He then began buying up the city, starting with the hotel he was living in. All of these fanciful stories were later told by the man himself in order to build upon the aura that surrounded his name. [3]:1314,2223,2930, Hughes, according to Dietrich, was "looking for someone with wide general knowledge," "Someone who is resourceful and can solve problems." Head and shoulders portrait of Jean Peters, wife of Howard Hughes. It was well received by the critics and won two Best Picture awards, a Golden Globe and Bafta, respectively. Dietrich wrote of Hughes, "Of all his possessions, TWA held a certain mystique for him. "The instances of duplicated material are numerous," the magazine wrote. The movie would be released just as he intended. The New York Times put the figure at $1.5 billion at the time of Hughes's death. Kate replaced Gwyneth Paltrow, originally chosen to play Ava Gardner in the film. He flew from Los Angeles to New York in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds. He didnt make a very good impression, with a head teacher remembering him as an uppity, snobbish bore who refused to join in with the other boys, preferring to sit with the girls. With three more Harry Potter movies and the theme park yet to open, I predict that she's definitely in the top 200 by the time she is 50, if not sooner. Howard Hughes during a parade in New York to honor the record hed just broken in 1938. Three pilots died during filming. Sources: ABC13, Far Out, The Rake, Irish Times, It was a foggy night, and he claimed he swerved to avoid an oncoming car. Some people claimed they were cousins or sisters. He said he saw an old man with long silver hair, when all he knew was what had seen of published photos when Hughes was young. So many people thought I was a con artist or a scammer. Noah Dietrich was one of Hughes' most trusted confidants until they had a falling out in the late 1950s. But that same year, Hughes was booked for negligent homicide after he hit and killed a 59-year-old pedestrian named Gabe S. Meyer in his car after a night drinking with a 21-year-old woman named Nancy Bayly. From there, the lies built upon each other. He said Hollywood had become too complicated for him. The public spotlight on Hughes began to fade as time went on. He seemed to excel under the military discipline of the camp, too. The cast, directed by Stephen Sommers, included the original. He picked him up and drove him to Las Vegas. Lieut. ", Sources: UPI, Texas Monthly, Far Out, Irish Times, Forbes. Despite his chronic shyness, Howard was fascinated with the glitz and glamor of Hollywood. The pilot readily agreed and, two years later, Hughes was issued his private pilots license. He launched the Hughes Aircraft Company and began developing and flying modern planes. " Hughes did the same things that other men did he just did them more crudely. Hughes became excessively private after the accident, and reportedly had obsessive compulsive disorder and began using drugs. But it took decades before it was all wrapped up. The following election cycle, the loan was made public, and the press focused on the fact Hughes had a hold on the Nixon family. At 17, I was working part-time as a clerk at a drug store and wearing a really sweet mauve smock (that's right: mauve). Then, suddenly, a propeller malfunction causing the plane to plummet to the ground. J.K. Rowling is said to have $1.1 billion at the young age of 43. An attorney holds a copy of one of the wills purportedly made by Howard Hughes. Press Esc to cancel. #116, John Hancock, $19.3 billion. Actress Terry Moore stands before a giant poster of the late billionaire Howard Hughes during a press conference in May 1983 at which she again claims she was married to him in 1949 and the marriage was never dissolved by either party. But that all changed after a devastating 1946 plane crash. The amount was life-changing. In 1943, he made a critically panned film called "The Outlaw," featuring Jane Russell. By 2010, more than 30 years after he died, over 1,000 people, including 200 of Hughes' relatives, had received a A year later his picture appeared in the local newspaper, proudly standing next to the first motorized bicycle in Houston, which he had put together from steam engine parts. Hughes later sold the movie studio in 1957. He would scrap valuable minutes of perfectly good footage, forcing his pilots to reshoot until the clouds were just right. Howard Hughes seated in an automobile in 1940. When he later wrote his own memoir, The Hoax, Irving corroborated the hypothesis posited by the Time article, writing that he indeed obtained and a made a copy of a draft of Dietrich's manuscript, which he then used as source material for his fabricated Hughes autobiography. The result of his efforts was the H1, which Hughes flew to a new world speed record of 352 miles per hour on August 18th, 1935. Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, St Louis Magazine, Forbes. He acquired his wealth through inheritance, slave ownership, land ownership and various mining prospects. Howard Hughes sitting in the cockpit of an XF-11 in 1947. In On November 20th, 1908, he emerged from his study with designs for a bit that contained 168 cutting edges. He cut himself off from the world, rarely leaving the top floor of the Desert Inn. Surprisingly the cost of filming the entire franchise is estimated at $200 million, which is a lot less budget than the smashing returns it recorded at the ticket counters. Howard Hughes (HHC) came out with quarterly earnings of $1.07 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.97 per share. He then turned the project over to another journalist, Bob Thomas, who finished the Dietrich memoir within six weeks. [1] He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California. The company's earnings, however, allowed Hughes to pursue his interest in Hollywood movies. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. In addition to his ownership of TWA and Hughes Tool Company, he now also owned the RKO movie studio. The exterior of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1967. "His head was badly banged around in all of these, and I think his mental condition can be directly attributed to those crashes. Were talking about billionaire Howard Hughes, who at his death was among the worlds richest people. The World's Most Entertaining Car Website. Howard Hughes, motion picture producer, shown after a test hop in his new high powered plane, a Boeing Army pursuit ship. He left the room only once to go flying. He quietly moved between cities and countries, including the Bahamas and Nicaragua. The heart of his empire was the Summa Corporation, a personal holding company created when Hughes liquidated his shares in the Hughes Tool Company in 1972. The sci-fi/action flick directed by Len Wisemen, The 10 Greatest Billboard Hits Of Nicki Minaj, Ranked, The Highest-Grossing Kate Beckinsale Movies, Ranked, The 10 Highest-Grossing Lana Del Rey Songs, Ranked, Inside 50 Cent's Garage Massive Car Collection, Counting Stars: Here's How One Republic's Ryan Tedder Made His $150 Million Fortune, Tommy Lee Re-Lists Former Suburban Los Angeles Lair For $4.5 Million, These Are The 10 Most Expensive Penthouses In The World, Demi Lovato Had To Postponed Her Illinois Concert After Loses Her Voice As She Woke Up, Becoming Forrest Gump: Here's How Tom Hanks Became A Hollywood A-Lister, A Peek Inside David Beckham's Insane Car Collection, John Wick's Garage: 10 Crazy Expensive Motorcycles In Keanu Reeves' Collection, The Rise And Fall Of Marshawn Lynch's Fortune And NFL Career, These Are The 10 Richest DJs In The World, As Of 2022, R. Kelly Will Pay More Than $300,000 For Therapy And Herpes Treatment To Sex Crimes Victims, Post Malone Abruptly Postponed Saturday Show In Boston, A Look At Jay-Z's Dating History: All Of Rapper's Girlfriends, Ranked By Net Worth, The Clooney Garage: Inside George Clooneys Insane Car Collection, Elvis and Priscilla Presleys Honeymoon House In California Is Listed for $5.65 Million, The Highest-Grossing Tracy Morgan Movies, Ranked, Paris Hilton Flaunts Her 'Signature Style' As She Returns To The Runway For Milan Fashion Week, Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine Allegedly Sued By Fashion Nova For $350,000. Sources: The Rake, Los Angeles Times, Sunday Post, Irish Times. After the success of the Underworld franchise, Kate can be seen reprising her role as a vampire/demon slayer in the horror/action flick. [1] (Even though these dates have been recorded as the official period of employment, Noah Dietrich continued to oversee and make executive decisions for the Hughes industries as late as 1970.) His drug use escalated as he fought continuous pain, now injecting himself with morphine to supplement his mega doses of codeine and valium. His achievements were astounding he created the fastest plane on the planet, was the driving force behind the largest aircraft ever built and was a pioneer in film making and yet he is remembered for the eccentricities that drove him from hero to hermit. But, he said, he unearthed several witnesses, including one who said he had seen Mr. Hughes in the desert visiting a brothel at the same time that Mr. Dummar was driving through. ", Thomson added: "Hughes did what every shy, lonely moviegoer dreams of doing. