas Eve, 1905. At the age of three he showed his interest in gadgets by taking pictures with a box camera. Later he showed his inordinate persistence by practicing on the saxophone at all hours of the day & night, until he had mastered it. Young Howard and his playmate, Dudley Sharp (son of Hughes Sr.'s partner), built a wireless set, mostly out of old doorbell parts and other junk. When Howard asked for a motorcycle and was refused, he made a motor out of an automobile self-starter and attached it to his bicycle. It ran. His interest in mechanical things, always much stronger than his interest in people, was growing by seven-league jumps.
Howard's mother died when Howard was 17, and after that Hughes Sr., always indulgent, became even more so. He sent Howard abroad accompanied by Dudley Sharp and packing an allowance of $5,000 or more a month. In Brussels, Hughes took a fling at roulette. Playing only red or black, he ran a stake of $10 up to $10,000, lost it all on one spin of the wheel, left the table without a word.
Howard's schooling was irregular. He went to private schools in Massachusetts and California, took a few courses at CalTech, attended Rice Institute in Houston for a year. When he tried, he got high marks, especially in math and chemistry.
Fun & Frustration. Two big things happened in 1924-25. Hughes Sr. suddenly died, and Howard got married, at a swank wedding in Houston, to Ella Rice (of the same family that founded Rice Institute). Four years later, they were divorced. Hughes was already in Hollywood, bringing starlets -home in droves. Ella got a million dollar settlement. Hughes now resents any mention of his marriage; he would rather be regarded as the world's most ineligible bachelor. People who know him well say firmly that he will never marry again.