I Was Howard Hughes

by Steven Carter

  b) You have another call from Houston, Mr. Hughes. Your lawyers. Something about the fire.

  c) Vice President Nixon’s on the phone, Mr. Hughes. He sounds intoxicated and says he won’t stop calling unless you come speak to him.

  d) I’m very sorry to bother you again, Mr. Hughes and Miss. __________ Happy New Year to you both. Mr. Hughes, it’s Vice President Nixon again. He’s called three times since you talked to him. We don’t know what to do.

  e) Please excuse me again, Mr. Hughes, but one of your lawyers working on the TWA situation is on the phone from New York. Goodness, who works on New Year’s Eve? Anyway, he would like to speak to you.

  f) This is amazing. This is a New Year’s Eve for the books. But Mr. Hughes, Mr. Dietrich is on the telephone from Houston. Something else about this gosh darn fire.

  Alton Reece interview with Chanson O’Reilly at his daughter’s home in San Diego, California

  I meet Chanson O’Reilly at a tract house of the type being built nowadays that looks like it’s about half garage; his daughter Rella, a small, pretty woman with short red hair and freckles, answers the door. After we exchange greetings, she tells me she read Melville and the Whale and enjoyed it a great deal. I thank her. She leads me down a hallway to a closed door, and, with her hand on the doorknob, whispers an apology about her father’s bedroom being so warm — he has poor circulation. We enter. Chanson O’Reilly sits in a brown vinyl recliner beside a four-poster bed, a patterned afghan over his legs. The folding television tray next to his chair is crowded with pill bottles, a box of tissues, a can of Ensure with a fiexible straw sticking up out of it. I sit down in a straightback chair at the foot of the recliner. Rella asks if I’d like anything to drink and I say some water would be nice, then she asks if it’s all right if she sits in on the interview and I say certainly. After she leaves to get my water a boy of five or six wearing a Michael Jordan jersey enters and runs up to the recliner, leans against the armrest and stares shyly at me.

  CO: This is my grandson Neil.

  AR: Hello there, Neil.

  (He looks at the floor.)

  CO: How old are your children, Mr. Reece?

  (Before I can answer Rella enters and hands me a glass of sparkling water with a lime wedge, then sits down on the edge of the bed. I take a sip, then set the glass at my feet.)

  AR: Actually, Mr. O’Reilly, my wife and I are waiting to start a family.

  RELLA: A lot of people do that nowadays.

  CO: No, family isn’t as important to people as it used to be.

  (He shakes his head.) All these women having babies without getting married.

  RELLA: (Smiling stiffly.) Dad, please.

  AR: Do you think things have changed for the worse, Mr. O’Reilly?

  CO: Yep.

  AR: I do, too, mostly because we don’t have heroes anymore who’re worth a dime. We’re just a peacock culture— whoever’s flashiest or loudest gets the attention. Just look at sports, if you don’t believe me. There’s no one today even close to being the kind of hero Howard Hughes was.

  CO: (He scoffs.) Howard Hughes wasn’t a hero.

  (There’s a short silence. Rella smiles at me apologetically.)

  NEIL: Michael Jordan’s good.

  RELLA: Of course he is, honey.

  CO: (Reaching over to pat Rella’s knee.) You know, why don’t you and Neil let us talk by ourselves?

  RELLA: Well, all right, I guess, if that’s what you want. (She stands up.) Come on, Neil. (Smiling.) Mr. Reece, I’ll see you before you leave.

  AR: Certainly. (They leave the room and she shuts the door behind them.) Well, okay, Mr. O’Reilly, the first thing I wanted to ask you about were the New Year’s Eve plans Hughes made in 1956, the ones involving having dinner with three women at the same time.

  (He nods, reaches for a tissue and wipes some saliva from the corner of his mouth, then picks up the remote, turns on the television sitting behind me, and switches channels until he finds The Price Is Right.,)

  CO: I like having this on.

  AR: (I hide my irritation by smiling.) Fine with me. So, could you tell me what happened that night?

  CO: (Gazing past me at the screen.) Nothing unusual. He just treated some women like hell.

  AR: Do you remember any of the specifics?

  CO: Son of a bitch would call me at home in the middle of the night every time he had some new idea about planning it— I sure remember that. (He gives a disgusted wave.) He had diagrams, timetables, men with walkie-talkies— goddamned place looked like the goddamned president was visiting.