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was born in Houston, Texas, on December 24, 1905. The revelation catapulted Mr. Dummar, at that point the owner of a gas station in Willard, Utah, to the center of a media circus. Andrew Carnegie's steel company earned him about $298.3 billion. A pretrial agreement meant that Hughes' 16 cousins were given 71.5% of the estate. Sources: ABC13, Los Angeles Times, New Republic. American business executive and associate of Howard R. Hughes, "Noah Dietrich, The Chief Aide To Howard Hughes, Is Dead", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noah_Dietrich&oldid=1142396686, Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 04:37. One day, Hughes, in an effort to control every minute aspect of an aerial shoot, went up in a small scout plane. In this Biographics, we enter the strange world of the original eccentric billionaire, Howard Hughes. United Artists/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty Images. The body of billionaire Howard Hughes is wheeled out of the pathology department of Methodist Hospital where an autopsy disclosed kidney failure as the cause of death. By 1889, Mellon had expanded to shipbuilding, construction, steel and oil. The encounter might have been forgotten except for what happened nine years later, when Mr. Hughes, one of the richest men in the world, died. At 11, he built the first wireless radio in Houston. It was around this time that Hughes began to exhibit patterns of behavior that seemed odd to onlookers. He told the newspapers it was his first accident since he'd begun driving at 12 and he had never even hit a cat or dog. WebSo said Howard Hughes in the bio When I grow up, Im gonna make the biggest movies, fly the fastest planes ever built, and be the richest man in the world. We have included this quote because it shows a typical side of Howard Hughes. He was controversial and over the top, and that's what made him so attractive and magnetic too so many people in Los Angeles and the world. Every man has his price, or a guy like me couldn't exist. His investments included a local TV station, bought so that he could call them at any time and demand that they play the movies he wanted to watch. Compiled by Forbes magazine, this a list of the wealthiest people ever (EVAR!). Howard Hughes is shown here as he was booked on a suspicion of negligent homicide by Det. Hugh Jackman, Richard Roxburgh, and Robbie Coltrane. [3]:33,76, When still in his early twenties, Hughes told Dietrich, "My first objective is to become the world's number one golfer. Three views of American industrialist, aviator, and film producer Howard Hughes as he speaks with journalists during a Senate hearing to determine whether Hughes misused funds from a government defense contract in August 1947.Hulton Archive/Getty Images. John Springer Collection/Corbis/Getty Images. It is ironic that Irving may be more convincing as a forger than as an author in his own right just as Elmyr de Hory, Irving's Ibiza friend and the main character in his book Fake!, is much better at doing Picassos and Modiglianis than he is at doing De Horys." The Washington Post reports that no fewer than 600 people suddenly came out of the woodwork upon Hughes' death. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Those passions had nothing to with oil instead they revolved around building and flying airplanes and making movies in Hollywood. adventure/action but backtracked due to box office failure. In his heyday, he was a romantic figure, with movie starlets flocking to be seen on his arm, and yet he spent the last 26 years of his life as a recluse, obsessed with cleanliness and controlling every aspect of his environment even as he sunk deeper and deeper into madness. Howard Hughes was an aviator and film director who inherited his family's successful oil tool business and began investing in films. 5. franchise, Kate can be seen reprising her role as a vampire/demon slayer in the horror/action flick. In 1928, he earned his pilot's license. I don't understand him at all. Watson didn't clarify who the photo was for or why they wanted it. #17, Sam Walton - $128 billion. He was shunned and had a hard time finding work. Hughes also sought Dietrich's interest in their oil partnerships. One was romantic, while later records have shown a darker side to it. Both of Hughes' parents died within two years of each other, and at 19, he inherited his father's company and 75% of his fortune. His flights weren't always smooth. After passing away in January 2021, he was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. In 1946, while testing one of his planes, he crash landed into three houses in Beverly Hills. Mourners gather for graveside services for recluse billionaire Howard Hughes. In 1982, the two states brought a case again, which was rejected by the Supreme Court and sent to federal district court instead. Over those four months at the studio his personal hygiene rapidly deteriorated, even as his germ obsession intensified. Copyright 2023. Per ABC 13, immediately after Hughes' death was announced in 1976, the press flocked to Houston, Texas. The Madness & Brilliance of Howard Hughes, The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run Clevelands Torso Murderer, Gavrilo Princip: the Teenager who Started WWI, Oda Nobunaga The Great Unifier of Japan, Genghis Kahn Biography: His Life, Legacy and Legend, Mr. Fred Rogers