howard hughes’ women--4/18/25

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Today's selection--from Confidential Confidential by Samantha Barbas. The scandalmongering magazine Confidential and the millionaire Howard Hughes’ 164 girlfriends:

“In April 1953 Confidential ran its first major article on a film personality—Howard Hughes, the eccentric aviation mogul, film producer, and owner of the RKO studio. 

“The article ‘Howard Hughes—Public Wolf #1’ described ‘the World's Richest Bachelor’ as an ‘unkempt, shy, and sick-looking man,’ so awkward that ‘he hires “yes-men” to find “yes-girls” for clandestine romance.’ ‘The girl won't have to worry about saying “Yes” or “No” to this famous gentleman for he has already dispatched a henchman to make sure her answer is “Yes,”’ Confidential wrote. Hughes allegedly had 164 girlfriends stashed in a ‘hidden harem’ in Hollywood and was ‘bust-happy.’ He demanded that his women be bosomy young brunettes; ‘any girl with a bust of less than 36 inches’ he considered flat-chested. 

“Confidential was spot on. Hughes did commission scores of women in Hollywood for sexual favors, most of them under contract to RKO. Just like he collected airplanes, Hughes obsessively collected women, stashing them in the more than one hundred apartments, hotel rooms, and houses he owned around Hollywood. 

Hughes with his Boeing 100 in the 1940s

“Confidential's story on Hughes was titillating, but it wasn't a blockbuster—Hughes was well known for his bizarre and reclusive tendencies. In 1947 he had spent over four months alone, naked and unbathed, in a darkened studio screening room, continuously watching movies. Hughes' passion for the female bosom was no secret. Hughes had directed the 1943 film The Outlaw, censored because of revealing shots of Jane Russell's enormous breasts. Hughes was outraged nonetheless. The day the magazine came out, Hughes's staffers were ordered to comb newsstands and buy up every copy they could find. Variety reported that no copies of Confidential were available on Southern California newsstands because Hughes had bought all of them.”

author:	Samantha Barbas
title:	Confidential Confidential: The Inside Story of Hollywood's Notorious Scandal Magazine
publisher:	Publisher Chicago Review Press
pages:	67-68