  AR: I know things didn’t work out as planned.

  CO: (Nodding.) He blamed me.

  AR: So what happened?

  CO: He made one round of the women okay, but by the second time he left Miss Peters she was looking around, fidgeting— she knew something was wrong. She got up to look for him and I tried to stop her, but she found him with Miss Hayward in the Polo Lounge. (He smiles.) They both walked out on him.

  AR: And the other woman? Yvonne Schubert?

  CO: That’s where he spent the night, the son of a bitch.

  (Outside in the street, an ice-cream truck playing a loud, tinny version of “La Cucaracha” stops; I hear it first, then see it through the window.)

  CO: You know, she was eighteen and he was fifty-two, for chrissakes. (He leans forward in the chair and shakily props himself with one hand on the armrest. He points a finger at me.) I want you to have a clear picture of this son of a bitch. He always had a lot of women, not just this one night. There were whores, coeds, actresses, dancers, clerks, nurses, one right after the other. He was like a rat on a goddamned wheel.

  AR: (Smiling, trying to lighten the mood.) I guess if you’ve got to be a rat, that’s not a bad wheel to be stuck on.

  CO: But some of them weren’t adults! (He makes a fist and bangs it down on the recliner’s armrest.) Some of them were just girls! You … he … (He’s too angry for words; his face is florid.) Did you know … (He sputters.) These women, their apartments were bugged. Their telephones were tapped. We watched them constantly. (He taps a finger violently against his sunken chest.) I arranged it. It was my job. I was making three times what I could’ve … (He pauses, and when he speaks again his voice is low.) I wanted to be a police officer, but that’s what I did instead. (He stares blankly at his feet at the end of the footrest. Then, sounding faraway and distracted.) I drilled a peephole into Miss Schubert’s bedroom.

  AR: That night at the hotel?

  CO: No, no, at her apartment. Hughes had me do it. He wanted to make sure no other man was ever in there except him. But my men started watching her and Hughes have at it. I ended up with five or six in there watching. (He looks at me with a helpless expression.) I couldn’t fire them. They had families.

  AR: That’s a difficult situation. (I pause.) Mr. O’Reilly, would you excuse me a moment? I need to stop for a moment. I’m going to step out into the hallway here, if that’s okay.

  Alton Reece cell phone call to Tom Lourdes, during a break in interview with Chanson O’Reilly:

  AR: Tom, hi, Alton Reece. Hey, I came across some things about Jean Peters in your notes that I wanted to ask you about. You had some comments about Hughes’s New Year’s Eve dinner plans in 1956, when he tried to have dinner with three women at once and Jean Peters was one of them. The word begging was next to Jean Peters’s name …

  TL: (After a pause.) Benny.

  AR: Who’s Benny?

  TL: A waiter at the hotel.

  AR: A source?

  TL: Yes. He said Jean Peters was crying. He said she stood at his table and cried and then she said one word, why, and nothing else. The other actress slapped him.

  AR: That’d be Susan Hayward. (I wait, but he doesn’t respond. Through the door I hear the volume on Mr. O’Reilly’s television grow louder.) Well, do you know anything about Yvonne Schubert? I’m talking to a former Hughes head of security who says Hughes had a peephole drilled into her b
edroom. People were watching her and Hughes have sex. (He still doesn’t respond. I can hear his raspy breathing.) Okay, he also says Hughes slept with literally hundreds of women, that he had an insatiable sexual appetite. Anything to say yea or nay on that? I’m trying to find an angle to take on this interview. I’d really appreciate—

  TL: (Interrupting.) Look, young man, if you see Hughes as some kind of s-s … (He can’t finish the word.) sexual… Superman, you’re wrong. He wasn’t even Clark Kent. He was a Jimmy. And that’s all I’ve got to say. (He hangs up.)

  Hughes memo to Chanson O’Reilly, titled “Mr. Hughes’s Wedding Plans” and dated January 9, 1951

  1. Have a Constellation fueled up and ready at the Culver City field by 7 a.m. Tuesday morning.

  2. I will fly the airplane.

  3. We will go to Tonopah, Nevada—this should lose the press vultures hovering over us constantly right now. Who would suspect such a godforsaken place as the sight [sic] for my wedding? There are two hotels in Tonopah. Determine which is the classiest and rent two floors of rooms. This will be our staging area. Make arrangements to have the lobby clear and secure between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and have the town’s justice of the peace waiting. The man who makes these arrangements can also secure the wedding license. On the license I will be called G. A. Johnson and Jean will be called Marian Evans.

