Customer Reviews

Howard Hughes: The Untold Story

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book in hardcover years ago and loved it. It dispelled a lot of rumors about Hughes and gave this man's life the treatment he deserved, not to be defamed after death.

It talks about his womanizing, OCD, and passions for aviation and film. It is a totally comprehensive book. No stone is left unturned. You will leave this book with a great respect and admiration for the man which I did and continue to have. A must read on HH!! A+++++

I came across this book shortly after seeing Scorsese's `The Aviator', and I can't imagine a better source for those wanting to know more about Howard Hughes. Although the movie may seem fantastic, this book shows an even more outlandish reality. A small example: not only did Hughes restrict himself to a few standard meals, like the steak and peas seen in the movie, but he used a special rake-like utensil to separate out, and discard, any peas above a certain diameter. The film also tones down his womanizing: apparently he slept with almost every screen sex symbol of the 30s and 40s, as well maintaining a private harem of starlets. And there are whole aspects of his life I had no idea about, like his links with Nixon and Watergate. Despite his eccentric, sometimes cruel, behaviour, the authors maintain their - - and the reader's - - sympathy for Hughes. This sunk in when the book reached his infamous final years. Although I'd started out eager to know the truth about the mad hermit at the top of the Las Vegas hotel, by the time I reached that stage I felt sorry for him and was reluctant to read the sordid details. Here again the book gets the balance right; insightful without wallowing in freakishness.

A compelling, well-researched and sympathetic story of an extraordinary subject: you can't ask for much more from a biography.

Hughes was a man who accomplished most of what he did before my time, so I've only remembered him as a billionaire, eccentric, and recluse, before reading this book. During his time he was a go-getter who tried many adventurous things professionally and both personally and privately.

This book brings to light the details of of the younger Hughes' extraordinary personal life, which I found more interesting than the business side of it. He spent notable time in Southern California and Los Angeles. Many tales bring Old Hollywood and Los Angeles to light. His involvement in the movie business producing films, influenced in part, as an avenue to get to the ladies of the screen. Details of his relationships with the stars of the day are illuminated. Taking dates to the mounted cross atop one of the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the flatlands and lights of LA. He even crashed a plane into 3 houses in Beverly Hills.

His 3rd plane crash, occurred while performing a flying stunt during the shooting of a movie (the stunt pilots refused to do the stunt because they considered it too dangerous). As a result of that crash he was in the hospital with critical life-threatening injuries. This was when HH was introduced to Codeine for the severe pain, something he would become addicted to for most of the rest of his life.

The book later progresses in the latter years of Hughes. Today, it is apparent to contemporary psychologists that Hughes was likely suffering from a form of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Nowadays, OCD is more understood and highly treatable with medication. In HH's time, it was not thought of in biological and physiological terms.

Hughes' first break came when he entered a screening room and stayed in it for 5 full months. He didn't bathe, watched the same movies 30 times over, and survived on a diet of candy bars. Hughes consciously and voluntarily turned over his business affairs to competent managers. These were employees, and were people who made prudent decisions and looked out for HH's best interests. During this time, other sharks started to gather. Such is the case when large amounts of money is involved. Bill Gay, one of Howard's chauffeur, made crafty and cunning political moves to ascend over the years. He got Howard's ear, and became more influential on him. Gay eventually took the reigns of control over Huges' wealth. He then deftly purged the other business managers who served Hughes with dedication and integrity. The former chauffeur and his fellow Mormon henchman took over Hughes and his affairs, isolated him, and squeezed out those who cared for Hughes and wanted the best for him.

It's sad, for during the latter decades of Hughes life it seemed that no one was really there for him, if he had wanted anyone to to be there.

In death, over one thousand--yes, 1000--people came out of the woodwork to lay claim to Howard Hughes wealth after his passing.

To this day, We're still not sure if his death was natural, self-induced, or the intentional doings of others....

This bio gave me a pretty good picture of Hughes' life, good enough that I don't feel a strong need to read any other bios. However, the authors don't really deliver everything they promise in the introduction. Yes, you'll learn that he built one of the nation's greatest airlines, founded an industry-leading aircraft company, became a leading defense contractor, became a major player in Las Vegas, indirectly contributed to the Watergate scandal, had shady dealings with the FBI, CIA and DoD, and much more. But you won't learn how; I guess we're supposed to take the authors' word for it. If you're looking for an examination of HH the businessman, the aviator, the inventor, the financier, or the Las Vegas tycoon, this book is very short on detail. It's clear that what really interests the authors most are 1) his love and sex life and 2) his Hollywood career and his life among the rich and famous. For every paragraph discussing his business career--which, after all, made him one of the nation's wealthiest men, and which constitutes a unique and fascinating story all by itself--you'll find 3 paragraphs about which movie stars he was wooing in 1948, where he took them for dinner, who sat next to them at the restaurant, what kind of flowers he gave them, what lies he told to get them in the sack, how much jewelry he gave them, what their mothers thought of Hughes, and the contents of their love letters.

Hughes' obsessive womanizing was an important part of his life, and makes an interesting story. However, there were a LOT of women, and with a few exceptions, he treated most of them essentially the same way. We see the same sad story of obsession, manipulation and heartbreak (for the women, not HH) over and over again. My eyes glazed over more than a few times while reading this. I think the book could have been much better with a little less detail about the lovers' quarrels, and a little more about the many other activities that made Hughes such a brilliant and controversial figure.

