Rating: 
Summary: Fascinatin' Howard
Review: 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."
Rating: 
Summary: He never grew up
Review: Reading this well-researched book makes it clear that similarly to others who've inherited wealth, Hughes got richer despite himself. His one great talent in terms of business was in hiring top-notch people to run his various companies, thus producing the income to feed his every whim. The one thing I recall about his 1972 teleconference to expose Clifford Irving's fake autobiography,was when asked if he was happy, Hughes replied that he wasn't. He was truly a weird bird in a gilded cage. Hughes also beleived that everyone has a price, and he proved it conclusively with his conquests of most of the female movie stars of the era. I was surprised that Hack didn't mention how Hughes purchased KLAS-TV in Las Vegas because it wasn't an all-night station. Also, Hughes relationship with Cary Grant seems to confirm rumors that Hughes was indeed bi-sexual, another point not dealt with by Hack. Other than that, this book is a good read. One other point: Why does the book refer to Hughes as the "first American billionare?" I think that designation belongs to John D.Rockefeller.
Rating:
Summary: This would make a terrific movie
Review: There has been a lot of writing about Howard Hughes. A lot of it was based on incomplete or just flat out false information, going back even to when he was living with the Clifford Irving hoax. If we are to believe the author of this book had access to thousands of never before available documents, and he's telling what he found factually, this would be the definitive Hughes biography to date. That he makes it a fat, juicy biography makes it great reading. So I would nominate George Clooney to take this role to the big screen. There are remarkable similarities in their looks, and the public would just eat up this tale. Here we have a man who was lucky enough to inherit a big fortune early in life. But he didn't just sit on his money. He re-invested a lot of it into other industries, such as movies and airplanes. His resources greatly advanced the art of aviation in it's time, and his movie marketing greatly enhanced Jane Russell's breasts in their time. He was a hands-on, get involved manager who flew test planes himself, setting many speed records. This dashing lifestyle also made him the darling of Hollywood. His string of glamorous conquests was a who's who of movie actresses, from budding starlets to major icons. He literally had the world in his hand for awhile. Alas, something happens to people when they gain so much power that there are very few people or institutions that can tell them "No". We've seen this in the last 100 years with characters such as Hitler, J. Edgar Hoover, Elvis, and Michael Jackson. They get a few successes, and think they are infallable. This leads to bad decisions in life that either deteriorate them, or leave a mess for those that surround them. They also withdraw, always mentally, sometimes physically, from the world around them, as if they were surrounding the wagons to protect them from that world. This also happened to Howard Hughes. We see early signs of where he's going when he was merely a ruthless young business man. The first thing he did upon inheriting part of a company was to immediately buy out all the other inheritors to give him total control. Holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas mean nothing to him, and he calls upon his associates to work on these days to get more done. Marriage had it's uses, but none of them ever involved love. So we get to see one side, which is this dashing young millionaire who becomes America's first billionaire. We see him as he lands at crowded airports after setting yet another air speed record. We see him with every hot babe on the silver screen, and a lot more hoping to get there. America even liked him thumbing his nose at the government when he felt they were digging into his private life too much. This would all have to be portrayed. But we would need a director like Martin Scorsese to turn this into a "Raging Bull" type of hell. Yes, he had the women, but the feedback from them seemed to indicate a very selfish lover who often couldn't produce where it counts. Yes, he directed several films, but was such a control freak that the products went way over budget. And the volumes of instructions he wrote to his staff on how to guard against germs, real or imaginary, show a very disturbed mind. And the movie would have to show how this increasingly lonely man deteriorated in his last ten-fifteen years of life. While it is true, as suspected, that his paid caretakers took advantage of his situation, and in fact sped up his demise, it is also surprising how much of his faculties remained in his later years. While he was well on his way to looking like the Walking Death he eventually became, he still had the ability to conduct a two-hour press conference to convince the world that the Irving biography was a hoax. But the ultimate ending would have to show that all the money in the world cannot buy happiness. For the last several years of his life, he was surrounded only by people who were paid to be there. His hair, beard, and nails grew to extreme lengths. While obsessed with germs, he ended up living in putrid squallor, with jars of his own wastes stored everywhere. His body was stoked up with enough drugs to kill an average person, and he even had the remnants of five broken needs inside his arms. This could be Oscar time for both Clooney and Scorsese if Hollywood lets them do it right.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive biography
Review: This book is the definitive biography of an unbelievable life.
If you saw "The Aviator" then you need to read this book. The movie gives you only a glimpse of a few years of an incredibly eventful life, but this book starts out from birth and goes through the childhood, adolescence and adulthood, and also the later years where Hughes was mostly in seclusion in Las Vegas, and other places. Hughes was a remarkable man, but also a very mentally ill individual, especially near the end of his life, and unbelievably, also a surprisingly cheritable person. Reading this book is like reading a "Believe it or not" and once you start reading, it is difficult to put down. I would highly recommend this book. It was a tremendous learning experience and at the same time, very enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing.
Review: This is the best book I've ever read, regardless of genre, period.
Rating:
Summary: What a Life!
Review: This was a fascinating biography that read like a fiction novel. I read many biographies and liked Hack's style. Since Hughes has been dead for a quarter of a century, the book takes you through the settlement of his estate and eventual sale of the Hughes' assets which was interesting. It is the story of a very sad life plagued with mental illness and very little in the way of morals or integrity. He certainly wasn't a brilliant businessman. His businesses seemed to thrive most when he was not involved with them. This is a riveting story. Read it - you will never forget it.
Rating:
Summary: The man, the myth, the legend.....HRH
Review: To say that Howard Robard Hughes was one of the last century's most interesting and influential people would be a gross understatement. He was; a successful film maker, a first-rate ladies' man, presidential power-broker, a business man with the rare "midas touch", a brilliant aviator/engineer, and lastly a drug-addicted, obsessive compulsive neurotic. Having been fascinated with the man since adolesence, I have read other biographies on him. None however presents a clearer and more all-around picture of him and everything he was from childhood to his sad final days. This book is a smooth and easy read which all Hughes fans will want to add to their knowledge base.
Rating:
Summary: Intimate and Grand
Review: To truthfully and fully expose someone's life in 400 pages, especially someone as enigmatic as Howard Hughes, is a virtually impossible task. But Hack's narrative paints a picture that alternates between the intimate and the grand. We can see Hughes' boyish charms seduce Hollywood starlets and watch the world's reaction as he breaks aviation records. There are fine details about his daily life, as well as dramatic accounts of his business dealings. The book also revels in his love life and eventually tapers into Hughes' final years of hopping about the globe, escaping imagined persecution. Hack remains grounded to the facts, referencing the hundreds of memos left behind by his associates and Hughes himself. And interestingly, the truth is as compelling as any work of fiction out there.
Rating:
Summary: Intimate and Grand
Review: To truthfully and fully expose someone's life in 400 pages, especially someone as enigmatic as Howard Hughes, is a virtually impossible task. But Hack's narrative paints a picture that alternates between the intimate and the grand. We can see Hughes' boyish charms seduce Hollywood starlets and watch the world's reaction as he breaks aviation records. There are fine details about his daily life, as well as dramatic accounts of his business dealings. The book also revels in his love life and eventually tapers into Hughes' final years of hopping about the globe, escaping imagined persecution. Hack remains grounded to the facts, referencing the hundreds of memos left behind by his associates and Hughes himself. And interestingly, the truth is as compelling as any work of fiction out there.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful
Review: Well-written, well-paced, and well-researched. I only wish there had been more photos of the airplanes mentioned in the text.
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