fact from fiction.

Even the details of his birth were falsified.

Official records give that date as December 24, 1905 in Houston, Texas.

The reality is that he'd been born two months earlier in the oil town of Humble, a hundred

miles from Texas.

From there, the lies built upon each other.

He was not one of triplets, nor was he his mother's sister's illegitimate son or

a substitute baby brought in to replace the one who had died.

All of these fanciful stories were later told by the man himself in order to build upon

the aura that surrounded his name.

Hughes senior, known as 'Bo' - a shortened form of his middle name Robards - had been

a penniless scoundrel, bumming his way round Joplin, Missouri at the turn of the 19th Century.

In 1899, he was run out of town by the furious father of a girl he tried to seduce.

With no other options, the dreamy eyed larrikin decided to try his hand at the oil business.

Making his way to Texas, Bo just happened to be on hand when a 1000-foot spume of black

oil hurtled from the ground at Spindeltop on January 10th, 1901.

He was among the first to grab claims, buying up land for a few dollars an acre, and selling

it days later for hundreds.

Within a few months, having amassed a small fortune, Bo moved to Houston, where he founded

the Texas Oil Fuel Company, the forerunner to Texaco.

Within six months he had also married the darkly pretty, but seriously hypochondriacal

Allene Gano.

Allene was terrified of small animals and had an insect phobia, fueled by an obsession

with cleanliness.

These traits were to find full expression in her only son...

By the time that Howard, junior, known as 'Sonny', entered the world in 1905, his

father was still chasing oil.

Still he was frustrated, not so much at finding the oil locations, but at the inferior quality

of the drilling tools that were available.

Finally, out of exasperation, he set his sights on designing a better drill bit.

On November 20th, 1908, he emerged from his study with designs for a bit that contained

168 cutting edges.

He had just invented the Hughes Tool Bit, from which would flow the millions of dollars

that would both enrich, and ultimately destroy, his son and heir.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

By the age of four, it was obvious that Sonny Hughes had inherited the partial deafness

that ran in the family.

The condition, hereditary otosclerosis would become progressively worse over Howard's

lifetime.

As a youngster, it caused him to become isolated and introspective.

Now that money was no object, the eight-year old Hughes was sent to an exclusive private

school.

He didn't make a very good impression, with a head teacher remembering him as an uppity,

snobbish bore who refused to join in with the other boys, preferring to sit with the

girls.

Not surprisingly, he soon gained a reputation as a sissy...

But the young Hughes also gained a reputation as a technical whizz-kid.

He put together his first wireless radio transmitter when he was 11-years old.

A year later his picture appeared in the local newspaper, proudly standing next to the first

motorized bicycle in Houston, which he had put together from steam engine parts.

In an effort to get his nervous and timid boy to 'man up', Bo decided to pack him

off to the boot camp of the day, the Boy Scouts.

So, during the 1916 summer recess, Sonny found himself in the middle of the Pohokop Mountains

in Pike County, Pennsylvania under the tutelage of a grizzled old timer by the name of 'General'

Dan Beard.

Surprisingly, the young Hughes took to the woodsman life like the proverbial duck to

water.

He was already quite fit and quickly learned to whittle, perfect Indian signs and simulate

bird calls.

He seemed to excel under the military discipline of the camp, too.

Away from the over protective gaze of his mother, it seemed, he was able to shake off

his effeminate nature and show his true colors.

In the Fall of 1920, a fourteen-year-old Sonny went with his father to the Harvard-Yale rowing

crew races in Connecticut.

Hughes senior promised to buy his son whatever he wanted if his favorite, Harvard, won the

race.

When Harvard smashed Yale by 14 seconds, the boy held out his hand in expectation and asked

for five dollars.

He then pointed to a sign further up the river advertising rides on a Curtis Flying Boat

for $5.

Hughes, senior reluctantly joined his son for the ten-minute flight.

It made the father sick, but the son had just discovered the one true love of his life.

He found the experience of flying both exhilarating and liberating.

From that moment on, he would be at his most peaceful when he was alone in an airplane

- flying high above a world that he so often tried to escape.

Movie Mogul

By the age of 19, both of Hughes' parents were dead.

His mother had died suddenly when he was 16, after suffering complications from an ectopic

pregnancy.

Bo died less than two years later of a heart attack, leaving Hughes jr the heir to the

Hughes Tool Company.

He dropped out of college to take control of the company, quickly discovering that he

knew nothing about the oil business.

