Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters

The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire

By: Richard Hack

Narrated by: Dan Cashman

Length: 17 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

"Howard Hughes would have hated this book...because he never wanted the truth to be told. As the man who knew Hughes best for 17 years and to whom he referred publicly as his alter-ego, I now believe that the entire story has finally been told." (Robert Maheu)

Howard Hughes was a true American original: legendary lover, record-setting aviator, award-winning film producer, talented inventor, ultimate eccentric, and, for much of his lifetime, the richest man in the United States.

His desire for privacy was so fierce and his isolation so complete that even now, 25 years after his death, inaccurate stories continue to circulate, and many have been published as fact. Hughes explodes the illusion of his life and exposes the man behind the myth. He was a playboy whose sexual exploits with Hollywood stars were legendary. He was a man without compassion; an entrepreneur without ethics; an explorer without maps; and ultimately, an eccentric trapped by his own insanity, sealed off from reality, who died a lonely and - until now - mysterious death.

Newly uncovered personal letters, over 110,000 pages of sealed court testimony, recently declassified FBI files, never-before-published autopsy reports and exclusive interviews reveal a man so devious in his thinking, so perverse in his desires, and so influential that his impact continues to be felt even today. From entertainment to politics, aviation to espionage, the influence and manipulation of this billionaire has left an indelible and unique mark on the American cultural landscape.

©2001 New Millennium Audio, All Rights Reserved (P)2001 New Millennium Audio, All Rights Reserved

Critic reviews

"In the most exciting bio of the year, Hack presents the American dream curdling into the American nightmare, personified in a legend who at last has an accounting worthy of him." (Publishers Weekly)
"A fascinating, captivating listen." (AudioFile)

17 Hours Isn't Enough

After 17 hours listening about the life of HRH, combined with 20 hours of another book, so much unsaid. This one isn't a "hatchet job" like the other but it appears to leave too many questions. No doubt HRH was eccentric, paranoid but still he had a mind like no other. Perhaps there will be another book that blends the two. I doubt we'll never understand the man but listening to many of his memo's gives us a better understanding of the way his mind did or didn't function.

None of us can imagine going through life with a much as he had and end up like he did. As exciting as his early life was, the last 20/30 years were unimaginable.

Good, but lacks details

This is an excellent first read as an introductory into Hughes' life. I really enjoyed the close attention to detail of his early life and his relationship with his parents. The only reason this gets 4 stars is due to the skip of many of the details about Hughes' mental life. This book dealt only with facts collected for legitimate sources, and that was greatly appreciated. However the attention to his mental issues (specifically the details) seemed to be skipped over in many cases. I suppose this is difficult to write about, especially given Hughes' desire for isolation, but it would have been nice to hear a few tidbits of the first hand accounts of interactions with Hughes. There were small blurbs about such information scattered through the book (a good example would be his memo regarding the preparation of canned fruit), but much of this information was not given the attention most people would expect from first reading about Hughes.

Cashman needed a pronunciation dictionary!

An earlier reviewer remarked on reader Dan Cashman's atrocious pronunciation. I have to wholeheartedly agree. I'm familiar with both Dallas and Houston, where Hughes childhood takes place, and Cashman's mispronunciation is driving me crazy! It's really distracting. For example, it's MON-trose, not mont-rose. And ga-NO, not GAN-o. FON-ten-o, not font-e-not. On it goes.

Another thing that bothers me is Cashman's rendering of Southern female voices. Though I'm sure it's not Cashman's intent, he just sounds condescending doing those voices and it comes across like he studied the accent from watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons or something.

I will say Cashman has a nice voice and a lively reading. But that pronunciation! Oy!

It was a good story and I bet a lot is missing.

It only takes a minute to look up words you aren’t familiar with to find out how to pronounce them. I give the narrator three hits for miss pronunciation of Wotan’s and words. Story was interesting.

Incredible Listen!

Dan Cashman’s voice makes this audiobook, but the stories and memos of Howard Hughes will Blow. Your. Mind.

I like Howard Hughes Bios.

I liked all of it especially his later years. he wasn't as weird as I thought

Definitely Definitive

I was riveted by this fascinating insight into this strange and complicated man. The title says it all as the story proved extemely well researched and equally compelling.

I have always been fascinated by Hughes and his life and this biography was behind-the-scenes factual as well as entertaining.

Who can resist a story of such an enormously wealthy man mixed with a descent into madness?

An Interesting but Pitiful life

A comprehensive biography of the enigma that was Howard Hughes. It is well-written and the narrator in the audiobook is very adept at imitating the voice of HRH.

The book causes you to think about the man that much of America once admired, and before long you realize he had a deplorable secret life that thought little of other people except for what he could get from them and how he could control them. It's a sad commentary that for all his wealth and hard work, he descended into an obsessive madness in the last years of his life. I found myself having pity for him, and thinking of how his life could have been so very different.

I do recommend this book for anyone who enjoys biographies and anyone who has even a slight interest in the life of Mr. Hughes

Good book but in the end kind of depressing

I liked the book in general, but I got to the point where I was feeling sorry for the man that had so much going for him. If he would have just had someone that he trusted and would help him through his illness wonder what might have been.

a great book, but not "definitive"

Where does Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The book is very good at detailing the life of Hughes on a personal level. Hack has uncovered all the girlfriends, marriages (real and sham), and bizarre behaviors of Hughes himself.

What the book does not do, is tell one how Hughes actually accomplished his incredible business career. How did he do it? This is the main question I was hoping to have answered, and the book provides very little information or insight into this.

Compare, for example, "Lawrence in Arabia," by Scott Anderson. For me, Anderson really cleared up that mystery for me -- how did someone like TE Lawrence have such a huge (or "Hughes") impact on the Middle East?

Somehow, for example, Hughes Aircraft goes from a garage shop business, producing a few stunt airplanes, to a major high-tech defense contractor, with tens of thousands of employees, and an ability to build such things as satellites, or retrieve sunken nuclear submarines.

Also, how did Hughes Tool, the golden goose of the Hughes fortune, keep operating at such an industry-leading position for so many decades? I've never heard of a company, particularly a company as large as Hughes Tool, that can just run on autopilot.

Hughes must have had an amazing ability at picking capable people, and then, somehow, keeping them motivated, year after year.

How did someone who had so little formal education, teach himself to navigate the most sophisticated upper-reaches of the American capitalist system?

I think Hack would have written a truly great book, if he had edited out a lot of the details, of Hughes' bizarre and mentally-ill personal behavior. Ultimately, such details become repetitive and pointless -- yes, we understand Hughes had serious mental issues, but then what?

If Hack insists on giving so much detail, on Hughes' mental illness, he should at least offer some insight into it. It is only at the very end of the book, where Hack presents just one psychological evaluation of Hughes. This one psychological evaluation is very limited and offers almost no insight, other than to say that Hughes seems to have internalized the fear of illnesses his mother had -- a totally obvious observation, that doesn't require a psychology degree to deduce.

What did you like best about this story?

Given that Hughes was so incredibly secretive and bizarre, Hack does deserve great credit, for unearthing and re-assembling, the broken and scattered pieces of Hughes' shattered life.

However, the process of just assembling all this information seems to have exhausted Hack, or at least the patience of his publisher, with no time left to really analyze the material he collected. That is the next step, and that is when the "definitive" biography will be written.