The Life and Legend of Howard Hughes Essay -- Howard Motion Picture Pr

The Life and Legend of Howard HughesThroughout the 20th century, it has been the medias job to pinpoint what events and people would prove to be an sound story. This was certainly the case for Howard R. Hughes. Son to the wealthy Howard Hughes Sr., Howard became the interest of the American people and newspapers for most of his life. Being deemed one of the most famous men of the mid-20th century was greatly attributed to Hughess skills as an industrialist, aviator, and motion-picture producer combined with his enormous wealth, intellect, and achievement. The media thrived on Howards unusual and sometimes scandalous life, especially in his later years when newspapers would much front large amounts of silver to get stories on Hughes. Howard was also associated with what has been called one of the greatest publishing hoaxes in history. Howard Hughes Sr., commonly known as oversize Howard, was a graduate of the Harvard School of Law, yet never once appeared before a court of law. Big Howard spent the first 36 years of his life chasing money across the Texas plains, as a wildcatter and a speculator in oil leases, working hard enough and earning just enough to move on to another, hopefully more fortunate gamble. In the year of his marriage, Big Howard sold leases on land that proved to have $50,000 in oil beneath it. He rapidly took his new wife to Europe for a honeymoon, and returned exactly $50,000 poorer. In 1908, Big Howard turned his ingenuity and his hobby to tinker into good fortune. Current drilling engineering science was unable to penetrate the thick rock of southwest Texas and oilmen could only extract the surface layers of oil, unable to tap the vast resources that lay far below. Big Howard came up with the idea for a rolling bit, with 166 cutting edges and invented a method to keep the bit lubricated as it tore away at the rock. Later that year, Big Howard produced a model and went into business with his leasing secernatener, Walter B. Sharp, formi ng the Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. Rather than sell the bits to oil drillers, Hughes and Sharp decided to lease the bits out on a job basis, for the ample sum of $30,000 per well. With no competitor able to duplicate this new technology, Sharp- Hughes Tool possessed a profitable monopoly over oil extraction. So quickly was the fraud successful that in late 1908, the partners built a factory on a seventy-acr... ...n. Amid massive worldwide publicity, Irving was sentenced to 2 years in federal prison house only two months after he appeared on the cover of Time. It was money that etched Howard Hughes into the public mind. The sound of his name was associated with untold wealth, wealth supposedly accumulate through his gift for turning all he touched to gold. left the world with a spectacular legacy that will be remembered for years to come. His contributions to the sprout business, such as attention to detail and high budget spending, are still being utilise to this day. Howards cutting edge technology used to build his many planes has let to development of many aircrafts presently in use. In truth, we are left with two Howard Hugheses- the public and the private the rational camo and the world of shadows, of instinct to preserve and protect at any cost the image he had created. That it has taken so many years for the veil to part is tribute both to his genius and to his tragedy. Bibliography Works Cited Bartlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B. EMPIRE. New York, W. W. Norton & Company. 1979. Drosnin, Michael. Citizen Hughes In His Own Words. New York, Holt, Tinch and Winston. 1985.