Read Online Howard Hughes by Clifford Irving - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Clifford Irving
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into the studio was a memory that stayed with me. In later years, when I owned RKO Pictures, I often remembered that there was a time in my life when they wouldn’t even let me past the gate at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer I mentioned that incident to Louis B. Mayer when I wanted to buy MGM from him, and we had a good laugh about it. He thought I was joking at first about wanting to buy his studio and then when he realized I wasn’t joking he didn’t take it well. He didn’t like the idea of a twenty-one-year-old telling him he wanted to take over MGM.
After Los Angeles I was sent East to the Fessenden School in Massachusetts, because Big Howard figured it would open the door for me to Harvard. It might have, if I’d been interested in going toHarvard, but I wasn’t. By then I wanted to fly airplanes. That was one of my two great ambitions, right from the beginning.
I was at Fessenden when I first flew, but even before then there were barnstormers down in Texas flying Jennies and Avros and other old World War I crates. I didn’t get to go up in any of them; my first flight was actually a present from my father. In Cambridge one time he asked me what I wanted most if Harvard won the crew race against Yale, and there happened to be a barnstormer there with a seaplane, offering rides for five dollars. I said, ‘A ride in that seaplane.’ Harvard won by half a length and my father made good on his promise.
During that flight I was breathing down the back of the pilot’s neck, jumping around, yelling, ‘Go faster, sir! Please go faster!’
The back of his neck got redder and redder. Finally he turned and said, ‘Sit the hell down! I ain’t about to kill myself for some dumb rich kid.’ He was from the Deep South. When we landed he cooled off a bit, but he told me something then that I didn’t forget for a long time. ‘When a man knows his job,’ he said, ‘let him do it.’
I took that to heart. But the trouble, as I found out, is that most men don’t know their jobs.
I was only at Fessenden for a year, and then I went out to California again and studied engineering for a semester at Cal Tech. That was when my mother died. I took the train back to Houston, and Big Howard wanted me there with him, so I transferred college to Rice Institute.
I was nineteen years old when one day the dean called me out of a physics class.
He didn’t mince words. He said, ‘Young Mr. Hughes, brace yourself. Your father’s died.’
Big Howard had had a heart attack. He was in his office – he’d been partying the night before – and he keeled over, dead on the spot. He was only fifty-four.
How upset were you by his death?
Very, although I hid it for many years. I’m just beginning to understand, at the age of sixty-five, how profoundly my whole life was influenced by my father.
The most obvious way was that he made me rich. Not so long after he died I inherited most of Hughes Tool – everyone called it Toolco, and still does – because Big Howard had bought out Walter Sharp’s share in 1912, after Mr. Sharp died, from the Sharp family.
After the funeral I was still in something of a daze, but it began to clear when the family lawyer called me into his office. ‘Sonny,’ he said, ‘I guess you realize that since your mother’s passed away too, and you’re an only child, that you’re your father’s principal heir.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I kind of figured that.’
But those were just words; I didn’t really know what it meant, and the lawyer was smart enough to realize that. So he explained to me that, in theory, I now owned seventy-five percent of Toolco.
‘What do you mean, “in theory”?’ I asked.
‘You’re a minor. Nineteen years old. The laws in Texas are a little peculiar regarding inheritance when a minor is involved. You and the rest of the family will have to get together and work things out.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘give me a little time to think about it.’
He was glad to do that, and we
After Los Angeles I was sent East to the Fessenden School in Massachusetts, because Big Howard figured it would open the door for me to Harvard. It might have, if I’d been interested in going toHarvard, but I wasn’t. By then I wanted to fly airplanes. That was one of my two great ambitions, right from the beginning.
I was at Fessenden when I first flew, but even before then there were barnstormers down in Texas flying Jennies and Avros and other old World War I crates. I didn’t get to go up in any of them; my first flight was actually a present from my father. In Cambridge one time he asked me what I wanted most if Harvard won the crew race against Yale, and there happened to be a barnstormer there with a seaplane, offering rides for five dollars. I said, ‘A ride in that seaplane.’ Harvard won by half a length and my father made good on his promise.
During that flight I was breathing down the back of the pilot’s neck, jumping around, yelling, ‘Go faster, sir! Please go faster!’
The back of his neck got redder and redder. Finally he turned and said, ‘Sit the hell down! I ain’t about to kill myself for some dumb rich kid.’ He was from the Deep South. When we landed he cooled off a bit, but he told me something then that I didn’t forget for a long time. ‘When a man knows his job,’ he said, ‘let him do it.’
I took that to heart. But the trouble, as I found out, is that most men don’t know their jobs.
I was only at Fessenden for a year, and then I went out to California again and studied engineering for a semester at Cal Tech. That was when my mother died. I took the train back to Houston, and Big Howard wanted me there with him, so I transferred college to Rice Institute.
I was nineteen years old when one day the dean called me out of a physics class.
He didn’t mince words. He said, ‘Young Mr. Hughes, brace yourself. Your father’s died.’
Big Howard had had a heart attack. He was in his office – he’d been partying the night before – and he keeled over, dead on the spot. He was only fifty-four.
How upset were you by his death?
Very, although I hid it for many years. I’m just beginning to understand, at the age of sixty-five, how profoundly my whole life was influenced by my father.
The most obvious way was that he made me rich. Not so long after he died I inherited most of Hughes Tool – everyone called it Toolco, and still does – because Big Howard had bought out Walter Sharp’s share in 1912, after Mr. Sharp died, from the Sharp family.
After the funeral I was still in something of a daze, but it began to clear when the family lawyer called me into his office. ‘Sonny,’ he said, ‘I guess you realize that since your mother’s passed away too, and you’re an only child, that you’re your father’s principal heir.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I kind of figured that.’
But those were just words; I didn’t really know what it meant, and the lawyer was smart enough to realize that. So he explained to me that, in theory, I now owned seventy-five percent of Toolco.
‘What do you mean, “in theory”?’ I asked.
‘You’re a minor. Nineteen years old. The laws in Texas are a little peculiar regarding inheritance when a minor is involved. You and the rest of the family will have to get together and work things out.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘give me a little time to think about it.’
He was glad to do that, and we
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