Howard Hughes Profile

Howard Hughes

	(Howard Robard Hughes, Jr.)
24 December 05	is born in Houston, Texas, to inventor and founder of Hughes Tool Company, Howard Robard Hughes, Sr., and his wife, Dallas socialite Allene Gano
2 June 25	marries Houston socialite Ella Rice. She’s two years his senior.
	their honeymoon ends in Los Angeles
October 25	upon arriving in Hollywood, he starts courting young actresses Joan Crawford, Constance Bennett, and Madge Bellamy. His wife returns to Houston.
c. 29	starts to date married actress Billie Dove. He met her on the Starlight dance floor of the Biltmore Hotel in Hollywood.
29	helps newcomer Randolph Scott to land his first parts in Hollywood
March 29	his wife separates from him
c. 29	divorces Rice with a $1.2 million settlement
2 January 30	Billie Dove divorces her husband, Irvin Willat, to be free for Hughes
30	has a brief fling with the leading lady in his upcoming Hell’s Angels, Jean Harlow
	lives with Billie in his Muirfield mansion at Hancock Park, Los Angeles
31	starts dating actresses Dorothy Jordan, Lillian Bond, and starlet June Lang
?	squires teenage actresses Ida Lupino and Marian Marsh
?	starts an affair with aspiring actress Nancy Carroll. In the end, he leaves her waiting in his bed
Early 32	meets actress Ginger Rogers while dancing with Nancy at the Coconut Grove. Ginger’s escort is producer Mervyn LeRoy. Russ Columbo sings.
?	attends the premiere of his Scarface with Ginger. He phoned her mother for approval.
?	purchases the fifth-largest private yacht in the world and names it Southern Cross. It will become the most legendary yacht in Southern California. His first guest aboard is 17-year-old Manhattan debutante Timmie Lansing.
?	becomes infected with primary syphilis and is treated with mercury and arsenic injections
35	golf buddy Randolph Scott introduces his current roommate and lover, Cary Grant, to Hughes. A lasting friendship develops.
	Grant arranges for him to meet new RKO star Katherine Hepburn
	visits Katherine on the set of Sylvia Scarlett. They will have a four-year-long relationship.
11 July 36	to dodge an oncoming vehicle, the car he drives jumps across a streetcar safety zone on a corner in Los Angeles. A 59-year-old tailor is killed on the spot. For a night, he’s jailed for “suspicion of negligent homicide.”
19 January 37	sets a new West Coast to East Coast speed record
21 January 37	his announced wedding to Katherine Hepburn falls flat at the last minute
Spring 37	Katherine moves into his Muirfield mansion
Early 38	has a short affair with young Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton. They spend several afternoons in bed together at the London Savoy.
May 38	is introduced to Katherine’s family
25/26 May 38	he and Katherine once again plan to marry
10-14 July 38	flies around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes
15 July 38	is honored with a ticker-tape parade through the streets of New York City. For a week he’s “America’s most beloved hero.”
?	Katherine walks out on him. Immediately he phones Ginger Rogers. When Ginger rebuffs him, he leaps into an affair with Bette Davis, who’s still married to her childhood sweetheart.
?	becomes secretly engaged to Ginger
c. 39	starts dating actress Olivia de Havilland and her sister, Joan Fontaine. He tells Olivia that he won’t marry until he’s age fifty.
	proposes to Joan in the garden of Trader Vic’s
40	chooses young Jane Russell, a part-time chiropodist’s receptionist, for his upcoming The Outlaw and signs her to a seven-year contract at $50 a week.
Spring 40	starts filming The Outlaw near Flagstaff, Arizona. Some scenes require 104 takes.
41	refuses Darryl F. Zanuck’s offer for Jane Russell to play Dona Sol in Blood and Sand. The part eventually goes to Rita Hayworth.
	to forget about Ginger, he sails his Southern Cross to Nassau, Bahamas, and romances 17-year-old debutantes Brenda Duff Frazier and Gloria Vanderbilt. When Gloria phones asking him to lend her $5,000, he hangs up and never replies.
