WEBVTT - Howard Hughes in Las Vegas 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.480 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.800 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.439 should know. Root and Toot and wild West Mobbed Up 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:21.520 Vegas Spectacular. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.040 That's right. Before we get going, though, we want to 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.920 very quickly just say our friends Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.640 who we talk about a lot, genuine friends of ours 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:37.319 of the Greatest Generation podcast. They have done a very 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.400 brave thing and got out on their own. Yeah, and 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.040 left the Max Fun Network, which is always kind of 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.840 a scary thing, and they are they're looking for people 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.519 to support them there. They're loyal fans to support them 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.320 with a mirror at entry level six dollars a month 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.160 for an ad free version of not only The Greatest Generation, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.160 but my favorite two podcasts that they do, the Factory 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.200 Seconds podcast where they one by one eat their way 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.480 through the cheesecake Factory menu, and the Santa Monica Mountains 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:09.759 podcast their rewatch of Baywatch. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.280 That's just those guys are just a delight as people, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.679 as podcasters all of that. So where would they go? 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.640 Where would somebody go and be like, take my six 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:21.800 dollars and then some. 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.880 They are going. Adam is sending everyone to Greatest dot 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:30.199 supercast dot com, and you know, support these guys, support 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.320 independent artists. It's like I said, it's a very sort 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:34.920 of brave thing to do to go out on your 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.240 own these days and try and be an indie artist 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.520 in any creative realm. So we love Ben, we love Adam. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.600 I love those podcasts, and so I signed up obviously 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:47.680 because I still got to get my I'm eventually going 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:49.680 to be a guest on Factory seconds to keep promising 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.120 me nice. I'm a bit of a heel so far, 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.160 because at one point I said that the Cheesecake Factory 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.080 just I assume they did like bagged food like every 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.240 other big cheer like that, And I was wrong, and 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.400 they have not stopped making fun of me since then. 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:04.840 About that? 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.200 Is it from scratch there? Oh? Wayay? 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.840 They cook all that stuff, even like their sauces. 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.440 Dude, Wow, No, I had no idea. I'll have to 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:18.640 send them that gift certificate we got for Jerry for 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.600 She's Cake Factory that she was like, I don't want this. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.000 She wouldn't take it. So we're gonna have to give 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.239 it to them. They'll put it to kids use, all right. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.160 So thanks for letting shout out these guys, and now 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.800 onto Howard Hughes in Las Vegas. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.320 Yeah. Well, also huge thanks to our sponsor of the episode, 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:37.440 Cheese Cake Factory. 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.280 No, man, that'd be great. I don't see why they 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.040 don't sponsor Ben and Adam because almost everything they rate 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:42.680 pretty highly. 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.919 That's a great idea, get to it. Cheese Cake Factory, agreed. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.040 You know who I would have guessed could probably make 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.960 that happen, but it turns out it was a toss 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.920 up whether they'd be able to or not. Howard Hughes. 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.480 Yeah, you've commissioned this one, and I'm really glad you did, 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.680 because I don't know if you've seen the movie The 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.239 Aviator from Martin Scorsees. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:07.280 About me. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:08.280 I have not known. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.560 Yeah, it's it's you know, it's a great movie. Obviously 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.600 it's scarsezy. But they cover a bit of Howard Hughes's 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.079 stint in Vegas, probably about ten or fifteen minutes of 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.359 the movie there with with Leo obviously playing Howard Hughes 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.320 hold up in his hotel room. And when I say 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:29.760 hold up, I mean hold up. 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.440 Yeah, naked is a j bird, naked is a jake. 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.200 You get to see Leo's but you know. 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.400 Well, he does a helicopter at one point, I hear, 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:43.200 oh god, no. The scene inside of Howard Hughes's real 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.760 life hotel room in Las Vegas was the opposite of 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.920 the kind of place where you'd see a helicopter. It 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:54.000 was not at all celebratory or funny or childish or juvenile. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.800 It was a dark, dark place and basically every sense 0:03:57.840 --> 0:03:58.640 of the word dark. 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.720 Yeah, for sure, we should probably do a little bit 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.760 of background on Hughes himself. He was born in Houston. 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.400 He's a Houston guy in nineteen oh five, and he 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.600 came from an oil family, but not like a Getty 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.080 oil family. His dad had co patented a drill bit, 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.520 and sometimes you can make a huge fortune just by 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.960 doing something like that. But that revolutionized oil drilling, and 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.280 he made a ton of money doing it. And by 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.320 the time Hughes was eighteen his parents had passed. He 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.839 inherited that vast fortune and business and dropped out of college, 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.840 bought out his family members and said this is my 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:37.560 company now. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.840 Yeah, And he was really interested in two things. He 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.760 wanted to make movies and he wanted to build airplanes. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.520 and he did both. He founded Hughes Aircraft Company, and 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.240 then he also bought a bunch of shares in Transworld 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.080 Airlines so that he controlled that company. And he bought 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.800 controlling shares in RKO Studio, so he started producing movies, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.240 he started building airplanes, and he very quickly became one 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.360 of the most famous people in the United States, if 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.120 not the world, because he was dashing, He had a 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.320 great mustache. I believe he was six foot four. He 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.240 knew how to attract like Starlit's in Hollywood. He went 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.240 to all the right events. He was like a proto 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:23.000 Tom Ford. 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:25.080 Yeah, for sure. 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.360 He very famously dated both Catherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.600 He was his own test pilot and you know which 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.120 meant at some point he crashed and he was very 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.280 badly injured and lived a lot of his life in 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.120 chronic pain due to a lot of things, but for 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.800 sure the second third degree burns that were over most 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.920 of his body. And like you said, America loved him. 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:50.400 He was sort of a national hero. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:52.080 But he was in. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:57.279 Pretty bad shape, partially because of the plane crash, for sure, 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.320 because that led to a a morphine and opioid addiction, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.839 which was really put him put him down for the count. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:07.719 Did you ever see Dope Sick? 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:10.200 Did I see Dope Sick? 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:10.320 No? 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:11.280 I never saw that. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:12.880 That's the one with Michael Keaton. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.359 Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I never saw that. 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.600 Hurd scre so good, Chuck, go back and watch it 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.520 is so good. Yeah, But that seems to be like generally, 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:26.960 how opioid addictions outside of adolescence develop, Like somebody injures himself. 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.440 They're like, here, take these for the pain, and then 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.800 all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to keep 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.760 taking these. Yeah, And that's exactly what happened to him 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.560 as well. By the middle of the nineteen fifties, he 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.520 was completely addicted to opioid It's like totally dependent on them, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.680 and it had such an impact on his life that 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.840 he stopped going out in public. By nineteen sixty one, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:54.680 that's the last time the public saw Howard Hughes. And 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.560 he actually began to decline so much that he lost 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.839 about four inches of his stature and started just dropping 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:09.560 weight by the tens of pounds, and mentally he really 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.320 started to decline as well. It wasn't just his opioid 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.840 addiction to morphine. He was set up to have serious 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.040 mental illnesses from the outset, as we'll see, and they 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.440 were exacerbated by the fact that he was gobsmackingly rich, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.480 did not have to worry about anyone saying no to 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.280 him for any reason, was beloved by the public. Like 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.680 all of the risk factors that could make somebody just 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:42.840 completely twisted, like he had all of those just coming together. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:47.040 Yeah, for sure. You know, the germophobia is something we're 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:48.720 going to talk a lot about, but that was a 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.200 big part of what kind of crippled him. It wasn't 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.560 the kind of germophobia where he was worried about cleaning 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.760 himself because as we will see, when he was in Vegas, 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.360 he would bathe once a year, and you know, grew 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:06.200 his fingernails very famously out. Not grew them out, but 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.600 they grew out. It wasn't something he was working on, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.280 but he just quit taking care of himself and all 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.440 hygiene went out the window. But he was afraid of 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.880 everything else getting him sick. He was afraid of the 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:21.320 water being dirty. He drank only bottled water. I mean, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.920 we'll get through sort of the nitpicky details as we go, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.880 But like you said, public eye drops out in sixty one, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:31.720 moves to Vegas, well, didn't move. Initially went to Vegas 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.440 in nineteen sixty six, and not because he had any 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.800 interest in casinos or anything. He went because, you know, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.959 he heard about it being a great tax shelter and 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.040 he had sold a ton of stock I guess all 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.480 of his stock in twa that year and had a 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.320 big tax bill. So he'd been sort of eyeing Vegas 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.400 for a while. It had been investing in the state 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.400 throughout the forties and the fifties. I think he did 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.480 a land swap with a Bureau of Land Management which 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.560 got him about forty square miles which was the most 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.200 land that anybody had at the time in Clark County, 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:08.520 and didn't do anything with it for a while. It 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.800 was supposed to be the future home of Hughes Aircraft, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.160 but nobody was you know, Vegas at the time. Was 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.480 this you know, out in the middle of nowhere, mob 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.560 run town that respectable business didn't want anything to do with. 