Hughes enjoyed a highly successful
business career beyond engineering, aviation and film-making; many of his career endeavors involved varying entrepreneurial roles.
Entertainment Ralph Graves persuaded Hughes to finance a short film,
Swell Hogan, which Graves had written and would star in. Hughes himself produced it. When he screened it, he thought it was a disaster. After hiring a film editor to try to salvage it, he finally ordered that it be destroyed. His next two films, ''
Everybody's Acting (1926) and Two Arabian Knights'' (1927), achieved financial success; the latter won the first
Academy Award for Best Director of a comedy picture. Hughes produced the film during the years 1949-1950 and owned RKO and in turn the distribution for the film. However, the film was not released until 1957 by
Universal Pictures due in part to the subsequent events that would take place at
RKO Distribution, and largely due the extra aerial film footage that had been filmed over the years after the film's 1950 completion. Hughes was undertaking a final edit before the 1957 release. After his acquisition of RKO, Hughes shut down production at the studio for six months, during which time he ordered investigations into the political leanings of every remaining RKO employee. Only after ensuring that the stars under contract to RKO had no suspect affiliations would Hughes approve completed pictures to be sent back for re-shooting. This was especially true of the women under contract to RKO at that time. If Hughes felt that his stars did not properly represent the political views of his liking or if a film's
anti-communist politics were not sufficiently clear, he pulled the plug. In 1952, an abortive sale to a Chicago-based five-man syndicate, two of whom had a history of complaints about their business practices and none with any experience in the movie industry, disrupted studio operations at RKO even further. In 1953, Hughes became involved with a high-profile lawsuit as part of the settlement of the
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Antitrust Case. As a result of the hearings, the shaky status of RKO became increasingly apparent. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders had grown to become extremely annoying to Hughes. They had accused him of financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement. Since Hughes wanted to focus primarily on his aircraft manufacturing and TWA holdings during the years of the
Korean War of 1950 to 1953, Hughes offered to buy out all other RKO stockholders in order to dispense with their distractions. By the end of 1954, Hughes had gained near-total control of RKO at a cost of nearly $24 million, becoming the first sole owner of a major Hollywood studio since the
silent-film era. Six months later, Hughes sold the studio to the
General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million. Hughes retained the rights to pictures that he had personally produced, including those made at RKO. He also retained Jane Russell's contract. For Howard Hughes, this was the virtual end of his 25-year involvement in the motion-picture industry. However, his reputation as a financial wizard emerged unscathed. During that time period, RKO became known as the home of classic
film noir productions, thanks in part to the limited budgets required to make such films during Hughes' tenure. Hughes reportedly walked away from RKO having made $6.5 million in personal profit. According to
Noah Dietrich, Hughes made a $10,000,000 profit from the sale of the theaters and made a profit of $1,000,000 from his 7-year ownership of RKO. Initially staying in the
Desert Inn, Hughes refused to vacate his room, and instead decided to purchase the entire hotel. Hughes extended his financial empire to include Las Vegas real estate, hotels, and media outlets, spending an estimated $300 million, and using his considerable powers to acquire many of the well-known hotels, especially the venues connected with
organized crime. He quickly became one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He was instrumental in changing the image of Las Vegas from its
Wild West and, later,
Mafia / organized crime roots into a more refined cosmopolitan city. In addition to the Desert Inn, Hughes would eventually own the
Sands,
Frontier,
Silver Slipper,
Castaways, and
Landmark and
Harold's Club in Reno. During his four years in Las Vegas, Hughes became the largest employer in Nevada. although that has never been reliably confirmed. In 1975 the H-1 Racer was donated to the
Smithsonian. During and after World War II, Hughes turned his company into a major defense contractor. The
Hughes Helicopters division started in 1947 when
helicopter manufacturer
Kellett sold their latest design to Hughes for production. Hughes Aircraft became a major U.S. aerospace- and defense contractor, manufacturing numerous technology-related products that included spacecraft vehicles, military aircraft, radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), commercial satellites, and other electronics systems. In 1948 Hughes created a new division of Hughes Aircraft: the Hughes Aerospace Group. The Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division were later spun off in 1948 to form their own divisions and ultimately became the
Hughes Space and Communications Company in 1961. In 1953 Howard Hughes gave all his stock in the Hughes Aircraft Company to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute, thereby turning the aerospace and defense contractor into a tax-exempt charitable organization. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute sold Hughes Aircraft in 1985 to General Motors for $5.2 billion. In 1997 General Motors sold Hughes Aircraft to
Raytheon and in 2000, sold Hughes Space & Communications to Boeing. A combination of Boeing, GM, and
Raytheon acquired the
Hughes Research Laboratories, which focused on advanced developments in microelectronics, information & systems sciences, materials, sensors, and photonics; their work-space spans from basic research to product delivery. It has particularly emphasized capabilities in high-performance integrated circuits, high-power lasers, antennas, networking, and smart materials.
