Howard Hughes - Mental and physical illness

By the late 1950s Hughes had developed debilitating symptoms of social avoidance behavior and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which manifested itself in various ways. His mother may have suffered from OCD, and coddled and spoiled her only child. It was Hughes' mother who first provided her young son with a means of escaping social situations and pressures by using the excuse of illness. As a young boy, when Howard wanted to attend summer camp (during a time when the public feared the spread of polio), his parents wanted assurances that their son was protected. When this assurance was not forthcoming, his mother decided it was better to keep him home. Subsequently after attending camp one summer, Hughes avoided another year at camp by complaining about headaches and bad dreams when he returned home. Later, on the verge of adolescence, young Howard became ill and was kept out of school for most of the year. He developed a form of paralysis that was never diagnosed and which disappeared after several months. ^[17]

In the 1930s, close friends reported he was obsessed with the size of peas, one of his favorite foods, and used a special fork to sort them by size before he ate. While producing The Outlaw, Hughes became obsessed by a minor flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each of Russell's breasts. He was reportedly so concerned by the matter as to write a detailed memorandum to the film crew on how to fix the problem.

Richard Fleischer, who directed His Kind of Woman with Hughes as executive producer, wrote at length in his autobiography about the difficulty of dealing with the famed tycoon. In this book, Just Tell Me When to Cry, published in 1993, Fleischer explained that Hughes was fixated on trivial details and was alternately indecisive and obstinate. He went on to say that Hughes' unpredictable mood swings made him wonder at times if the film would ever be completed.

As an adult—at one time one of the most visible men in America—Hughes ultimately vanished from public view altogether, although the tabloids continued to follow rumors regarding his behavior and whereabouts. At various times, the media reported him to be terminally ill, mentally unstable, or possibly dead. Hughes eventually became a complete recluse, locking himself in darkened rooms in a medication-induced daze. Though he always kept a barber on call, Hughes only had his hair cut and nails trimmed about once a year. Several doctors were kept in the house on a substantial salary, but Hughes rarely saw them and usually refused to follow their advice. Toward the end of his life, his inner circle was largely composed of Mormons because he considered them trustworthy even though Hughes himself was not a member of their church.

Hughes equipped this 1954 Chrysler New Yorker with an aircraft-grade air filtration system which took up the entire trunk

Hughes by this time had become severely addicted to codeine, valium, and a number of other prescription drugs and was becoming increasingly frail. He insisted on using tissues to pick up objects, so that he could insulate himself from germs. It has also been said that he watched the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra some 150 times. ^[18]

In a bout of obsession with his home state of Texas, Hughes began purchasing all restaurant chains and four star hotels that had been founded within Texan borders. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. Ownership of the restaurants was placed in the hands of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and all licenses were re-sold shortly after.

Hughes may have contracted syphilis as a young man, and some biographers believe that much of the strange behavior at the end of his life, for example his well-documented aversion to handshaking, may be attributed to the tertiary stage of that disease. The condition is thought to have first manifested itself in the form of tiny blisters that erupted on his hands. After receiving medical treatment for his symptoms, Hughes is said to have been warned by his doctor not to shake hands for some time and avoided doing so for the rest of his life. Syphilis has also been blamed by some biographers for a bizarre episode in which Hughes burned all his clothes