Customer Reviews

Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've read this book and Peter Brown's book. There is a definite difference. Barlett obviously did his research and it shows for example in the amount of pages devoted to many of Hughes' business transactions (e.g., TWA, Spruce Goose, Vegas properties) - at a certain point, however, I got tired and would skim through these dense passages. I was more interested in Hughes on a personal level and most of the book centered on Hughes in his later years, the misdeeds of his aides/associates, and his intricate business dealings. However, I don't think this detracts much from the overall book which does provide a clear, tragic portrait of this fascinating figure.

If you want a book that emphasazies Hughes' personal life (including more on his earlier years), I would suggest the Peter Brown book. Brown's book was published more recently and contains new information (including a new revelation on Hughes' mental condition) not included in Barlett's.

Howard Hughes is hot right now. Just like John Nash of "A Beautiful Mind"-fame was a few years ago. The movie "The Aviator" has been nominated for more Oscars than any other. And, after seeing the movie everyone wants to know more about Howard Hughes and attempt to crack the mystery that was his life.

There is no question Hughes' character was mythical. He was part Chuck Yeager, Donald Trump, Hugh Heffner, Steven Spielberg, and a genuine madman all combined in a strikingly handsome 6 foot 4 inches body frame. After reading this book, however, you may find that Hughes was ultimately more successful at creating a myth than anything else. Looking at his private life and business ventures, you will conclude that he was a tragic failure.

This book has to be the most detailed biography on Hughes. The authors conducted a Herculean research effort that entailed the examination of a quarter million pages of records and documents, and reproducing over 50,000 pages of them. They traveled to numerous cities in the U.S. and Japan to conduct this research. As a result of this unparalleled research, the authors wrote a tightly written 600 page book in extremely small font. Thus, it is not a quick read. But, it is incredibly informative and fascinating.

The scope and the details on Howard Hughes business and legal dealings is extremely thorough. And, you get a real sense of who he was, the way he thought, the way he mismanaged every business enterprises he engaged in. Hughes was obsessive about so many things. In business, he developed a weird set of obsessions that included not paying any taxes, becoming a major airline owner at all costs, becoming an aircraft manufacturer and also a defense contractor at all costs. For him, manufacturing an aircraft for the Department of Defense became a lifelong obsession. Contrary to what the outside World may believe, Hughes was not a brilliant businessman. Much to the contrary, he was really a madman. For every dollar he did not pay or save in taxes, he actually lost a dollar fifty or so. Thus, his various tax schemes were disasters from an after tax return standpoint. He also did not have the organizational, and managerial talent to pull off any of his grandiose obsessions to economic fruition. Hughes would certainly have become much richer being just a regular Trust baby supported by the extraordinary capital generated by the company created by his father, the Hughes Tool Company. The latter made a fortune by developing the most advanced oil drilling head. It became so successful as to become nearly a monopoly throughout the entire worldwide oil industry. This invention created the fortune that financed all of Howard Hughes business fantasies and fiascos. However, if he had done so [just become a Trust baby] he would not have become Howard Hughes and offer us the spectacle of one of the most grandiose, grotesque, and tragic life of modern times.

The authors also covers in detail Hughes social life, movie producing years, and his long and irreversible descent into madness. This part is easier reading than the legal business disputes. The psychological profile that emerges is almost unbelievable.

The book does an excellent job of debunking several myths about Hughes. One of them is Hughes the world class philanthropist. Indeed, he is known has having given during his lifetime a fortune to medical research. Well during his lifetime, his creation of The Howard Hughes Medical Institute was nothing more than a leveraged lease tax avoidance mechanism. Most of his donations funding this nonprofit entity went back to him in the form of lease payments on properties rented from various Hughes corporations at above market rents by this institute. Nowadays, the IRS never would grant such a research institute any tax-exempt status. In the Appendices, the authors do an excellent job of documenting the cash flows associated with this tax avoidance scheme. Almost, zero % of the donation to this institute went to medical research.

At the end of the book, the "Chronology" is an excellent timeline map to get an overview of Hughes life. I found myself referring to it constantly to get my bearings of where was I in this convoluted story. Did he incur his first major mental breakdown before or after his spectacular Congressional hearings where he outwitted and demolished his Congressional nemesis? Amazingly enough, a quick reference to the Chronology confirms that he incurred his mental breakdown before the hearings.

