Ian Parker described the book as "a
roman à clef — it was generally thought to have been inspired by the life of
Howard Hughes". In an interview with Dick Lochte, Robbins said, "The airplane manufacturer in
The Carpetbaggers was
Bill Lear, not Howard Hughes, by the way."
TV Guide Onlines capsule summary of the movie says, however, "Deny it though he might, Harold Robbins obviously used parts of the life of Howard Hughes as the basis for his major character, Jonas Cord." Lear, the developer of the
Lear jet and the
8-track tape player, was better known as an engineer rather than as an aviator, and had no connection with
Hollywood. Parallels between Cord and Hughes include: • Cord is the heir to his father's Cord Explosives Company, Hughes to his father's
Hughes Tool Company. • Cord personally sets aviation records, as did Hughes. • Much of the novel concerns itself with Cord's ventures into film production; Hughes produced 26 films. • Cord owns an airline named ICA; Hughes owned
TWA. • Cord personally pilots a gigantic flying boat called the Centurion, "the biggest airplane ever built", to prove its airworthiness in order to meet a naval contract condition. Hughes personally piloted the Hughes H-4 Hercules or
Spruce Goose, by some criteria the largest aircraft ever built, to prove its airworthiness in order to deflect
Congressional criticism of his war contracts. Ian Parker and others identify the character Rina Marlowe with
Jean Harlow, whom Howard Hughes had under personal contract for a few years and who many believe had an affair with Hughes; although actual evidence of such an affair is patchy at best, and Harlow often complained about Hughes making a fortune loaning her to other studios and paying her a paltry salary (her contract with Hughes was eventually bought out by
MGM).
Carroll Baker, the actress who played Rina in
The Carpetbaggers, was chosen a year later to play the title role in the biopic
Harlow. Fictional Rina Marlowe's husband, cinema director Claude Dunbar, commits suicide shortly after their marriage, as did Jean Harlow's second husband, producer
Paul Bern. Marlowe dies tragically of
encephalitis in about 1934; Harlow died of
kidney failure in 1937. In other respects, correspondences between the novel's characters and real individuals are imprecise. In the novel, Jonas Cord's first movie production is entitled
The Renegade; is released in 1930; and stars Rina Marlowe in her screen debut. Marlowe has a 38C bust, and Cord has one of his aeronautical engineers design a special
brassiere for her. There is a brief reference to his producing a movie four years later entitled
Devils in the Sky. These movie titles bear an unmistakable similarity to two movies produced and directed by Hughes:
The Outlaw (1943) and ''
Hell's Angels'' (1930). ''Hell's Angels'' starred Jean Harlow, but it was not her debut; she was an established actress with seventeen earlier screen credits. Jean Harlow was famous as (in the words of her official estate-sponsored website) "Hollywood's Original Blonde Bombshell", but her bust measurement was not extraordinary. The real-life person who
did make her screen debut as a star,
was famous for her large bust, and for whom Hughes really
did have an engineer design a special brassiere, was Hughes' later discovery (and model for the character Jennie Denton)
Jane Russell, who starred in
The Outlaw. The names of real people whom Robbins' fictional characters resemble are often mentioned briefly within the novel, potentially further confusing the situation. When Rina Marlowe dies, a studio official says that, to replace Marlowe in an upcoming picture, "I'm already talking to
Metro about getting Jean Harlow." A fictional Charles Standhurst, who owns "more than twenty newspapers stretched across the nation", is said to be "second only to
Hearst". The character Nevada Smith is a cowboy who breaks into the movies by volunteering to perform a risky stunt, becomes fabulously wealthy as a movie cowboy star, and becomes proprietor of a
Wild West show. In these details he bears a vague resemblance to
Tom Mix, who was a star performer in the 101 Wild West Show and became in turn a movie extra, stuntman, and major star. Some also see a resemblance between Nevada Smith and
William Boyd, who became famous as
Hopalong Cassidy. Others say that Smith was based on cowboy actor
Ken Maynard. A movie entitled
Nevada Smith (1966) starring
Steve McQueen was based on Smith's role in this book. The role of
Billy the Kid in Hughes'
The Outlaw was played by
Jack Buetel, who prior to his movie career was neither an outlaw nor a cowboy, but an insurance clerk. ==Reviews==