Biography: Welcome to His Neighborhood, Nikola Tesla Biography: Inventor Ahead of His Time, The Worlds Longest Reigning Monarch Queen Elizabeth II Biography, George S Patton Americas Blitzkrieg General. [3]:2324, Dietrich was hired as an executive assistant to explain the production and financial reports issued by Hughes' tool company, eventually becoming Hughes' personal delegate. His head was badly banged around in all of these, and I think his mental condition can be directly attributed to those crashes. The judge dismissed her, as well as numerous other women who insisted they had married Hughes at one point, even though none had identification to back up such a claim. [3]:9099, Dietrich guided the expansion of Hughes empire by using Hughes Tool Co. profits to purchase real estate, thus avoiding penalties for excess accumulated surplus. The Hughes were wealthy after Howard Sr. invented a popular drill bit that could grind through granite so oilers could access Texan oil, which he licensed out. Then, out of the blue, Hughes declared that he was going to marry one of the many starlets he had been seeing, Jean Peters. But he also was in three plane crashes, killed a pedestrian while drunk driving, and later became a recluse. Hughes Aircraft was an avocation for him, and outlet for his tendency to tinker. Dietrich returned from Africa, he wrote, and finally agreed to go to Texas to implement the plan on condition that Hughes finally implement the capital gains agreement. According to The New York Times, the loan played a role in Nixon's loss to John F. Kennedy. Finally, out of exasperation, he set his sights on designing a better drill bit. In 1937, Time magazine named Osman Ali the richest man in the world. All he ever really wanted in life was more. ( Even though these dates have been recorded as the official period of employment, Noah Dietrich continued to oversee and make executive decisions for the Hughes Big breasts, brunette, high drama, she wrote, describing the women that Hughes tended to pursue. By Steve T on October 10, 2017 Business, Celebrity. It was a foggy night, and he claimed he swerved to avoid an oncoming car. He died of cancer on Sunday at 74 in Pahrump, Nev. By the time the Hughes inheritance was settled by a probate court jury in Texas in 1981, more than 600 people had made claims to the fortune, and 40 wills, all supposedly written by Mr. Hughes, had been produced and rejected. WebHoward Hughes was American business magnate, industrialist, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, hotelier, philanthropist, and was one of the wealthiest people in the Dietrich and Phelan eventually settled for $40,000 after Dietrich became dissatisfied with Phelan's work. As a germ-aphobe and recluse, Hughes had spent the last 20 years of his life living in seclusion, in hotel penthouses around the world. WebLAS VEGAS, NOVEMBER 1970-In a darkened suite on the top floor of the Desert Inn, ailing billionaire Howard Hughes, the richest man in the world at the time, hands his final testament to twenty-year-old Chase Wheeler. According to EW, the war epic based on actual events from World War II debuted in the top 2 on the 2001 Memorial day weekend, racking in $75.1 million. Howard Hughes was not the only mogul in Hollywood who profited off treating actresses as sex goddess flavors of the month, Longworth wrote. "I didn't want her to continue believing that I was running the Hughes empire while I kept her nephew in the Deep-freeze." His mental state deteriorated. Not surprisingly, he soon gained a reputation as a sissy. Within a few months, having amassed a small fortune, Bo moved to Houston, where he founded the Texas Oil Fuel Company, the forerunner to Texaco. Geoff Schumacher, the author of Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue (2008), said in a phone interview that there had been no logical reason for Mr. Hughes to be in the desert without his usual coterie of aides, and that the handwriting on the will was not even close to Mr. Hughess. Sixteen hours and thirty-eight minutes later they landed in Paris, then onto Moscow and Siberia. From his mother, he developed an aversion to germs. On July 7th 1946, Hughes took the XF-11 for its first test flight over the Los Angeles basin. He ended up selling his portion of TWA in 1966 for $546.5 million and sold Hughes Tool in 1972. The plane went down into the frigid waters, killing a CAA inspector and an engineer who were also onboard. Hughes, senior reluctantly joined his son for the ten-minute flight. The court saw through the forgery and rejected Dummar's claim. A small group of reporters was able to view Hughes's body, but he was almost unrecognizable to them, since he had been out of the public eye for so long. Although almost all of the individuals in Howard Hughes inner circle never ")[3]:1519,293294, Hughes didn't let him go without a fight. An air-fleet was contracted that was bigger than that of some countries. He was not one of triplets, nor was he his mothers sisters illegitimate son or a substitute baby brought in to replace the one who had died. American billionaire aviator, engineer, industrialist, and film producer. