Customer Reviews

The Money: The Battle for Howard Hughes's Billions

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This book has come under heavy criticism for not covering any new ground (both authors have written about Howard Hughes before). That may be so (the large biblography indicates the extent to which Hughes life and death has already been dissected). However, outside of America there is less of an obsession with Hughes; so if this is the first book you have read on the subject (as is the case with this reviewer), it is actually pretty entertaining - and that is how it should be read: as entertainment rather than heavy-duty information.

Phelan and Chester, after giving a reprise of Hughes' life and death, plunge into an analysis of the chaos he left behind: no will, not much idea of how much money was in the estate, no list of assets, not even a clear place of legal residence. The person press-ganged into the role of fireman was William Lummis, a lawyer and cousin of Hughes.

In ways that only Americans can manage, the determinaton and settlement of Hughes' estate was the subject of an avalanche of litigation and bizarre claims, as a parade of fake wills and fake relatives appeared and then were removed from the stage by a large hook. In fact, the outright looniness of some of these claims makes for the most entertaining aspect of the book, although they were perhaps not much stranger than Hughes' own life.

Lummis gradually managed to consolidate the estate: the last big struggle was with the IRS. The estate (under a billion dollars; the figure varied depending on how and when it was calculated) was eventually divided amongst Hughes retainers and employees, his relatives, and the bulk (after tax) going to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The HHMI had been set up as an elaborate tax dodge, but it eventually managed to rebuild itself as a genuine philanthropic and research organisation. So Hughes (as one commentator noted) did leave a useful legacy after all - but probably not what he expected.

This book might not add much to the pool of knowledge about Hughes, but for those to whom the subject! is fairly new ground, The Money is a pretty good read.

HRH fans - stay away! This is a very, very poor book, with no additional revelations about The Man. This is an exercise in fawning. Skip it, and wait for the HRH movies that rumor has in development at several Hollywood studios.