Round-the-world flight On July 14, 1938, Hughes set another record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours (three days, 19 hours, 17 minutes), beating the previous record of 186 hours (seven days, 18 hours, 49 minutes) set in 1933 by
Wiley Post in a single-engine
Lockheed Vega by almost four days. Hughes returned home ahead of photographs of his flight. Taking off from New York City, Hughes continued to Paris, Moscow,
Omsk,
Yakutsk,
Fairbanks, and
Minneapolis, then returning to New York City. For this flight he flew a
Lockheed 14 Super Electra (NX18973, a twin-engine transport with a crew of four) fitted with the latest radio and navigational equipment. Harry Connor was the co-pilot, Thomas Thurlow the navigator, Richard Stoddart the engineer, and Ed Lund the mechanic. Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of U.S. aviation technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. Albert Lodwick of
Mystic, Iowa, provided organizational skills as the
flight operations manager. While Hughes had previously been relatively obscure despite his wealth, better known for dating
Katharine Hepburn, New York City now gave him a
ticker-tape parade in the
Canyon of Heroes. He was awarded the
Harmon Trophy in 1936 and 1938 for the record-breaking global circumnavigation. In 1938 the
William P. Hobby Airport in
Houston, Texas—known at the time as Houston Municipal Airport—was renamed after Hughes, but the name was changed back due to public outrage over naming the airport after a living person. Hughes also had a role in the financing of the
Boeing 307 Stratoliner for TWA, and the design and financing of the
Lockheed L-049 Constellation. Other aviator awards include: the Bibesco Cup of the
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1938, the
Octave Chanute Award in 1940, and a special
Congressional Gold Medal in 1939 "in recognition of the achievements of Howard Hughes in advancing the science of aviation and thus bringing great credit to his country throughout the world". President
Harry S. Truman awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to Hughes after the F-11 crash. After his around-the-world flight, Hughes had declined to go to the White House to collect it. The initial test flights revealed serious
flight control problems, so the D-2 returned to the hangar for extensive changes to its wings, and Hughes proposed to redesignate it as the D-5. However, in November 1944, the still-incomplete D-2 was destroyed in a hangar fire reportedly caused by a lightning strike.
Fatal crash of the Sikorsky S-43 in Texas Texas: The S-43 Sikorsky prototype In the spring of 1943 Hughes spent nearly a month in
Las Vegas, test-flying his
Sikorsky S-43 amphibious aircraft, practicing touch-and-go landings on
Lake Mead in preparation for flying the
H-4 Hercules. The weather conditions at the lake during the day were ideal and he enjoyed Las Vegas at night. On May 17, 1943, Hughes flew the Sikorsky from California, carrying two
Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) aviation inspectors, two of his employees, and actress
Ava Gardner. Hughes dropped Gardner off in Las Vegas and proceeded to Lake Mead to conduct qualifying tests in the S-43. The test flight did not go well. The Sikorsky crashed into Lake Mead, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Hughes' employee Richard Felt. Hughes suffered a severe gash on the top of his head when he hit the upper control panel and had to be rescued by one of the others on board. Hughes paid divers $100,000 to raise the aircraft and later spent more than $500,000 restoring it. Hughes sent the plane to Houston, where it remained for many years.