  4. On the morning of the 12th, I will unexpectedly call two colleagues at exactly 5 a.m. and tell them I need them to accompany me on a journey of the utmost importance. All of us, Jean included, will dress as duck hunters. To add to the duck hunter disguise, the men will not shave. I will sneak out of the house before dawn and walk to 10th Street. Pick me up in front of the butcher’s shop there. We will appear to be two pals going off on a hunting expedition. This should trick the scavenging, shit-eating birds.

  5. There will be no loading stairs to accommodate a Constellation at the Tonopah airstrip, so bring a good length of rope for exiting and re-entering the airplane.

  6. As soon as the ceremony is finished, we will return to Los Angeles. Jean will not be able to climb the rope to re-enter the airplane so you and the other men will go up first, then pull her up into the airplane as she clings to the rope and I remain on the ground to catch her in case she falls.

  7. The ring for Jean will be our best red ruby, you know the one. Get it out of storage at the Romaine Street office and also go to a jewelry store and buy a simple gold wedding band for me, not the cheapest but not the most expensive. You can get my finger size at Romaine Street. I would tell you but damned if I can’t find a cloth tape measure.

  Alton Reece interview with Chanson O’Reilly, continued:

  AR: Mr. O’Reilly, I just spoke with a source on my cell phone and he mentioned a waiter at the Beverly Hills Hotel named Benny,

  CO: (Staring at the television, nodding.) Everyone knew Benny.

  AR: Was he reliable?

  CO: No. He’d make up stories to get paid.

  AR: Did Susan Hayward slap Hughes that New Year’s Eve night, and was Jean Peters crying?

  CO: Who said that?

  AR: Tom Lourdes, a reporter back then. He said this Benny told him that.

  CO: (He nods.) I remember Lourdes. No, Hughes didn’t get slapped and Jean Peters wasn’t crying.

  AR: (After a pause.) Did Hughes actually know Tom Lourdes?

  CO: Kind of, yeah. He mentioned him sometimes. They weren’t buddies or anything, but Lourdes was about the only reporter whose guts he didn’t hate.

  AR: All right. Well, I wanted to ask you about Hughes’s wedding to Jean Peters,

  CO: Huh. If hell has a circus it won’t look much different than that wedding. (He shakes his head.) All of us were dressed like duck hunters, except Miss Peters. I wish I had a picture. It looked like the end of a Bob Hope movie.

  AR: How’d you keep the press from getting wind of the marriage?

  CO: I made all the arrangements myself.

  AR: Did Hughes and Jean Peters act like newlyweds?

  CO: Yeah, on the way back they sat up in the cockpit and held hands. She’d put her chin on his shoulder and whisper in his ear and he’d nod like he understood, but I doubt it. By that time he could barely hear anything.

  (I thank Chanson O’Reilly for his help, leave his room, and go find Rella in the kitchen. Lunch is on the table: cold melon soup, turkey-and-mushroom wraps, spinach salad with hot bacon vinaigrette. A copy of Melville and the Whale is next to one plate. She asks if I’ll sign it and also offers lunch. Despite the fact staying will make me late for an appointment at the Hughes Archives, I sit down. She takes a tray to her father, and while she’s gone I sign the book. Then I set up my recorder and turn it on.)

  RELLA: (Smiling.) Okay, let’s see what you wrote. (She reads.) Mr. Reece, you’re too kind.

  AR: Everything I said is true.

  RELLA: Thank you. Well, dig in.

  AR: It looks great. (We both start on our soup.) This is delicious.

  RELLA: Thanks. (She pauses.) Mr. Reece?

  AR: Yes?

  RELLA: Why is your tape recorder running?

  AR: (I put down my soup spoon and she follows suit and looks at me attentively.) I thought you might be able to give me a different angle on your father’s years working for Hughes. Since you wanted to sit in on your father’s interview.

  RELLA: I’d love to help, but I guess I don’t know much. (She picks up her spoon again.) You know, I’m curious, though. Why did he want me to leave? What was it he didn’t he want me to hear?

  AR: Probably the sex stuff.

