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Why hadn't Howard Hughes simply told Maheu that he was through? "Hughes was so mad at Maheu that he wanted to embarrass him," said one insider. Another suggested that "Hughes is furious with Maheu, and in his imperial manner he wanted to show that he did not have to bother with him."
Harlow and Hepburn. For Howard Hughes, things have always come easily; it is people that have been difficult. "I suppose I am not like other men," he remarked while he was still in high school. "Most of them like to study people. I am not so interested in people as I should be, I guess. What I am tremendously interested in is science, the earth and the minerals that come with it." Hughes' father invented and patented the modern oil-drill bit−a device with 166 cutting edges−and rented it for $30,000 a well, or dry hole. The bit is still the base of the Hughes fortune. "We don't have a monopoly," Hughes once remarked. "Anyone who wants to dig a well without a Hughes bit can always use a pick and shovel."
At 19, when his father died (his mother had died earlier), Hughes inherited a majority interest in the company. That holding was worth $500,000. Hughes bought the rest of the shares from his relatives, moved to Hollywood and broke into moviemaking. After some early failures, he began producing hits, including Hell's Angels, Scar face and The Outlaw, which made Jane Russell a national pinup girl. His pictures introduced, among others, Jean Harlow, George Raft, Pat O'Brien and Paul Muni.
In public, Hughes was often seen with the stars of the day−Billie Dove, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, Ida Lupino. In private, he visited many others−young, eager, and not too prudish unknowns. Hughes called them "crows," but he feared rebuff even from them. It was the job of one of his public relations men to see that the green light was up before Hughes ever appeared on the scene. He once boasted that he had deflowered 200 virgins in Hollywood; the wonder was that he could find so many.
Big Flop. Hughes' other passion was airplanes. He set a world speed record of 352.39 m.p.h. in 1935 in an aircraft of his own design. He was named the world's outstanding aviator for the year, and President Roosevelt later presented him with the Harmon Trophy. In 1938 he flew around the world in a record 91 hr. 14 min., was given a ticker-tape parade on Broadway that surpassed Lindbergh's. Hughes' big flop of World War II−a 200-ton, eight-engine plywood flying boat dubbed the "Spruce Goose," which was only 11 ft. 4 in. shorter than today's 747 superjet−led to a celebrated joust with Maine's Senator Owen Brewster before a congressional committee. Brewster demanded to know why Hughes had spent $18 million in Government funds and produced no flyable plane. Hughes won the publicity battle when he flew the plane for a mile at 70 ft.−the only time it has ever been in the air. After that, Republican "Hughes for President" clubs sprang up across the country (he simply ignored them).