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. Tom Sketchley, following a traffic accident in which Gabe S. Meyer, a pedestrian, was allegedly struck and killed by Hughes' automobile. According to. At the same time, he learned how to fly. Leaving behind $500 million, plus properties, is no small sum, and Hughes had plenty of people to divide it between. Based on Howard Huges: The Secret Life, the film was directed by legendary Martin Scorsese and starred Academy Award winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett. During aerial filming sequences Howards obsessive compulsions led him to fixate on such things as cloud formations. Howard Hughes in the cockpit of an airplane in a leather flight helmet and goggles in 1935. And Oprah? Given all those other claims and all those other wills, Mr. Dummar might have barely registered as a footnote in the biography of the eccentric Mr. Hughes, an aviation pioneer, movie producer, romancer of leading ladies and reclusive germophobe. According to Vox, the basic plot of the vampire vs. werewolf universe is inspired by another classic, The Matrix. One day, while playing at the Beverly Hills Country Club, he watched as a biplane flew overhead and tipped its wing at him. Hughes was a millionaire at 18. Then Dietrich, along with his family now consisting of his wife and two daughters, decided to move back to Los Angeles, where he worked for the CPA firm of Haskins and Sells. Howard Hughes, record-smashing world flyer, as he appeared at the age of 21. . In a commanding performance, with the TV cameras rolling, he strongly denied profiteering from the war effort. At the same juncture, Hughes, Dietrich recalled, also did everything in his power to stop Dietrich's long-planned African safari with his two sons, the first long vacation Dietrich had taken in decades of working for Hughes. Directed by Frank Coraci, the comedy starring Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken and Kate became a sleeper success at the global box office in 2006. In a modified Lockheed 14, he took to the skies with a hand-picked crew and set off from New York. Howard Hughes is shown here seated alone in the normally jam-packed Senate caucus room. According to Movie Web, Universal Pictures had long-term plans of creating an epic franchise with this Bram Stokers Dracula-inspired adventure/action but backtracked due to box office failure. The film collected an estimated $214 million at the global box office. Howard Hughes used to be one of the richest men in the world. Hughes was almost never seen publicly for decades, even after the billionaire bought RKO Studios in the late 1930s. (Dietrich quoted Hughes as saying, "Noah, I can't exist without you! His father, Arnold, was a miner and worked in construction; his mother, Chloe (Winder) Dummar, was a homemaker. October 8, 2022 Hughes created a massive fortune that is equivalent to $6.74 billion in todays dollars, making him "[3]:11. Ostensibly, the probe involved Hughes' failure to deliver the infamous flying boat, the Hercules, a military transport aircraft, to the government on time. But three weeks later he turned up in the Bahamas. If millions had to be raised overnight, 'Noah can do it.' He dropped out of college to take control of the company, quickly discovering that he knew nothing about the oil business. The movies came first. Against everyones advice Hughes decided to rescript the movie and reshoot all of the dialogue scenes, this time adding sound. An explosion occurs below an airplane on the set of Hell's Angels, directed and produced by Howard Hughes. Before long, Hughes owned an international and two regional airlines, a major motion picture studio, mining properties, a tool company, gambling casinos in Las Mr. Magnesen, a retired F.B.I. Official records give that date as December 24, 1905 in Houston, Texas. It is now counted among the top-three highest-grossing live-action features by the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. Hells Angels was a box office smash, returning double its production cost of $4 million, which was an exorbitant amount at that time. In his life, Howard Hughes broke aviation records, produced several iconic films, and dated Hollywood stars. I certainly would not ask somebody else to fly a plane if I were afraid to do it In order to break into the business, he signed talented director Lewis Milestone to a 3-year contract. After Rice divorced him in 1929, he dated a number of movie stars, including Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner. It is ironic that this congressional appearance his most confident, strong and dominant public outing was also the last time that the