  RELLA: (She smiles.) He’s so old-fashioned.

  AR: Well, he’s part of his generation. He can’t help that. (We continue eating. The melon soup is thick, cool, and tart.) So is there anything you can think of from those years when your father worked for Hughes?

  RELLA: Well, let me think. (She stares at the tabletop, then her face lights up and she reaches over and touches my arm.) I do remember something. Velma, my second oldest sister, she was a teenager in the early sixties, and I was just little, you know, six or seven—

  AR: I think you’re lying.

  RELLA: What?

  AR: I don’t believe you’re that old.

  RELLA: (Blushing.) Now you’re kidding me.

  AR: (Smiling.) No, but sorry I interrupted. Please, go on.

  RELLA: I haven’t thought about this in years, but I remember a big argument Velma had with Dad. I think Howard Hughes had somehow seen Velma, and she was a beautiful girl. On Friday night there’d be more boys on our front porch than there were at the pool hall. I was always a little jealous of her.

  AR: You’ve got no reason to be.

  RELLA: Thank you. (She touches my hand.) Now, I might have this all mixed up, but I think Howard Hughes wanted to train Velma to be an actress. He wanted to sign her to a contract at his studio. Velma was all for it and my mother was too, but Dad put his foot down. He said Velma shouldn’t have such unrealistic dreams. She and Mom both said what was wrong with at least trying? The contract would’ve been for a lot of money too. But Dad wouldn’t hear it. Velma was seventeen then and Dad would’ve had to sign for her but he said he’d die first. As soon as Velma turned eighteen she contacted the people at Hughes’s studio, but they weren’t interested anymore. It always seemed weird to me that Dad wouldn’t at least let her try. I mean, he worked for Hughes himself. Did he say anything about that?

  AR: No, he didn’t mention your sister, but I think he has some resentments about Hughes that color the way he sees him. But that’s understandable. He’s got the natural resentment of employee for employer. That’s always a skewed relationship anyway, even when it’s good. Work for someone long enough and you end up thinking he’s the devil himself.

  Hughes diary entry, January 12, 1951

  I married Jean today. She is a wonderful girl and I hope to make her happy.

  However, I do not have a good record in this department.

  Alton Reece interview with Jean Pet
ers at her apartment in the Molvado Retirement Village in Houston, Texas

  I arrive at Jean Peters’s gated community around lunchtime; the uniformed guard, a young black man with a British accent, asks my name and business, then disappears into his hut; the city is under the threat of a hurricane warning and maybe because of this the cloudless, bright blue sky seems eerie and menacing. The guard reappears and says that according to his information I’m supposed to be in a black Lexus with California license plate CXE 113, not a station wagon, so he’ll need to see my driver’s license. I hand it over and he examines it, then hands it back and apologizes for the mix-up. Then he pauses, as if listening to something, and says from the way my engine’s whistling it sounds like I might have a valve problem. He once had an old Ford station wagon just like mine, he says, and it gave him all kinds of problems. I thank him, say I’ll have it checked out, and then he gives me directions and opens the gate; as I make the winding drive I’m nervous — I feel that in Jean Peters’s presence I’ll be closer to Hughes than I have been before: this is the woman who understood him well enough to marry him. I make a wrong turn — the complex is huge — and drive another five minutes through the immaculate streets, neatly landscaped in the medians with dwarf trees and fiery red bushes, before I somehow arrive at Jean Peters’s ground-floor apartment. After I ring the bell, a good two or three minutes passes before she answers, and when she does she’s leaning on a black cane, a polite smile on her face. She explains she recently fell going down some steps and twisted her knee, and motions me ahead of her down a hallway that leads to the breakfast nook, where I go and then stand and watch her hobble toward me, her eyes watching the floor ahead of her. She still possesses the same understated beauty she did in her youth. Her hair is silver now, and her face wrinkled, but in her these seem less signs of decay than of wisdom, when taken together with the indefinable quality — a depth, a peace, a beautiful resignation — that emanates from her blue eyes.

  She leans against a counter lined by three tall black leather stools and asks me if I want anything to drink. I say I’m fine, and then she makes her way to the table, sits down, and motions for me to do the same. Two windows are next to the table, and as I’m setting up my tape recorder she asks if the sun bothers me. I say it’s in my eyes just a little, and she leans over and twists the rod on the blinds.