May 41	has all his personal belongings in Muirfield wrapped and sent to his new headquarters at 7000 Romaine Street, Hollywood
Memorial Day 41	meets young Warner Brothers starlet Faith Domergue during an industry cruise on his Southern Cross. Afterwards he drives her home. She’s 15; he’s 36.
October 41	invites Faith to Palm Springs, and her parents approve. They have cold chicken and champagne while cruising the Salton Sea.
19 October 41	after a gala at the Palm Springs Racquet Club, he presents Faith with a diamond engagement ring and asks her to keep it secret. Faith tells her drama teacher and columnist Louella Parsons, who eventually tells her readers.
October 41	purchases Faith’s contract from Jack Warner for $50,000 and her representation pact from the Zeppo Marx Agency
	moves Faith’s parents to a new house, at his expense. She has daily acting classes at Romaine and has to spend her nights with him, listening to classical music at Muirfield.
November 41	spends a weekend with Faith in sunny Phoenix, Arizona
Christmas 41	spends the holidays with Faith and organizes his companies for the war. The FBI starts to monitor his activities.
31 December 41	New Year’s Eve collapses when he takes Faith not to the Mocambo, but to a small Italian dive
42	when Faith learns that he’s seeing Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and Rita Hayworth in between, she walks out on him. He tries to save their relationship by leaving Muirfield and leasing a 16-room estate at 619 Sorbonne Road in Bel Air.
August 42	while with Faith at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, he’s awarded with a $18 million grant by the War Production Board to design the largest aircraft ever, the Hughes-Kaiser 1, a.k.a. The Spruce Goose
January 43	still together with his fiancée Faith, he falls for 21-year-old actress Ava Gardner and proposes to her on the spot. She’s recently divorced from actor Mickey Rooney.
	showers Ava with splendid nights at Caraways and the Mocambo, weekends at the Palm Spring Racquet Club, formal dinners at the homes of producers Darryl F. Zanuck and Samuel Goldwyn, and shopping sprees to Mexico City and Manhattan
	sets Ava up in an apartment off the Sunset Strip
	when Ava hits and wounds him during an argument, he tells Faith the injuries are from a car accident
?	on the night he drives Ava home in his Cadillac after dinner at the Coconut Grove, Faith sneaks out of Muirfield, follows them in her red roadster, and confronts them
Spring 43	Faith notes Hughes’ psyche deteriorating
16 May 43	his testing a new fine-tuned Sikorsky water plane at Lake Mead goes wrong. Two co-pilots are killed when the plane sinks.
?	starts his pursuit of 18-year-old actress Jane Greer and signs her to a seven-year contract
44	foams over Jane’s marriage to singer Rudy Vallee. The marriage starts to deteriorate soon, and Hughes escorts her to places such as the Pacific Ocean Park on the Santa Monica Pier and to the Balboa peninsula.
	becomes Jane’s lover. They use his headquarters suites at the Town House Hotel and an apartment above Sunset Boulevard.
October 44	has Faith watch when he burns lots of old private photos and letters in his fireplace
45	chaperoned by Cary Grant, he pursues the very married Ingrid Bergman during a three-day weekend in New York City, while she’s there for the filming of Arch of Triumph
June 45	flies 22-year-old actress Linda Darnell, accompanied by her agent, to the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, where he has rented an entire floor
	gives Linda flying lessons
5 September 45	flies to Vancouver to meet 23-year-old starlet Yvonne DeCarlo. He watched her hit movie, Salome Where She Danced, five times.
