Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was at times a pilot, a movie producer, a playboy, an eccentric and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He is famous for building the Hercules airplane, commonly known as the Spruce Goose, and for his debilitatingly eccentric behavior later in life.

The recluse

By the late 1950s, if not earlier, Hughes developed debilitating symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The once dashing figure vanished from public view and became a mystery. The media followed rumors of his movements and behavior. According to various rumors, Hughes was either terminally ill, mentally unstable, or dead and replaced by an impersonator.

Related Topics:
Obsessive-compulsive disorder - Media

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Hughes had earlier displayed symptoms consistent with OCD: In the 1930s, friends reported he was obsessed with the size of peas — one of his favorite foods — and used a special fork to sort them by size before he ate. When he produced The Outlaw, Hughes became obsessed with a minor flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, and wrote a detailed memorandum on how to fix the problem: Hughes contended that fabric bunched up on a seam, giving the distressing appearance (to Hughes, at least) of two nipples on each of Russell's breasts.

Related Topics:
Pea - Nipple

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Hughes became a recluse, living a drug-addled life locked in darkened rooms and was terrified of germs. Though he kept a barber on-call with a handsome retainer, Hughes had his hair cut and nails trimmed perhaps once a year. Several doctors were kept on salary, though Hughes rarely saw them and refused to follow their advice.

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Hughes became addicted to codeine (injections), valium, and other painkillers, was extremely frail, stored his urine in jars and wore Kleenex boxes as shoes (although it has been reported that Hughes did this only once, as "protection" when a toilet flooded). He insisted on using paper towels to cover any object before he touched it, to insulate himself from germs. Hughes had contracted syphilis as a young man, and much of the strange behavior at the end of his life has been attributed by modern biographers to the tertiary stage of that disease. His well-documented aversion to handshaking, for instance, probably began when he contracted syphilis. The disease first revealed itself in the form of tiny blisters erupting on his hands. After receiving medical treatment, Hughes was warned by his doctor not to shake hands for a time. Hughes avoided it the rest of his life. Syphilis was also responsible for a bizarre episode in which Hughes burned all his clothes. (In the film, The Aviator, 2004, it is presented as his response to Katharine Hepburn's leaving him. In reality, it was Hughes' overreacting to the syphilis diagnosis by ordering every piece of clothing and bed linen in his home destroyed.)

Related Topics:
Codeine - Valium - Urine - Kleenex - Toilet - Syphilis - The Aviator

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