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McGraw-Hill and LIFE accept Theory III: the autobiography is the work of Howard Hughes, was duly authorized by him and he is now attempting to repudiate his contracts agreeing to its publication.
Knocked Cold. The material for several autobiographies is there in the dazzlingly erratic trajectories and the odd bleaknesses of Howard Hughes' Iife. Orphaned at 19. Hughes was a grave and skinny Texas boy with an inheritance of half a million dollars and control of his father's Hughes Tool Co.. which owned the patent on a conical drill bit that helped open up the oilfields. Hughes married a young Texas aristocrat, Ella Rice, and headed for Hollywood. A gangling Texas prodigy, he broke into moviemaking by producing a flop or two and then, with a combination of gambler's profligacy and an obsessive genius for detail, started turning out hits (Hell's Angels, Scarface, The Outlaw) and stars (Jean Harlow. Pat O'Brien. Jane Russell).
Hughes and Ella were divorced in 1929, and over the years he was seen with such beauties as Billie Dove, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Ginger Rogers and Ida Lupino. He installed Ava Gardner in a house shortly after she was divorced from Mickey Rooney. Soon after, it became apparent that Hughes was not devoting much attention to her, and Rooney began stopping by. Hughes confronted Ava and slapped her. She retaliated by hitting him over the head with a copper-based ashtray, knocking him cold. He was taken to a hospital, where his agents managed to have the injuries officially listed as stomach trouble.
Hughes had a habit of setting up starlets in lavish houses around Hollywood. Generally he slept with each only once, but continued to pay her rent thereafter. Once he was convinced he had contracted a venereal disease from a movie actress. He called Noah Dietrich in the Houston headquarters of Hughes Tool and ordered him to Los Angeles on "an emergency" errand. There, Dietrich was instructed to go to an empty apartment and pick up a laundry bag containing Hughes' clothing; he was to burn it in a vacant lot. Dietrich simply donated the clothes to charity.
Over the years. Hughes developed a fetish about cleanliness, a phobia about germs. Talking with Mike Wallace on CBS News' 60 Minutes, Irving recalled how Hughes classified people he came in contact with, rating them from A to D—filthy, moderately dirty, dirty and moderately clean. He noted that Hughes in talking with him about Katharine Hepburn particularly liked the fact that "she was a very clean woman who used to bathe three or four times a day."
He developed multiple lives, often cramming several into one day. He has always had a preternatural disregard for sleep. From the movies, he turned to aviation, where, despite having had no formal training, he proved to be something of a genius at aviation design and engineering. In 1935 he introduced the H1, the first plane with flush rivets to reduce drag, and was honored as the nation's outstanding airman by President Roosevelt. He set transcontinental speed records, then in 1937 flew a refitted Lockheed transport round the world in three days 19 hours, halving Wiley Post's old record.
During World War II, Hughes designed a 200-ton, eight-engine plywood flying boat, nicknamed the Spruce Goose, that was meant to