6 September 45	spends a whole day with Yvonne and is introduced to her entire family
11 September 45	flies with Yvonne to Reno, Nevada. The FBI is on his heels and has his suite at the Riverside Hotel taped.
	spends three weeks with Yvonne, starting in Vancouver, continuing to Las Vegas’ El Rancho, and then to the Del Monte Lodge in Pebble Beach
October 45	the FBI notes that Yvonne has followed Ava as his primary consort. De Carlo will later admit to have been seriously in love with him.
Early 46	confesses to Yvonne that they will never marry. Young actor Robert Stack helps her over the loss of her relationship with Hughes.
	slips to 25-year-old Lana Turner. He noted her in a rough-cut of The Postman Always Rings Twice
April 46	takes Lana to Manhattan for a shopping tour. They stay at the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel.
May 46	offers marriage to Linda Darnell. She is ready to drop her career immediately in order to marry Hughes.
	vanishes shortly after promising to marry Lana in Las Vegas. Lana is furious.
	when Linda confides to her friends about their engagement, Hughes asks her close friend, dancing star Ann Miller, to tell Linda the truth
	courts actress Gene Tierney, who will marry fashion designer Oleg Cassini in the near future. When Cassini’s daughter is born retarded, Hughes generously pays for treatments.
	spots a photo of newcomer Marilyn Monroe and arranges a meeting. When he doesn’t sign her to a contract, she plants his name in several columns.
February 46	spends $250,000 to get actress Virginia Mayo into the cockpit of his newly-designed TWA Constellation
4 July 46	notices 19-year-old actress Jean Peters while attending a Santa Catalina Island boating party at the invitation of Bill Cagney. She attends with WWII hero-turned-actor Audie Murphy / notices Jean in some rushes of Captain from Castile and arranges a meeting. Within ten days he gives her an enormous diamond and emerald ring.
7 July 46	survives a near-fatal crash of his XF-11 in Beverly Hills. He is visited by Linda Darnell at the Good Samaritan Hospital on the very same day. She announces that she is separating from her husband, Peverell Marley, and tells Hughes of Marley’s request for a substantial sum to let her go.
11 July 46	is visited by Jean Peters at Good Samaritan Hospital
47	when Jean tells her lover, Audie Murphy, that he has no chance with her anymore, Murphy tries to bribe Hughes’ guards for a chance to gun him down
	starts living with Jean and her family in a house on Veteran Avenue, Westwood. He also maintains two bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel, two apartments in the Los Angeles Town House, an apartment at 10000 Sunset Boulevard, a hideaway in the San Fernando Valley, a rented villa in Palm Springs, and a small house in Las Vegas.
2 November 47	test flies his Spruce Goose for a sensational sixty seconds at Long Beach California
48	writes his first “Kleenex directive” on Jean about how to escort her to the movies
48	when young RKO contractee Vera Miles runs off with one of his chauffeurs, he’s so enraged that he requests all further drivers to be homosexual
c. 48	is introduced to 27-year-old actress Cyd Charisse by her beau, singer Tony Martin. Hughes takes her to Mulholland Drive, but she will eventually marry Martin the same year.
November 48	is introduced to starlet Terry Moore during a staged meeting at the dining room of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Moore is still a virgin.
	flies Terry to Palm Springs for a weekend at the home of producer Darryl F. Zanuck
	at the Doll House restaurant in Palm Springs, actor Dale Robertson mistakes Hughes for Terry’s father. Hughes is annoyed.
49?	offers Jean Peters a magnificent engagement ring in Palm Springs
June 49?	rents a beach house for Terry Moore on Harbor Island; she brings her entire family
?	marries Terry “under the stars" on top of Mulholland Drive
Fall 49	marries Terry Moore secretly offshore San Diego; the wedding cake has the shape of Mighty Joe Young
?	lives with Terry in bungalow 19 of the Beverly Hills Hotel. They spend lots of nights together at the Chi Chi Club, Palm Springs.
