Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters [Paperback]

Richard Hack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

Howard Hughes was a true American original: legendary lover, record-setting aviator, award-winning film producer, talented inventor, ultimate eccentric, and, for much of his lifetime, the richest man in the United States. His desire for privacy was so fierce and his isolation so complete that even now, twenty-five years after his death, inaccurate stories continue to circulate, and many have been published as fact.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Was ever a life more incredible than that of Howard Hughes? Record-setting aviator, fabled lover, celebrated film director and producer, genius financier and industrialist, the nation's first billionaire. who at one time or another owned TWA, RKO Studios and most of Las Vegas, Hughes (1905-1976) also suffered from severe psychological afflictions that led him to spend his last years in isolation, naked in blacked-out rooms on several continents, devoting days at a time to screening grade-Z movies, dictating long memos to his staff about the proper procedures to keep his room and person free of germs, mostly through the liberal use of Kleenex as a prophylactic, even as he ingested titanic amounts of codeine, his hair and fingernails growing to grotesque length and his back running with untreated sores. Hughes's story has been told before, of course, but never with the overview, insight and, most important, extraordinarily diligent research applied by Hack in this riveting biography. The author of bios of Ron Perelman and Michael Jackson, Hack has his own second-degree connection with Hughes; he co-wrote the autobiography of Hughes's longtime lieutenant, Robert Maheu. To separate fact from rumor in detailing Hughes's life, Hack read more than 8,000 pages of Hughes's private papers, 2,500 pages of recently declassified FBI and CIA documents, over 100,000 pages of previously sealed legal briefs, corporate papers and inventories, and spoke with hundreds of players, key and minor, in Hughes's drama.What Hack has uncovered is an astonishing tale of rampant ambition, obsession and madness. While his prose doesn't match the poetic heights of, say, a Nick Tosches, he presents his chronicle with bold certitude, not only illumining the amazing events of Hughes's life in a captivating manner but penetrating deep into the billionaire's twisted psyche. Readers will be nailed to these pages as, in the most exciting bio of the year, Hack presents the American dream curdling into the American nightmare, personified in a legend who at last has an accounting worthy of him. Simultaneous New Millennium Audio. (On-sale: Sept. 11)Forecast: Publicity will roar for this book, which carries rave blurbs from Maheu, Larry King, Dominick Dunne and Sidney Sheldon. Among the schedulings are a one-hour show on Larry King Live; a two-part segment on Entertainment Tonight; an appearance on the Today Show; a 10-city author tour; a satellite TV and radio tour; and a massive print ad campaign. All that, plus the book is excellent, equals bestsellerdom.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

There have been previous biographies of Howard Hughes the most infamous being Clifford Irving's hoax in 1972 but this is likely to be the most thorough, written 25 years after the billionaire's death. Hack had access to Hughes's private papers and declassified FBI and CIA documents; he also interviewed people who worked in many of Hughes's enterprises. The author begins with Hughes's childhood, the only son of a wealthy Houston oilman. The lifelong income from Hughes Tool Co. allowed Hughes to set lofty goals and seek to fulfill them: to become a great golfer (one goal that went by the wayside), to be an aviator (his early triumph as a solo pilot led to the creation of Hughes Aircraft, the Spruce Goose, and TWA), and to make movies. Hughes wooed Hollywood starlets, though he married only twice. He became increasingly reclusive, with his behavior going from eccentric to bizarre. Narrator Dan Cashman reads clearly, but there are some obvious mispronunciations (Sukor instead of Cukor, for the Hollywood director, among others). A good choice for popular collections. Nann Blaine Hilyard, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., IL
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: New Millennium Press (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893224643
• ISBN-13: 978-1893224643
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,966,446 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( H ) > Hughes, Howard

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY, September 20, 2001

By 

Raymond Hagner (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters (Hardcover)