Near-fatal crash of the XF-11 Hughes was almost killed on July 7, 1946, while performing the first flight of the XF-11 near Hughes Airfield at
Culver City, California. Hughes extended the test flight well beyond the 45-minute limit decreed by the USAAF, possibly distracted by
landing gear retraction problems. An oil leak caused one of the contra-rotating propellers to reverse pitch, causing the aircraft to
yaw sharply and lose altitude rapidly. Hughes attempted to save the aircraft by landing it at the
Los Angeles Country Club golf course, but just seconds before reaching the course, the XF-11 started to drop dramatically and crashed in the
Beverly Hills neighborhood surrounding the country club. When the XF-11 finally came to a halt after destroying three houses, the fuel tanks exploded, setting fire to the aircraft and a nearby home at 808 Whittier Drive owned by Charles E. Meyer. Hughes managed to pull himself out of the flaming wreckage but lay beside the aircraft until he was rescued by
U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant William L. Durkin, who happened to be in the area visiting friends. Hughes sustained significant injuries in the crash, including a crushed
collar bone, multiple cracked ribs, crushed chest with collapsed left lung, shifting his heart to the right side of the chest cavity, and numerous third-degree
burns. An oft-told story said that Hughes sent a check to the Marine weekly for the remainder of his life as a sign of gratitude. Noah Dietrich asserted that Hughes did send Durkin $200 a month, but Durkin's daughter denied knowing that he received any money from Hughes. Despite his physical injuries, Hughes took pride that his mind was still working. As he lay in his hospital bed, he decided that he did not like the bed's design. He called in plant engineers to design a customized bed, equipped with hot and cold running water, built in six sections, and operated by 30 electric motors, with push-button adjustments. Hughes designed the hospital bed specifically to alleviate the pain caused by moving with severe burn injuries. He never used the bed that he designed. Hughes' doctors considered his recovery almost miraculous. Many attribute his long-term dependence on
opiates to his use of
codeine as a painkiller during his convalescence. Yet Dietrich asserts that Hughes recovered the "hard way—no sleeping pills, no opiates of any kind". Hughes conducted the maiden flight of the second XF-11 prototype on April 5, 1947. The USAAF had insisted that Hughes not be allowed to fly the aircraft, but after a personal appeal to Generals
Ira Eaker and
Carl Spaatz, he was allowed to do so against posting of $5 million in security. The USAAF demanded that the aircraft be trucked from Culver City to
Muroc Dry Lake for the flight, fearing the repercussions of another crash in a populated area.
H-4 Hercules with Hughes at the controls The
War Production Board, a civilian government agency that supervised war production from 1942 to 1945, originally contracted with
Henry Kaiser and Hughes to produce the gigantic HK-1 Hercules flying boat for use during
World War II to transport troops and equipment across the Atlantic as an alternative to seagoing troop transport ships that were vulnerable to German
U-boats. The military services opposed the project, thinking it would siphon resources from higher-priority programs, but Hughes' powerful allies in Washington, D.C. advocated it. After disputes, Kaiser withdrew from the project and Hughes elected to continue it as the H-4 Hercules. However, the aircraft was not completed until after World War II. The Hercules was the world's largest flying boat, the largest aircraft made from wood, and, at , had the longest
wingspan of any aircraft (the next-largest wingspan was about ). (The Hercules is no longer the longest nor heaviest aircraft ever built - surpassed by the
Antonov An-225 Mriya produced in 1985.) The Hercules flew only once for , and above the water, with Hughes at the controls, on November 2, 1947.
