(5 of 6)
Hughes is moderately deaf but disdains a hearing aid. He hears well on the telephone, which is, by long odds, his favorite channel of communication with other human beings. Since he sleeps only when he is sleepy, he calls up his lieutenants at all hours of the night. Sometimes he identifies himself as "Mr. Hoyt." He has had a number of other aliases, including one for the Town House in Los Angeles, one for the tailors from whom he never buys any clothes, and one which he used, years ago, when he got a job as co-pilot with American Airlines ($250 a month but good experience).
"Just Wait." Hughes has no office, apparently because offices are too easily invaded by people. He likes to make business appointments at out-of-the-way spots, usually at night, and he is always 20 minutes to two hours late, if he shows up at all. He lives in a rather ornate house rented from Gary Grant, to which very few male visitors are admitted, and on which he seems to have made no marks of his own occupancy. He has no chauffeur, no cook, no valet—in fact, no servants in the ordinary sense but a quartet of aides-de-camp. They include Charlie Guest, his old golf pro, and another man named Barry, who might be described as lieutenants in charge of odds & ends, including admissions and evictions; Johnny Meyer, the man with the telephone numbers ; and Dick Davis, a Carl Byoir associate (high-voltage publicity).
Early in his Hollywood career, the town gossips began dividing Hughes's women friends into two classes: 1) the established celebrities—Billy Dove, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Bette Davis, Gloria Baker, Ruth Moffett, et al.—with whom he was seen in public; and 2) the young, eager and not too prudish unknowns with whom he was almost never seen in public. Hughes has a harsh word for the latter: he calls them "crows." But even from them he fears a rebuff. It is part of Meyer's job to see that the green light is up before Hughes ever appears on the scene.
Hughes has one quality which he shares with many another rich man: prodigality with large sums, stinginess with small ones. The story has often been told (it has reached the public prints at least once) of how he visited a girl in a small apartment, told her he did not think the place suited her personality. He said he would find her something better. A few days later, he escorted her to a spacious six-room apartment, so lavishly appointed that the girl's eyes popped. "Oh, Howard," she breathed, "this is wonderful!" "Yes," said Howard drily, "there's only one thing that worries me—can you afford it?"
This was Howard Hughes, the mechanical man. Things came easy; people didn't, quite. It was a commoner & commoner malady in Howard Hughes's century. If it needed a name, it might be called hypertrophy of the gadgets.