This book provides a relatively sympathetic portrait of Hughes that heavily emphasizes his personal life versus his business dealings. The book appears to have been well researched and provides a startling new (at least for me) explanation of Hughes' mental breakdown during his middle and later years. I liked this book because it maintained its focus on the man rather than getting mired with his business transactions, the myriad of business associates, etc. You get a more 3-dimensional picture of his personality/character rather than the usual depictions of him just being a crazed, ruthless man.

Howard Hughes died when I was only 12 so I knew next to nothing about him prior to the "recluse" years and I found this book extremely interesting. History has dealt somewhat harshly with HH but this book managed to shed some sympathetic light on the mysteries surrounding him. His strange relationship with his mother, his drive to control and collect, his grand scale successes and equally grand failures touched a chord with me. How sad to have so much but ultimately be so unfulfilled and lonely. Whether you find him an eccentric genius or a man tortured by mental illness, you must agree he left behind a significant legacy.

The only minor complaint I have with this book is chronologically it was occasionally hard to follow since a chapter regarding business deals would then be followed by a chapter on personal affairs that were conducted during the same period of time. It was easy to get confused regarding timeframes.

I must admit I didn't know too much about Howard Hughes until my husband made me sit through the movie "The Aviator." I personally found the movie to be quite boring; however, it piqued my interest to find out more about Howard Hughes. After reading all the reviews on the various books, I chose this one (Howard Hughes: The Untold Story). It was very difficult to put the book down; it tells a most fascinating life story. Hughes' life was unbelievable; he should have died several times before he even turned 30! Definitely an interesting and entertaining book.

It's amazing how much living Howard Hughes packed into his life. He bedded just about every movie star and starlet of his era. He made gazilions of dollars from his tool company. This book also details the sad end to his life, which it attributes to his brain being scarred from syphilis, his obsessive compulsive disorder, his brain injuries from numerous plane crashes, and being hooked on pain killers. It seems business associates surrounded him, destroyed his will which probably left his money to his medical research charity, and hastened his death by keeping him dehydrated, hungry, and overdosed on liquid codeine. Read the book!

"The Aviator" inspired me to take another look at Howard Hughes. The movie told a story only possible in America, the 20th Century in particular. Utterly amazing, I was on the lookout for a book on Hughes' life. I don't think I could have started with a better portrait of Hughes than the one painted here by Brown & Broeske. Wisely, they have told Hughes' story with a realism and attention to detail that allow the facts to speak for themselves. Hughes life was so extraordinary that any attempt to sensationalize it is redundant and suspect. I found such amazing scenes from the "Aviator" as the crash at Beverly Hills in 1946 to pale in comparison to the event as it is described in this book. As hard as it is to put down, I also found this easy to read in bursts as my schedule allows. So dramatic and fascinating at every turn, if it has to be put down, one never forgets where they left off.
Who would ever want their personal lives investigated, picked over, revised and speculated upon, and then transformed into countless books and a movie or two? This American fascination with everyone's business but their own has made anyone considering a public life to factor in what such a wholesale invasion of their privacy is worth. Just because it is written or said is no guarantee it is true and once it starts there is no stopping it. This is a story of a man as he runs like hell to stay one step ahead of the forces that feed off but threaten to consume his uniqueness. Like many who seek fame, Hughes would pour gasoline on the fire and then run from it. For all the contradictions in Howard Hughes' life, it is hard to imagine how much more drama, danger, triumph and extraordinary achievement could be crammed into a just one. "HH, The Untold Story" could almost just as easily be about what Hughes was never able to accomplish in the second half of his life as a result of his own weaknesses compounded by the target fame and fortune paints on your back when you weren't looking. The authors are fair and compassionate in telling the good and bad in this life. The medical issues that complicated matters worse were not fairly represented in what I have read about Hughes in the past. I finally have a sense of Hughes as a human being and individual. For all the neurotic fear of germs, this was one tough customer. He had many lives and should have died and gone broke time and again if he didn't possess such a remarkable resilience and determination powered by a self confident, brilliant intellect. The 20th Century was his time and he didn't waste the opportunity. Hughes makes Bill Gates look like a wimp, coward and a crashing bore by comparison. With the uncertainty surrounding how the people around him took control of his life and affairs in his last years, the contrast between the deceit and greed driving Hughes' "caretakers" and what motivated Hughes to live such a dynamic life is startling. It would be too easy for this to be another book about a wild, eccentric madman. Instead it is a fascinating and true to life tale of ambition, genius, imagination and desire and everything that comes along with these things when someone believes that action speaks louder than words. As grand as his life was, Hughes still gave more than he took. Highly recommended reading.

It's a fascinating story as it traces the life of Howard Hughes from childhood to his death. But it's almost entirely about the women that he chased and almost nothing about the companies that he built and ran. After reading this and seeming to learn about every woman that he ever met, I am left wondering how he ever found time to actually do any work for the companies that he owned - TWA, Hughes Aircraft and the RKO movie studio. I'm sure that can't be quite right, so I'm left thinking that there is still an awful lot missing from this story.