public would see Howard Hughes. The fifty-year old Hughes was now intent on completely retreating from society. Scott G. Winterton/Deseret Morning News, via Associated Press. He put together his first wireless radio transmitter when he was 11-years old. He didnt leave the darkened screening room for more than four months His diet consisted of chocolate bars and milk, and he spent his days and nights sitting naked in a chair staring at the screen. After parting ways with Hughes, Dietrich, as a well-respected financial and executive advisor, served on several corporate and financial boards as well as traveled to many speaking engagements. Hereditary deafness made socializing difficult for him, and he had a growing paranoia that germs were going to kill him. , the films biopic plot revolves around the remarkable tycoon Howard Hughes and is set in the 1920s. [3]:13 Others such as the time Dietrich arranged the shipment of Hughes' large private liquor stock from his Texas home to his California home during Prohibition put him at serious risk. But he started life in a corner of the Austrian Empire Early. He was one of them. Some reports said he let his toenails grow so long he was unable to walk. WebHoward Hughes was the richest person in the world from 1960 to until his death in 1976. You always hear about how rich Bill Gates is, how rich Oprah is, how rich J.K. Rowling is. More than 1,000 people eventually claimed a small percentage of the Hughes fortune, and as his assets were sold off, the recipients split $1.5 billion. Noah was getting tired of doing it. He used a familiar formula for success for his movies sex. Second, the top aviator, and third I want to become the world's most famous motion picture producer. 7. Those relatives stood to inherit the Hughes fortune, estimated at more than $2 billion (about $9 billion today), if they could prove that the will brought forth by Mr. Dummar was fraudulent. Chris Roberts had never met Howard Hughes, but she joked that she was going to use the money she inherited from him to purchase the ice skating rink she worked at and burn it to the ground. Other notables to make the list include: During the ride, he said, the man told him he was Howard Hughes. There he passed the California Board of Accountancy exam in 1923. The 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop, near Mike Watson, described as an industrialist-publicist, is offering a $5,000 reward for any photograph of billionaire Howard Hughes made after August 1, 1968. The manuscript of his eventual memoir, Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, may have been a key, if inadvertent, source of novelist Clifford Irving's infamous fake autobiography of Hughes. But it took decades before it was all wrapped up. These traits were to find full expression in her only son. A cult classic, the action/horror film franchise earned $553 million at the global box office. Donald Nixon, nephew of former US President Richard Nixon, speaks to the media on July 5, 1995. READ NEXT:The 10 Highest-Grossing Lana Del Rey Songs, Ranked, Sources: Vox, EW, Movie Web, Mental Floss. If I have made a mistake in the design, then I'm the one who should pay for it. By 1938, Hughes was intent on achieving another world first the fastest flight around the world. Here's Who Inherited Howard Hughes' Fortune After His Death. Watch for more on my trip to the home of the Headless Horseman in a few weeks! The film grossed an estimated $96.3 million at the global box office. At the same time, he was building a huge aerospace company to develop spy technology for the military. Howard Hughes standing in front of a plane wearing aviator goggles. That's because he lived more than 2000 years ago. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for The Aviator (DVD, 2005, 2-Disc Set, Widescreen) at the best online prices at eBay! The Hughes Tool Company has grown from this 1909 building to a billion dollar business with factory facilities spread over a 90-acre area, all owned by Howard Hughes Jr. The encounter might have been forgotten except for what happened nine years later, when Mr. Hughes, one of the richest men in the world, died. #83, Queen Elizabeth II " $43.4 billion. By the age of four, it was obvious that Sonny Hughes had inherited the partial deafness that ran in the family. But the crashes didn't stop him, and with all of the press around his record-breaking flights, his popularity soared. 2. In her memoir, "Ava: My Story," Gardner wrote that Hughes "was enthusiastic about only four things: money, movies, aircraft, and beautiful young women with beautiful breasts. Another project of his was "The Spruce Goose," a H-4 Hercules built out of wood that was designed to carry troops across the Atlantic Ocean. Like the others before her, the judge threw wacky claim after wacky claim out of court. Henry Ford, $188.1 billion, a fortune was amassed thanks to Ford Motor Company, of course.