?	promises to buy aspiring actress Elizabeth Taylor her own movie studio if she marries him
50	Faith Domergue returns from South America, where she lived with her husband, Hugo Fregonese, to Hollywood to be in Hughes’ upcoming Where Danger Lives
50	Terry spies on him when he meets an 18-year-old blonde, who is chaperoned by her mother, at the Desert Inn, Las Vegas
July 50	the press announces that he has scheduled starlet Joan Dixon for the big-star build-up
Late 50	tired, angry, and pregnant, Faith Domergue refuses to attend the New York openings of Vendetta and Where Danger Lives. Hughes immediately phones her to say good-bye.
9 February 51	Terry Moore marries football pro Glenn Davis. On her wedding night at the Santa Ynez Inn in Pacific Palisades, she still feels that Hughes is special and spends her honeymoon in Acapulco with 26 diaphragms, furnished by Hughes.
May 51	gets cornered by Terry’s jealous husband, who "beats the hell out of him." Glenn Davis re-fractures all the ribs that Hughes injured in his 1946 crash.
	pursues MGM star Kathryn Grayson by sending roses daily while she’s filming Show Boat. Hughes becomes jealous of her co-star Howard Keel. Finally, she returns $2 million in jewelry that he presented her with and almost marries him on three occassions.
	when Terry asks Davis for a divorce, Davis returns immediately to Los Angeles and tries to fight it out with Hughes
51	watches blue movies in bed with Terry
	presents actress Ann Blyth with a Cadillac and a swimming pool
November 51	invites Terry and her family for Thanksgiving at the Sunny Sands Motel, Palm Springs. There, she splits up with him due to his dating other girls simultaneously.
	Terry gets pregnant during her very first night with Hughes at their new hacienda in Coldwater Canyon
	his attentions for actress Debbie Reynolds make Terry jealous
c. 52	sends his right-hand man Walter Kane to put young actress Barbara Darrow under an RKO contract. For months she shows up at the studio only to draw her weekly salary of $200.
52	puts aspiring newcomer, 20-year-old Joyce Taylor, under contract, and then puts the contract on hold. Joyce meets him first at RKO and for the second time on an empty sound stage, where he stays in the dark, unseen by her.
	places Joyce and her mother and sisters in a home in Bel Air. Accompanied by chaperons, she must go with him to Palm Springs and Florida.
May 52	at Romanoff’s, his attorney, handsome Greg Bautzer, asks Terry Moore to choose between him and Hughes.
October 52	Terry suffers a miscarriage in Munich, Germany, while filming Man on a Tightrope, and gives birth to a baby daughter from Hughes, who is too premature to survive.
	has Walter Kane approach stripper Lili St.Cyr after her nightclub act. Shortly afterwards, she’s signed to a seven-year contract with RKO.
Winter 52	gives a screen test to showgirl Phyllis Applegate after having seen photographs of her taken at a Las Vegas revue. Soon she is summoned to Los Angeles and put up at the Westwood Manor.
April 53	meets Phyllis in Las Vegas. He takes her to the Desert Inn, the Thunderbird, and the Frontier.
May 53	has pretty Indiana University student Sallilee Conlon flown to Las Vegas to meet him. He noted her on the cover of Life. After six months, she and her mother return to Los Angeles, where she will have voice lessons for five years, and nothing more.
53?	Terry Moore again loses a baby from Hughes
c. January 54	becomes intimate with Phyllis
January 54	gets interested in stripper Sharon Lee. The press claims she’s scheduled for a big Hollywood build-up on the base of her beautiful smile.
54	for his upcoming 3-D production, The French Line, he signs dozens of the most glamorous models and starlets in Hollywood, among them Suzanne Alexander, Shirley Buchanan, Barbara Darrow, Barbara Dobbins, Jane Easton, Nora Hayden, Joi Lansing, Barbara Lohrman, Ellye Marshall, Dolores Michaels, Jean Moorehead, Kim Novak, Dawn Oney, Gloria Pall, Pat Sheehan, Shirley Tegge, Beverly Thompson, and Doreen Woodbury
May 54	Louella Parsons phones him to tell him about wealthy socialite Stuart Cramer III’s marriage proposal to Jean Peters
58	a Hughes representative contacts 19-year-old starlet Gale Ganley and promises her a contract of $450 a week. Then for several nights, she is ordered to dine alone at Perino’s, wearing a specially requested red dress, in case Hughes drops in.
