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| Hughes left Rice for Hollywood |
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Rice drop-outs find fame
United States manufacturer, avaitor and movie producer Howard Hughes was born in Houston, Texas and attended Rice in the mid 1920s, although he dropped out of school to head west. He left Rice and Houston and traveled to Hollywood to undertake movie production -- he produced Hell's Angels in 1930 and Scarface in 1932. An admirer of airplanes and aviation, Hughes founded the Hughes Aircraft Company and directed the profits towards the finance of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Despite his successes, Hughes went into complete seclusion in 1950 to avoid speaking about antitrust accusations involing the 78 percent of ownership he held in Trans World Airlines -- his silence caused him to lose his holdings in the company, and he eventually sold his TWA shares for $500,000,000. In the last part of his life, Hughes moved around the world abruptly, living in luxurious hotels for short periods of time. At that time, he was working long hours in solitude. He became emaciated and deranged from the effects of an insufficient diet and an excees of drugs. Hughes died soon afterward in 1976 while flying in a plane carrying him to medical attention.
This item appeared in the Features section of the October 10, 1997 issue. |
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