Airlines In 1939, at the urging of
Jack Frye, president of Transcontinental & Western Airlines, the predecessor of
Trans World Airlines (
TWA), Hughes began to quietly purchase a majority share of TWA stock (78% of stock, to be exact); he took a controlling interest in the airline by 1944. Although he never had an official position with TWA, Hughes handpicked the board of directors, which included
Noah Dietrich, and often issued orders directly to airline staff. Hughes Tool Co. purchased the first six
Stratoliners Boeing manufactured. Hughes used one personally, and he let TWA operate the other five. During World War II, Hughes leveraged political connections in Washington to obtain rights for TWA to serve Europe, making it the only U.S. carrier with a combination of domestic and transatlantic routes. After the announcement of the
Boeing 707, Hughes opted to pursue a more advanced jet aircraft for TWA and approached
Convair in late 1954. Convair proposed two concepts to Hughes, but Hughes was unable to decide which concept to adopt, and Convair eventually abandoned its initial jet project after the mockups of the 707 and
Douglas DC-8 were unveiled. Even after competitors such as
United Airlines,
American Airlines and
Pan American World Airways had placed large orders for the 707, Hughes only placed eight orders for 707s through the Hughes Tool Company and forbade TWA from using the aircraft. on the basis that Hughes was immune from prosecution. In 1966, Hughes was forced to sell his TWA shares. The sale of his TWA shares brought Hughes $546,549,771. In 1970, Hughes acquired San Francisco-based Air West and renamed it
Hughes Airwest. Air West had been formed in 1968 by the merger of
Bonanza Air Lines,
Pacific Air Lines, and
West Coast Airlines, all of which operated in the western U.S. By the late 1970s, Hughes Airwest operated an all-jet fleet of
Boeing 727-200,
Douglas DC-9-10, and
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 jetliners serving an extensive route network in the western U.S. with flights to Mexico and western Canada as well. By 1980, the airline's route system reached as far east as Houston (
Hobby Airport) and
Milwaukee with a total of 42 destinations being served. beginning with their work on the film
The Conqueror (1956). Though the film made money at the box office, its themes, dialogue, and casting were ridiculed. It was shot in
St. George, Utah, which had been badly affected by the testing of more than 100 nuclear bombs. Many of the cast and crew were later diagnosed with cancer, leading it to be called an "RKO Radioactive Picture". Hughes eventually bought every copy of the film he could, and is reported to have watched the film at home every night in the years before he died. Charnay later bought
Four Star, the film and television production company that produced
The Conqueror. Hughes and Charnay's most published dealings were with a contested AirWest
leveraged buyout. Charnay led the buyout group that involved Howard Hughes and their partners acquiring Air West. Hughes, Charnay, as well as three others, were indicted. The indictment, made by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton, accused the group of conspiring to drive down the stock price of Air West in order to pressure company directors to sell to Hughes. The charges were dismissed after a judge had determined that the indictment had failed to allege an illegal action on the part of Hughes, Charnay, and all the other accused in the indictment. Thompson, the federal judge that made the decision to dismiss the charges, called the indictment one of the worst claims that he had ever seen. The charges were filed a second time by U.S. Attorney DeVoe Heaton's assistant, Dean Vernon. The Federal Judge ruled on November 13, 1974, and elaborated to say that the case suggested a "reprehensible misuse of the power of great wealth," but in his judicial opinion, "no crime had been committed." The aftermath of the Air West deal was later settled with the
SEC by paying former stockholders for alleged losses from the sale of their investment in Air West stock. As noted above, Air West was subsequently renamed
Hughes Airwest. During a long pause between the years of the dismissed charges against Hughes, Charnay, and their partners, Howard Hughes died mid-flight while on the way to Houston from Acapulco. No further attempts were made to file any indictments after Hughes died. ==Howard Hughes Medical Institute==