28/29 June 59	Terry Moore marries the ex of Jean Peters, Stuart Cramer III, in Glendale, California. They will have two sons together.
?	presents Yvonne with a French poodle named Kesha
c. 59	schedules 22-year-old starlet Yvonne Craig to be the lead in his upcoming "comeback" film and puts her under exclusive contract. She’s paid weekly and has to have dinner nightly with his secretary, Taffy Simms, at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
60	for the last time, he is visited by Yvonne at Bungalow 4 at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He slaps her twice; then he hides in the bathroom.
24 December 60	Hughes allows Jean to sleep with him again at The Rancho, Santa Fe
	reluctantly allows Jean to vacuum the shag carpet, but refuses to look at the ugly, fat vacuum cleaner bag
62	is sued by Gail Ganley for failing to put her to work. She never meets him in person. Ganley receives an out-of-court settlement from Hughes’ filmmaking entity, Hughes Productions. She is his last starlet.
10 July 66	awakes for several days from his depression, beckons Jean back into his life, and promises her to start anew, without his Mormon aides
17 July 66	moves out, leaving Jean at 1001 Bel Air Road, and breaks the pact of reconciliation
November 66	moves into the Desert Inn, Las Vegas
March 67	invites Jean to meet him at the Las Vegas Desert Inn, but he can't rise himself to see her when she arrives
70	Jean Peters announces she will seek a divorce from Hughes. She wants $70,000 a year in alimony and her freedom. Columnist Sidney Skolsky suggests that Hughes made a settlement of some $120,000,000 on her.
7 March 70	calls Terry Moore for a last time
November 70	leaves Las Vegas and moves to the Britannia Beach Hotel, Paradise Island, the Bahamas
15 June 71	Jean Peters receives her divorce from Hughes. She will marry 20th Century-Fox film executive Stanley Hough in August 1971.
February 72	leaves the Bahamas and moves to the Intercontinental Managua, Managua, Nicaragua
March 72	leaves Managua and moves to the Bayshore Inn, Vancouver, Canada
August 72	leaves Vancouver and returns to Managua
December 72	moves from Managua to the Inn on the Park, London, England
December 74	leaves London and moves to the Xanadu Princess, Freeport, the Bahamas
February 76	leaves the Bahamas and moves to the 20th floor of the Acapulco Princess, Acapulco, Mexico
30 March 76	from the Acapulco Princess Hotel, he sends a last letter to his former wife, Jean Peters, telling that he has always loved her
5 April 76	leaves Acapulco and dies at age 70 of kidney failure, on board his plane, bound for his native Houston, Texas
	his autopsy report reveals “classic signs of tertiary syphilis”
7 April 76	is buried in the family plot at Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Texas. Jean Peters sends flowers.
September 83	Terry Moore wins a seven-year legal battle to be acknowledged as the widow of Hughes, from whom she was never divorced
84	Terry details her times with Hughes in the memoir, The Beauty and the Billionaire
13 October 00	Jean Peters dies from leukemia in Carlsbad, California

Sources: Howard Hughes: The Untold Story by Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske, The Bashful Billionaire by Terry Moore, Empire by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, Mrs. Howard Hughes by Raymond Strait, Howard Hughes - The Secret Life by Charles Higham, Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures by Tom Weaver, Hollywood Beauty by Ronald L. Davis, Yvonne by Yvonne DeCarlo, Movieland, Tempo, Silver Screen
Recommended Books:
Links: Social History Filmography Howard Hughes: A man of dreams and action