Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years

Howard Hughes, legendary billionaire, so smothered himself in secrecy that for the world at large only his death aboard an air ambulance in April 1976 proved he had ever lived. He was then 70. For the previous fifteen years he had surrendered himself totally to his secrecy machine. Only its immediate minders, the 'Mormon Mafia', knew his movements and whereabouts. In twenty-five years, no court, no journalist, no photographer, had got near him. His wanderings from country to country, living in blacked-out bedrooms in sealed-off penthouse suites, cost him an estimated $1,500,000 a year.

His wealth was prodigious. At his death his estate was valued at $2.3 billion. He owned most of the casinos in Las Vegas, Hughes Aircraft, and TWA. But of personal money he had none.

His affairs were organized by a cadre of senior aides, the 'Mormon Mafia', the only people who ever saw or talked to the billionaire in person. It was they who moved him about, using fire escapes, back entrances, unobtrusive cars, and private planes. It was they who cooked his food and catered for his personal wants.

The man himself? Once 6' 4" and of proper weight, he shrank in his final years to a cranky wraith, neurotic about everything, watching films, quirky about food; hair, beard, and nails uncut, shooting up with one drug or another, terrified of being seen, a stranger to daylight.