Also, the Epilogue is brilliant. It fully captures the essence and drama of this life and provides a coherent thematic summary of this 600 page book.

In any case, if you really want to find out more about Hughes this is the book.

Great book, with many great details.
This book will tell you all you really need to know about this great man.
The latest movie about Howard Hughes is nothing compared to this book. What was Hollywood thinking when they decided to make this movie? It did not say anything about his Vegas ventures, which was a crucial time in his life. If one knew about his time in the Flamingo hotel, it would have been easy to relate to his crazyness, mentality and thinking. Nothing also was mentioned in the movie about his voyages around the world, which started it all, and his life after his aviation follies. I know the movie was called "The Aviator", but if you did not know anything about Howard before you saw the movie, then all you would think was that he was some crazy aviator who wasted his time building a giant aircraft that was never used for military or commercial purposes, dated a movie star and was always concerned that the US government was out to distroy him. (Well, the government tried really hard!!)
Who knows, maybe Airbus engineers had Howard Hughes in mind when they build their latest aircraft, the giant A380.
Mr. Hughes will be forever the pioneer who started it all.
In this book though,his life and his legacy are well preserved.
It is very well written, it tells use about his dramatic life, his eratic lifestyle and behavior, his connections to everything that was going on in the US at the time, and his constant drive for perfection. Hero or not, he was sometimes crazy but also brilliant.
If one really wants to know who Howard Hughes really was, all questions will be answered here. This book will tell you everything.
Very long but really good read.

By far the best biography I have ever read. Barlett does a brilliant job stringing together the disparate decades of the enigmatic billionaire's life. The books is a quick, captivating - albeit, depressing - read.

This book accurately follows the life of Howard Hughes from beginning to end. It is accurate and definitive. I worked for Hughes for 32 years and participated in some of the events set forth in the book. I have never found anything inaccurate in the book. It is the only dependable biography of this great man.

This is the only Howard Hughes biography that I have read, so I can only discuss in it absolute terms.
I thought it was facinating, and that the level of technical and business transaction detail was right on the mark. The author also did a great job of presenting information, rather than going off on his own interpretation of the greater meaning in it all.
The only reason that I docked it a star is that it need to have an Update written that fills in some of the gaps of what transpired after the book was written. When the book ends, there are still open questions around several lawsuits, investigations, business transactions, and the inheritance. I would think most, if not all, of these issues have been resolved in the 25 years since the book was published, but we are left wondering what the resolutions were.
All in all, a great and gripping read.

Ever since I saw the movie The Aviator years ago I have been fascinated with Howard Hughes. He was so inventive and creative with cinematography and aviation design, yet had so many personal issues with undiagnosed OCD. It is amazing how he was actually able to still manage his empire from his film screening room and write detailed notes on how to execute his orders. This book actually includes some of his personal writings. If you are into Howard Hughes history then this book is one stop source of pretty much everything on this great but troubled man, from his childhood until his sad death.

I find Howard Hughes to have been an utterly fascinating person and this book is about as thoroughly researched as a bio can be. Although I did enjoy it a great deal, I thought it got bogged down in too many details about the many many business dealings that Hughes was involved with, whether directly or those being done in his name. I wanted to learn more about Hughes the man rather than quite so much about his accomplishments and failures as an entrepeneur. I found myself becoming less interested in the book as it reached the period of Hughes' live where he became less and less interested in the world around him and was basically just surviving until his body gave out on him. Perhaps it is inevitable that the reader feel this way. That aside, if you want to learn about Howard Hughes this book is probably the best resource you'll find.

After watching the movie AVIATOR about Howard Hughes' life, I had to know more. This book is extremely detailed as it goes through his many business deals in his life to his ultimate tragic end. I am fascinated by Hughes and this book gave me more than I could have expected. I wanted to know more about his personal life than his business dealings and his financial status and so I bought another one. He certainly was a poor soul who was tortured by his mental illness and having so much money it allowed him to create his own mental hopsital where he could go deeper into maddness and this book shows you exactly how that happened.

I agree with previous reviews. Fact upon fact. 100 or more quotes per chapter.
I really respect the work that was put into this book, yet the information over kill slowed the pace considerably.
If you base your impression of Howard Hughes on past publicity, this book will be quite a surprise.