The Money: The Battle for Howard Hughes's Billions
by James R. Phelan, Lewis ChesterJames R. Phelan
Hardcover(1 ED)
Howard Hughes's death in 1976 exposed a unique American horror story. Hughes wandered six years in exile in a self-constructed private asylum, the victim of such gross neglect that neither he nor his keepers dared disclose him to public view. When he died, he weighed ninety-two pounds and was indistinguishable from a street derelict, dehydrated and ravaged by drugs.
There was no discoverable will, and thousands of people became involved in a bitter struggle to claim his fortune. There were those who lied, fantasized, and forged in an effort to seize a prize that, in the opinion of most contemporary financial experts, was worth $2 billion. More recently, however, Hughes's worth at the time of his death has been shown to be in excess of $6 billion—approximately three times J. Paul Getty's wealth at his death.
Among the motley of contenders fighting for The Money were two powerful groups. On one side was Will Lummis, a soft-voiced conservative lookalike cousin of the billionaire, and twenty other Hughes cousins claiming legal heirship. On the other side were the people who had managed the empire of the phobia-ridden Hughes during his last six years. They were headed by an executive triumvirate: Chester Davis, Hughes's aggressive and abrasive chief counsel; Frank W. "Bill" Gay, his mousy, low-profile executive vice president; and Nadine Henley, a plump, peroxided one-time secretary.
When Hughes died, both Texas and California claimed him as their taxable own, setting off years of litigation that went several times to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The final irony of Hughes and The Money was that the fight for his fortune demolished the privacy it had bought for him at great cost in his later years. The secrets came flooding forth as the men who had hidden him and those who ran his businesses were put under oath and required to talk.
This remarkable story—revealed here for the first time—is told by two of the most knowledgeable "Hughes watchers." James R. Phelan, for years one of the most respected independent investigative journalists in this country, was the first to reveal the true story of Hughes's final days in the bestselling Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years. Lewis Chester is a former editor of Insight, The Sunday Times (London) investigative team, and is the coauthor of Hoax: The Inside Story of the Howard Hughes -Clifford Irving Affair.
Based on interviews and a massive collection of court documents, sworn testimony, and depositions, The Money tells the bizarre—and truly almost unbelievable—story of the palace struggles that ensued when the emperor died and a contentious cast of contenders, a collection of characters rivaling those on TV's Dallas, fought over his billions.
1 ED
You inherit a Texas tool factory and turn it into a fortune. You build RKO Studios and have a hand in turning Hollywood into the movie capital of the world. You build the largest airplane ever built. You become wealthier than anyone in history short of J. P. Getty. Then you become paranoid, a notorious recluse, and you save your urine in jars in a closet for years. You are wealthy beyond the avarice of kings, but you are mad. You have an enemy list as long as your arm and surround yourself with Mormon advisors who wait eagerly for your death. You decide to have the last laugh: You don't write a will. Who are you? Howard Hughes, a brilliant businessman who made billions in the aerospace industry, died intestate in 1976. The last 20 years of his life had been spent in obsessive-compulsive seclusion — he was addicted to a wide variety of drugs and weighed 92 pounds at the time of his death. But his death was only the beginning of his story. What happened to his money? How much was there? And who was to inherit it?
"The Money" tells the story of that vast fortune and its fate — a treasure seemingly buried in plain sight, but impossible to seize due to legal technicalities and the lack of undisputed heirs.
The most compelling and interesting part of "The Money" is not the legal wrangling — it is the drama that stems from the sheer number of fraudulent wills and claimants to the Hughes billions, from obscure and distant family members to con men of all descriptions. The book also sheds light on one of the more peculiar men of our time, Howard Hugheshimself— one of the most secretly powerful men of his day.
Phelan and Lewis are Hughes experts who have written books on the man before, and they bring an insider's knowledge and a telling knack for detail to this fascinatingly strange topic. In the end, "The Money" isn't just about the story of one man's legacy, it's about what money itself does to people, and what it makes them become.
Fortunately, this is not another biography of Howard Hughes, nor is it a financial history of how the billionaire made and mismanaged his fortunealthough the book covers all thatinstead, it is the affably told story of what happened to Hughes's money, perhaps $5 billion, after he died in 1976. And what happened was one bizarre lawsuit after another. Hughes seems to have written no will, although several were "found" by would-be heirs. More than 500 people claimed to be related to Hughes, including supposedly illegitimate children and women who said they were secretly married to him (actress Terry Moore being the best known). Ultimately, the estate was shared by doctors, relatives and lawyers. The story also deals with the complexly organized and abysmally run Howard Hughes Company he left behind that was being milked by its wily trustees. The book's hero is Hughes's cousin Will Lummis, who wages a 10-year battle to drive out the scoundrels and turn the operation into a moneymaker. The irony is that the lawsuits revealed the secrets Hughes worked so hardand paid so much moneyto conceal, including his drug addiction and mental illness. Phelan and Chester (who wrote Hoax, about Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes book scam) render nicely a new version of a familiar story. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Phelan (Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years, 1976) and Chester (Hoax: The Inside Story of the Howard Hughes-Clifford Irving Affair, 1972) are no strangers to Hughes's life. They do not claim to have written a biography but offer fascinating personal glimpses into Hughes's life. Hughes apparently died intestate, and his fortune of $6 billion attracted various claimants. The primary adversaries in the battle to obtain that fortune were Hughes's former employees, who sought to keep the money in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which they controlled, and a slew of Hughes's distant relations. The authors tell this convoluted and intriguing tale in a lively style; it is as lurid as anything in the tabloids but with obvious attention to accuracy. A good title for public libraries.A.J. Sobczak, Pasadena, Cal.
Howard Hughes departed his own bizarre world and the real one two decades ago. If you've ever wondered what finally happened to his closely guarded fortune, you'll find the fascinating answer here.
Phelan (Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years, 1977, etc.) and former London Sunday Times staffer Chester cogently reprise the crazy death and fabulous curriculum vitae of the industrialist, gambling czar, movie maker, aviator, womanizer, drug addict, and lunatic billionaire. Then the authors, both longtime Hughes watchers, concentrate on the true protagonist: The Money. Was Hughes's legacy relatively chump change of $165 million or really more than $5 billion? Another mystery: Howard's end initiated a search for his last will and testament. To date, no will has been found. But there soon appeared, together with some decidedly odd stories, lots of fakes, along with putative heirs, grieving widows, and lost relatives. California and Texas, mindful of death taxes, each asserted domicile. (Nevada did not impose a death levy, and the obvious domicile for Hughes, La-La Land, was not heard from). The Homeric battle for The Money centered on control of the Summa Corporation and of the principle owner of the fortune, the Medical Institute, originally organized as a tax dodge. As villains, the authors provide the controlling privy councillors, and as hero, Hughes's nephew, Will Lummis, who finally got the thing settled. With the fascination of a visit to a crime scene, the text describes what lawyers daily do for a living, albeit usually for less monumental stakes. Finally, The Money went to doctors (for research), relatives, tax collectors, and even some lawyers—all people Hughes disliked intensely.
A great tale, told adroitly, and a worthy addition to the great library of Hughesiana.