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.000 So he couldn't get anyone as far as the higher 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.160 ups and the engineers to leave California from Hughes aircraft. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.360 Yeah, like you the person, like the tourists going out 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.840 to Vegas at the time were probably not in danger 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.400 and you probably be treated well out there. But it 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.000 was a really exotic, risky place, like in the mind 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:44.480 of the American public because it was so thoroughly mopped up, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.480 it just was not a place that people go. And 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.679 those of us around today, it's hard to conceive of 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:57.560 Vegas being like the opposite of a tourist place, like 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.640 it's yeah, you're just a very specif a kind of 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.600 person would go to Vegas, and most people would avoid 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:04.600 it entirely. 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:06.760 Yeah, I mean that was it was sin city back then, 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.000 and now it's sin City with achine over it. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.560 For sure. A sheene of jell O so. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.600 Hughes arrives in Vegas, like I hinted at earlier, he 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.080 did not go there to move. Initially, he went there 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:22.200 for was supposed to be like a ten day stay, 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.480 I think, to kind of check things out. And once 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.000 he got there, he didn't leave. He arrived by private train, 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:31.240 was very secretly shuttled to the ninth floor, which is 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.920 the top floor of the uh oh, what was. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:35.920 The name of it again, the Desert Sands. 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.640 Yeah, the Desert in yeah, the Desert Inn hotel and casino, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.360 and just decided to stay stay there forever. 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.000 Basically he did like like I mean, he had the 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.080 whole ninth floor to himself, right, Yeah, and again, he 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.079 hadn't been seen in public in five years. He was 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:58.360 he was declining terribly, And this is where it seems 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.960 to have just become full blown because he took the 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:07.599 spot and made it a just a warren or a 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.360 little cubby hole for him and all of the mental 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.360 illness that he was suffering. So if you know about 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.880 Howard Hughes and you know about his mental illness, this 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.040 is where all of the legends, some of which seemed 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.640 to be totally true, all came from. 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.319 Yeah, he you know, blacked out the windows with curtains, 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.280 apparently never once opened them at all. 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.120 Right, Yeah, there's a legend that the housekeepers when they 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:37.319 finally came in after he left, that they found the 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.720 drapes were rotted because they'd just been in the same 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:41.000 place the entire time. 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.080 Yeah, he didn't allow housekeeping in I think one time 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.480 while he was there for what ended up being what 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:52.240 like four years, he was suffering from anemia and malnutrition. 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:53.560 He was. 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.280 He was eating candy bars and sweets and canned like 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:02.720 really sweet canned fruit and drinking milk. He was fifty 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.319 nine years old at this time, and I think there 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.480 was that story about the ice cream that he ate 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.120 just like gobs and gobs of this specific flavor of 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:12.720 ice cream. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.600 Yeah, it's a really good example of how powerful and 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.040 rich he was, but also just how much he liked 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.600 ice cream. Right, it was banana. It was Baskin Robbins 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.600 banana ripple ice cream, right, and he was totally nuts 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.200 about it and loved it and would eat it. And 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.160 then Baskin Robbins, I guess didn't know this, and they 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.720 discontinued the banana ripple ice cream, and so Howard Hughes 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:41.360 had to start ordering it special order, I think, in 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.480 two hundred gallon increments, like Basket Robins like, sure, we'll 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:47.160 make you a special order, but you have to order 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:48.920 two hundred gallons of it at a time. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.040 Yeah, And so he said, fine, as we'll see when 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.200 you're like you said, The sort of combination of wealth 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.880 and this, you know, unfortunate mental illness meant that he 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.800 could kind of get anything done that he wanted, and 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:02.840 that was a recurring theme while he was in Vegas, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.440 and this was one of them. So he bought, you know, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.719 the two hundred gallons and very soon after apparently it 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.040 was like, you know what, I like French vanilla the most, 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.000 And so apparently the hotel was then stuck with that 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.000 two hundred gallons that they took about a year to 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.160 get rid of, which, by the way, it's way too 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:18.320 long to keep that ice cream in. 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.680 The preezer for sure. So yeah, that is a really 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:23.840 good example of that. So of course, like he like 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:30.680 you said, he's becoming malnourished, anemic. And he also was 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.160 like posthumously, basically everybody who knows the stories, like he 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.040 clearly had some form of OCD. Even if it wasn't 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:42.679 like that was the main you know, mental illness he had, 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.760 it was certainly a comorbidity, and that is evidenced by 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.920 the minute directions he instructed his staff to use to 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:58.080 do everyday things, like very famously he wrote twelve steps 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.560 to opening a can of and putting it in the 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:03.160 bowl that it would be served in. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.800 Yeah, for sure, he you know, like you have to 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.959 get the label off, you have to scrub the can 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.480 on the outside until it was down to the bar metal. 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.079 You had to then wash the can on the outside again, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.120 pour the contents into the bowl without touching the can 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:22.320 to the bowl. Apparently the secretaries who typed things up 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.000 had to use gloves just to type things that would 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.720 go to him. Tissues were a very big thing, the 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.080 amount of instruction on tissues and have this many tissues 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.800 to open this door, and have this many tissues to 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.080 handle this thing that you give to me. And in 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:40.440 the movie and the aviator, in that part, you know, 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:44.200 there's just tissue boxes everywhere. And of course we're going 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.840 to mention the Simpsons because mister Burns in the episode 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.400 where they lampooned this time where mister Burns was the 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:56.080 stand in for Howard Hughes also wore tissue boxes on 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.960 his feet. And there's a picture of the only picture 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:01.920 I know of of Howard Hughes in that hotel room. 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:03.640 There may be more than one, but the only one 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.720 I could find is a picture of long, gray bearded, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:11.080 gray haired, and fingernailed Howard Hughes sitting there with tissue 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:12.480 boxes on his feet for shoes. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.200 Really, I didn't know that that existed. Okay, well, that 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.640 confirms that that. Wow, that's great man that you found that, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:24.600 because that's a that was a semi confirmed legend from 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.680 what I could find, and the best explanation I could 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.080 find why you would wear Kleenex boxes on your feet 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.760 is that to him? Like you said, he used tons 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.240 of tissue because they were sterile, So of course the 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.000 boxes that the tissues came in would be sterile as well, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.080 So rather than walking around a bare feet or whatever, 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.200 he was basically using tissue boxes as disposable sterile slippers. 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.840 Yeah, and I just want a caveat that by saying 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:52.720 the picture looks real to me, so I hope it's 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.200 not one of those things where like, dude, you fell 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:56.680 for the Howard Hughes picture. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.360 That's a deep cut though. Man, if you're making deep 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.960 fakes today, you're probably not super familiar with Howard Hughes. 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.480 So to go back and make that is, I mean, 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:08.640 hats off to that guy. 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.840 Really, I mean, or maybe it's not Howard Hughes. Now 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.560 I'm like doubting myself. It looked like Howard Hughes, but. 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:15.880 It was Wayne Newton. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:17.160 All Right. 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.320 I feel like we should take a break and we're 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:21.360 gonna come back and talk a little bit about who 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.280 was there helping Howard Hughes on the ninth floor of 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:51.800 that hotel right after this, all right, we're back. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:53.480 I think we set the stage pretty well. 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.160 Of what's going on there on the ninth floor of 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.680 the hotel there in Las Vegas. But we need to 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.120 tell you how. You know, you need a lot of 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.440 help there to live this way, and he had all 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.520 the money in the world to do that. So he 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.879 had a right hand man named Robert Mayhew, who was 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.480 kind of did everything. He was a chief of security. 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:17.680 He represented him publicly for everything. Possibly may have stood 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.679 in for him on the telephone as Howard Hughes, and 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.679 he worked for him for about eight years, and this 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.840 is fairly shocking, but apparently never met him in person. 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.000 They spoke on the phone. I think they had memos exchanged. 