....I settled on this book because I thought it would be account of Howard Hughes's weird and wanton ways, like several of the other books on this very original American have been.
Much to my amazement, I discovered that this book, which the publisher has unembarrassingly labeled "the definitive biography of America's First Billionaire," was not exaggerating. The story that unfolds here is a real pageturner...one of a life that hit upon politics, Hollywood, aviation, science, and parental neglect of the most extreme variety. What makes this book work as well as it does is the ability of the writer, Richard Hack (of whom I know nothing but intend to read more), has built the plot as if writing a novel. His words are lush with emotion and frustration, as the reader is brought along as an innocent observer of an incredible life story. It took a special talent to make material that has been attempted to be told elsewhere new and exciting. "Hughes" is both well researched and beautifully written. I cannot recommend it highly enough to men, women and teenagers.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but not a full story of his life, November 30, 2004

By 

A. Calvo "Explorer5" (Tinton Falls, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters (Paperback)

I bought this book and read it cover to cover in a matter of two weeks, it was highly fasinating, but most of the content centered on his depression, and maniacial ways - such as being a recluse in hotels around the world, and his constant desire to have nothing to do with his expanding empire.

If your looking for a book that goes deep into the mind and thoughts of Howard Hughes, this is the one, but if you are looking for a book that describes his business dealings, and growing empire, your better off looking somewhere else for this doesnt go into great detail.

53 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinatin' Howard, September 19, 2002

By 

Leslie Reissner "Sprocketboy" (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters (Hardcover)

Judging from the interest in this self-described "definitive biography," Howard Hughes, dead for more than 25 years, remains an object of American fascination. Hughes' downward spiral from wealthy, handsome playboy-pilot-film producer-media star to even wealthier barking-mad recluse has been told in numerous books and television programs. I was suspicious when leafing through the 12 pages of "exclusive" photographs in the book to see that only half featured photos of Hughes and none of those were new. The remainder were of some of the women in Hughes' life and look like standard Hollywood publicity shots.

Richard Hack's biography begins well with an engrossing description of Hughes' childhood years. But as it continues to cover the millionaire's Glamourous Phase in the 1920s and 1930s, it seems like a rehash of the book by Noah Dietrich, Hughes' right-hand man in the period, published in 1972 but here there is a lot more emphasis on the subject's romantic life.

More annoying than the author's failure to shed any light on the "why" of Hughes' life is his total technical ignorance of aviation, the field where Hughes was most accomplished. Richard Hack falls down almost completely here and it brings into question the accuracy of the rest of the book.

For example, he does not mention that Hughes flew as an airline copilot under an assumed name to build up flying time. There is almost nothing on the solid technical achievement in building the H-1 racer, an airplane both ahead of its time and a monument to craftsmanship. He suggests that the decision to build the D-2 reconnaisance airplane out of Duramold was ridiculed by generals because wood was known "for cracking under stress and breaking under fire." There is nothing wrong with wood as an airplane material, as the British Mosquito bomber indicates. But Hack would not be aware of this as he refers to the Royal Air Force as the Royal Air Corps, its World War One designation.

There are many other factual errors. Grover Loening is described in a footnote as "credited as the engineering genius behind the autogyro, forerunner of the helicopter." Loening was a brilliant engineer, noted for his work in seaplanes, but Spaniard Juan de la Cierva was the inventor, developer and promoter of the autogyro. And what is one to make of the passage on p. 187 where Hughes Aircraft receives a "contract to place its all-weather interceptors in Lockheed's F-94 fighters?" An interceptor is a type of airplane not a box of equipment.

There is no mention of the glorious steam car disaster so well described by Noah Dietrich who was present but instead we are endlessly subjected to Hughes' efforts at proposing marriage. And Mr. Hack's knowledge of recent history is pretty shakey too. He describes a meeting in Miami between Robert Maheu and Sam Giancana shortly after the Kennedy inauguration to discuss killing Fidel Castro. Hack says "the operation became known as the Bay of Pigs..." This is just nonsense.

A definitive biography? The jury remains out. But it is clear that Howard Hughes would have been better viewed by the posterity that was so important to him if he had died young in one of his airplane crashes. At least the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has $12 billion to do some good.

After reading this book, one can only feel that it is a print equivalent of junk food. Ask yourself: is the life of a person as messed-up as Howard Hughes' worth wading through 400 pages of my time? Perhaps not. But at least we can always savour such literary gems of Richard Hack as "Love was as alien to him as a jelly donut to a Slovakian rebel."