Limelight: Sweet smell of success By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Money is the most powerful commodity invented by man -- his monumental masterpiece, his biggest blunder. It provides power, glory, fame, and sometimes happiness, but despite its achievements and accomplishments it exacts a high price from those destined to revel in its resplendent halo. Among its strangest beneficiaries as well as victims, was one Howard Hughes, eccentric American billionaire whose sensational life as well as his bizarre death, left the world all agog and aghast. Born in Houston Texas in 1905 he inherited a considerable fortune from his father, who died unexpectedly when Howard was only 18. His "Hughes Tool Company" became an indispensable oil-drilling necessity in oil-drenched Texas, leaving Hughes a very wealthy teenager. Shy and retiring, young Howard had other dreams than oil -- to fly and to make films. With the "Hughes" drilling profits to protect and provide, he moved to Los Angeles in 1925 already capital of the film world, determined to become king of the budding kingdom of Hollywood. His beginnings in Hollywood were not only respectable, but outstanding. He won Oscars for producing fine films, his finest being Hell's Angels (1930), a Hollywood classic which garnered him his Oscar for best director. He was only 25. The most expensive film ever made ($3.8 million) at the time, Hell's Angels was a runaway success breaking box-office records though never quite recovering its cost. "I am by nature a perfectionist and I seem to have trouble allowing anything to go through in a half perfect condition," described Hughes. Among his Hollywood classics were The Front Page (1931), Scarface (1932), both remade in later years, and the most sensational of all, The Outlaw (1943), starring a buxom beginner in a daring décolleté, Jane Russell. Movies became his consuming passion, so did movie stars. While Hollywood was his recreation ground, space was where he found his true calling. Both "Film" and "Aviation" were the booming industries that defined the age of prosperity of southern California. The king of film was now determined to become king of aviation. He won his first speed title at the All American Air Meet in Miami in 1934 and built the world's most advanced plane, the HI, establishing a speed record of 352mph in 1935. Undeterred by cost, he acquired 87 planes, the largest private air-force in the world. He flew from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey in 7hrs 28min and set a new world record. He won the Harmon International Trophy as the world's outstanding aviator and was honoured by president Roosevelt in the White House. There was no stopping Howard Hughes, the aviator. He set another record in 1938, flying around the world in just over three days, and in the process, cut Charles Lindbergh's New York--Paris record in half. Hughes held every speed record of consequence and was hailed the "world's greatest flyer -- a second Lindbergh". He developed his own radio equipment which would later serve as his entry into the electronic field. He was given a ticker-tape parade down Broadway, New York City in 1938, an honour bestowed on the very few. Hughes was at the height of his popularity. Howard Hughes continued to live fully and dangerously, courting Hollywood stars below, celestial stars above. But the balmy fragrance of fortune, that "sweet smell of success", would soon begin to fade. He squandered millions and almost brought ruin to RKO Pictures. In 1966 he was forced to sell all his shares in Trans World Airline (TWA) which he had bought in 1939 and transformed into a major international carrier. His gross mismanagement and "his secretive and Quixotic decisions" nearly plunged it into bankruptcy. That same year 1966, he moved into a hotel in Las Vegas. Rather than being evicted for his weird habits, he bought the hotel and several others, becoming a major real estate owner in Nevada. Hughes hired former FBI agents and bodyguards to shield himself from the public at the dismay of his friends and associates. Fearful of contamination he insisted on a germ-free environment. He stuffed window cracks to keep the germs out, and sat most of the time naked in a large white armchair, stretching his legs on an ottoman, watching movies all day. His drug habits, which included codeine and valium -- first prescribed to alleviate pain from severe plane crash injuries -- increased with the years. "The hermit gambling entrepreneur", tired of Las Vegas towards the end, moved to the Bahamas and then to Mexico where he had greater access to his drugs. He died of kidney failure on an airplane carrying him from Acapulco to Methodist Hospital in Houston on 5 April, 1976. Visibly wasted in body, incoherent in thought, he died among strangers -- his doctors and bodyguards -- dejected and demented. He had not been seen in public for 20 years. His appearance was so changed, fingerprints were required to identify his diminutive body. He left an estate estimated at $2 billion then, with no heir, no child, no grandchild. Years later it was divided among 22 distant cousins. At various times, Howard Hughes owned "an international airline, two regional airlines, an aircraft company, a major motion picture studio, mining properties, a tool company, gambling casinos and hotels in Las Vegas, a medical research institute and a vast amount of real estate". Despite this wealth he became transformed in to a virtual madman. Was money again the root of all evil! The peaks and valleys of his life fascinated a public with a growing appetite for clandestine confidentials. This eccentric, shy, awkward billionaire genius, whose life was shrouded with mystery and secrecy, became the subject of numerous biographies and novels. The Carpetbaggers (1964), a best selling novel by Harold Robbins, was also a hit movie, directed by Edward Dmytryk, starring George Peppard as Howard Hughes. His amazing life story is the subject of yet another Hollywood biographical epic which will hit the screens on Christmas Day. Filled with glamour, mystery and intrigue, The Aviator was directed by one of Hollywood's finest, Martin Scorsese, voted fourth greatest of all time by Entertainment Weekly. He is the only working film director alive on the top 10 list. Scorsese concentrates on Hughes' halcyon Hollywood days, when the young and dashing billionaire industrialist opted to become a Hollywood mogul, romancing the likes of Ava Gardner, Kathryn Hepburn and Lana Turner. The film also chronicles Hughes's struggle with his disabilities and phobias. He was suffering from the disorder now known as obsessive compulsive behaviour which was undefined at that time, and which ultimately led to his isolation and despair. With a stellar cast, The Aviator is already creating Oscar buzz, hopefully for director Scorsese, nominated four times but has yet to take home the golden trophy. This analytical study of one of the richest, most eccentric, most bizarre, and most powerful men of our time is one worth watching. Obsessive compulsive disorder was masterfully depicted in a Jack Nicholson's comedy As Good as it Gets (1996). The condition is no laughing matter and when left untreated is debilitating. Joan Crawford was also its victim. Coincidentally, heartthrob Leonardo di Caprio, who plays the young Hughes in The Aviator admits to suffering from the same disorder. With the help of today's medications and psychoanalysis, Di Caprio has it under control. Affecting three per cent of the world population, it is often known as the "doubting disease" because the mind does not register when an obsessive behaviour has been performed. Extreme concern with certain sounds, images, words, numbers, result in recurring acts and odd rituals of cleaning, grooming, counting, or checking. While success is the ultimate desirable state man dreams of, it has its darker unavoidable elements. An excess of power and wealth often results in ruthlessness, greed and cruelty, may be even disease and tragedy. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, When wealth accumulates, and men decay. Oliver Goldsmith (1730--1774) Damned, desirable, destructive, disruptive money -- the commodity man can no longer do without.