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:34.359 I think they talked through the door even at some point, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.359 but they never met face to face. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.160 That was confirmed. Yeah, that's not like a legend. That's crazy. 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.119 I saw he worked for him for fifteen years, even potentially, 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.800 and he was one of his closest confidants. But since 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.000 Mayhew was running the show, he was actually following orders 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.800 from Howard Hughes. But he wasn't always getting them directly, 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.879 like by phone or like you said, through the door. 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.920 He would get them in notes or memos, which I 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.199 think you mentioned as well. But they were carried for 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.919 him by a group of six men known as the 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:12.080 Mormon Mafia, because five of the six were Mormon. Because 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.200 Howard Hughes is like, well, they're not allowed to drink, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.159 not allowed to smoke, or gamble or anything like that. 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:17.880 I'll just hire Mormon so I don't have to worry 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.959 about my closest employees being you know, suspect or untrustworthy. 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.760 Yeah, And I guess this before Elvis got there, because 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.159 I was wondering if the Memphis Mafia and the Mormon 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.960 Mafia ever rubbed elbows. But probably not, because it sounds 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.440 like the Mormon Mafia obviously would not have been anywhere 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.920 near the gaming tables or the bars. 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.960 Probably not. Although you know, no, that's. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.520 Why they hired him, you know, he wan he liked 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:44.480 his loyalties, right. 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.240 Yes, and like these were the people who interacted with 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.440 him physically personally with tissues on their like mods of 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.159 tissues of course, but they would inject him with his 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.160 morphine although he tended to do that more often himself. 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.760 They brought him the tissue that he would use, and 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:07.560 they helped him communicate with Mayhew, along with tons of 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.920 other stuff. But like these were the men who interacted 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.919 with them, and like you said, there was a he 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.840 had like kind of a strange version of OCD where 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.399 he was freaked out by other people's germs, was not 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.399 afraid of his own germs. And so I have the 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.320 impression that when these men would come in and say 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.000 they had to do something like his hearing aid out 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:34.280 of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, Howard Hughes would 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.240 not go into that bathroom for a while and would 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:38.639 end up just like peeing on the carpet and covering 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.560 it with tissues because again, nothing wrong with his germs, 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.639 but he couldn't bear to go into the bathroom for 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.679 a while after somebody had been in there. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:47.440 Yeah, he also. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.000 Saved his own urine and pede in bottles. I think 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.280 that one has been confirmed, at least confirmed enough for 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.359 Martin Scorsese to have Leo DiCaprio ping in bottles and 0:19:58.359 --> 0:19:58.880 saving his. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.200 Own urine, and confirm enough for Matt Greeny. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.040 Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mentioned that he could. He 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.639 had a reputation for sort of like, I'm surprised he 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.320 didn't buy Baskin Robbins when I wanted at ice cream, 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.280 But I guess he didn't need to since they made 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:15.959 it for him. But he had a habit of doing that. 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.080 One of great example is when he would just sit around, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.000 like he said, naked and watch television and watch movies. 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.640 And when he found out that there weren't like good 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.159 movies showing in Las Vegas on the local TV at 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:35.159 the time, he bought a local TV station and reportedly 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:39.840 like programmed the lineup himself. And there's one source that 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.240 even says, like, you know, if he missed the start 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.880 of the movie at least one time, he would call 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.080 down to the station and have them start it over 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:49.000 again so he could see the whole thing. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.720 Yeah, I mean that's what their purpose was. Essentially. It 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.280 just so happened that other people could watch the movies too, 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.760 you know, right. He was obsessed with movies, and he 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.000 would watch certain films, like he loved aeriel combat films. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.399 One of the films he producers, Hell's Angels, which is 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:08.479 about fire pilots. He also loved Ice Station Zebra. Have 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.359 you ever seen that movie? I've heard of it, but 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:11.200 I've never seen it. 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:13.960 No, Howard you saw it a lot though, right, one. 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.120 Hundred and fifty times they say, yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:19.520 it's about like the It's a Cold War movie where 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.000 the US and the Soviet Union have a confrontation at 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.600 the North Pole. So basically it's like, what's happening eventually 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.760 in the next ten to fifteen years. 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.560 What movie do you think you've seen the most? 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:39.720