Welcome to another episode of You Must Remember This.

Today's episode takes us back to the Roaring Twenties, when Hollywood was first coming into its own as a place that made wild dreams, involving sex, money, power, and both in actuality and maybe more importantly, and in the past.

It's the story of a man who blew through an alarming amount of a massive inherited fortune in an effort to become the king of this world.

In just a few short years on the back of an insane gamble, Howard Hughes transformed himself from big spending hasty to Hollywood big shot.

But in doing so, he destroyed two marriages and nearly lost his fortune.

This is the story of the arranged marriage that got Hughes to Hollywood, the passionate affair that helped to destroy that marriage almost sent him to the poor house and ultimately ended amidst mysterious circumstances.

And the making of the first blockbuster of the sound era. Join us, won't you? For the first in a series of explorations of the many loves of Howard Hughes.

Growing up in Houston, Howard Hughes Jr. was the only son of a self-made billionaire, Big Howard, and a beautiful hypercontract, a lean.

Big Howard padded it an oil-drilled bit which made him a fortune, most of which he spent on fine whiskey and fineeries for women.

While his dad was working in carousing, young Howard Hughes Jr., then called sunny, formed an unusually close bond with his mother.

When it came to preserving her son's health and hygiene, Aline Hughes was extraordinarily hands-on, personally inspecting his ears, teeth, genitals, and excrement, morning and night.

She also indulged her son's every whim. Aline Hughes was probably responsible for two of her son's most problematic adult character traits, his fear of germs and his inability to deal with being told no.

After his mother's death, Howard Sr. moved his then teenage son to Hollywood, where instead of actually going to school, 17-year-old Howard filled his day as learning the important stuff.

He was tutored by Caltech machinists every morning and went to the movies, often triple features every night.

In between there were golf lessons, tennis lessons, and three days a week, flying lessons.

When Howard Sr. suddenly died of a heart attack the year his son turned 18, Howard Jr. inherited 75% of his estate.

The other 25% went to various relatives, who Howard was determined to buy out, so as to maintain total financial control over the highly profitable company his father had left behind.

There was just one problem.

At age 18, Howard Hughes Jr. was, at that time, legally considered to be a minor, and everyone looked at him and saw a child.

Taking advantage of a loophole in Texas state law, he managed to convince a judge that he was capable of handling his own affairs, and gradually his father's other heirs started lining up to be bought out.

But none of this seemed like a good idea to his mother's sister, Antonette.

Who knew that Howard's presentation to the judge had been to put it delicately? Absolute bullshit.

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