He soon hired a self taught accountant by the name of Noah Dietrich to take the controls.

At the same time, Hughes legally declared himself an adult and seized full control of

the entire family fortune.

Hughes now had the money that he needed to pursue his greatest passions.

Those passions had nothing to with oil – instead they revolved around building and flying airplanes

and making movies in Hollywood.

Another of his passions was golf.

One day, while playing at the Beverly Hills Country Club, he watched as a biplane flew

overhead and tipped its wing at him.

Howard was able to track down the flyer and offered to pay him the outrageous sum of a

hundred dollars per day if he would teach him to fly.

The pilot readily agreed and, two years later, Hughes was issued his private pilot's license.

Despite his chronic shyness, Howard was fascinated with the glitz and glamor of Hollywood.

In order to break into the business, he signed talented director Lewis Milestone to a 3-year

contract.

The pairing immediately struck gold with their debut picture, 'Two Arabian Knights',

claiming an Academy Award in 1927.

This gave Hughes the confidence to take on his next challenge – a fusion of his two

great loves, flying and movies.

Failing to find a director who shared his passion for the skies, Howard decided to go

it alone – writing, producing and directing the world's first true aviation picture,

Hell's Angels.

This was going to be his magnus opus and he was prepared to pour in as much money, time

and effort as was needed to create a masterpiece.

An air-fleet was contracted that was bigger than that of some countries.

During aerial filming sequences Howard's obsessive compulsions led him to fixate on

such things as cloud formations.

He would scrap valuable minutes of perfectly good footage, forcing his pilots to reshoot

until the clouds were just right.

One day, Hughes, in an effort to control every minute aspect of an aerial shoot, went up

in a small scout plane.

But no sooner had he ascended than the plane went into a tail-spin and crashed to the ground.

Howard managed to walk away uninjured, the first of a number of miraculous plane crash

escapes.

A bemused stunt man commented that 'at least he hasn't injured his check writing arm.'

Howard's obsession with perfection meant that the shooting schedule for Hell's Angels

got totally out of control.

In the meantime, the public had become infatuated with the latest Hollywood innovation – talkies.

Against everyone's advice Hughes decided to rescript the movie and reshoot all of the

dialogue scenes, this time adding sound.

The reshoot proved to be the break of a lifetime for a former bit player named Harlean Carpenter.

The leading lady of the movie, Greta Nissen, was cut because of her strong Norwegian accent

and Carpenter stepped into the role.

Hughes transformed her into Jean Harlow, the platinum blond bombshell who became a sensation

during the 1930's.

Hell's Angels was a box office smash, returning double its production cost of $4 million,

which was an exorbitant amount at that time.

Unfortunately for Hughes, three flops followed, Hughes cashed in on the public's fascination

with gangsters by producing Scarface, based on the life of Al Capone (we've actually

got a video on him, you can find a link in the description below).

Always one to push the bounds, Hughes filled the film with violence and obscenities.

The sensors knocked it back, demanding major edits.

To their surprise, Hughes sued them – and he won.

The movie would be released just as he intended.

After the release of Scarface, Hughes stepped back from Hollywood to indulge his other great

passion - flying.

Aviator

In 1934 he easily won a flying race in Miami.

This success fuelled his ambitions, inspiring him to set up the Hughes Aircraft Company.

He now set out to design and build the world's fastest racing plane.

The result of his efforts was the H1, which Hughes flew to a new world speed record of

352 miles per hour on August 18th, 1935.

By 1938, Hughes was intent on achieving another world first - the fastest flight around the

world.

In a modified Lockheed 14, he took to the skies with a hand-picked crew and set off

from New York.

Sixteen hours and thirty-eight minutes later they landed in Paris, then onto Moscow and

Siberia.

Three days, nineteen hours and fourteen minutes after setting out they were back in New York.

Hughes was hailed as a conquering hero.

For three days the painfully shy adventurer endured ticker tape parades and receptions

in New York, Chicago, Washington and Houston.

In 1940, Hughes moved into commercial aviation by grabbing a controlling share of Trans World

Airlines (TWA).

A short time later, the US Government came calling.

They wanted Hughes Aircraft to supply plane parts, artillery shells and cannon barrels

to help supply the war effort in Europe.

Two years later, with America well and truly immersed in the conflict, Hughes was contracted

to design and build a massive flying boat in order to overcome the German U-boat menace

that was causing serious problems for US transport vessels.

While doing the testing and design for this project, Hughes was involved in his fourth