"You’re Not Howard Hughes!"

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

History, Society & Culture

4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By the 1970s Howard Hughes was the "invisible billionaire”. A business tycoon, a daring aviator and Hollywood Lothario, Hughes had an amazing life story... but hiding away in luxury hotels he wasn't sharing his memories with anyone.

Then the recluse told a respected publishing house - via intermediaries - that he was working on an autobiography. The book would be a blockbuster... only it was all a lie.

For a full list of sources go to timharford.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Here in the last archive, I've been trying to figure out what happened to Truth.
0:03.6	I've been telling stories about how we know what we know,
0:06.4	and why it seems sometimes lately is if we don't know anything at all.
0:10.6	But I am done with the problems of Truth. I want solutions.
0:14.8	The season of the last archive is all about common knowledge.
0:18.8	Is that kind of knowledge still possible? I tried to find out.
0:22.4	Coming soon.
0:24.7	Listen to the last archive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
0:28.4	or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:58.9	Pushkin.
1:14.3	In 1971, the prestigious New York Publishers McGraw Hill made a sensational announcement.
1:22.1	Howard Hughes had written his autobiography.
1:26.0	The announcement was sensational because Howard Hughes had lived one of the most extraordinary
1:32.3	lives of the 20th century. Born in Texas in 1905, he became a movie mogul in the golden age of
1:40.2	Hollywood, and the handsome, dashing lover of movie stars from Betty Davis,
1:44.8	to Catherine Hepburn, to Ginger Rogers.
1:50.0	No one could teach you to dance in a million years.
1:52.3	Take my advice and save your money.
1:54.2	Hughes was an aviator, back in the days when planes were novel and dangerous.
1:59.2	He set air speed records. In 1938, he flew around the world in half the time
2:05.2	anyone had managed before. New York City threw him a ticket tape parade.
2:10.3	Hughes designed new and audacious aircraft and insisted on test piloting them himself.
	...

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