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Howard Hughes

Brilliantly innovative, with a reclusive bent, Howard Hughes was a significant figure of the first half of the 20th century. Buying his way into the American film industry with his share of a family fortune, the 25-year-old struck gold after the advent of talking pictures by funding the successful "The Front Page" (1931) and "Scarface" (1932). Inspired by the heroics of World War I pilots, Hughes mounted "Hell's Angels" (1930) as a one-man show, writing, producing, directing and personally overseeing the extensive aerial photography; though the film was a critical success and a hit with moviegoers, Hughes lost millions due to overspending. He quit Hollywood in 1932 to spend the next decade testing experimental airplanes, breaking speed records and circumnavigating the globe by air. Surviving multiple plane crashes but plagued afterwards by chronic pain, he would direct one more film, "The Outlaw" (1943), starring Jane Russell, before buying a controlling interest in RKO Pictures. RKO was later forced to declare bankruptcy, and the self-made billionaire retreated into a hermetic existence. Hughes lived the rest of his life in a series of hotel penthouses before dying aboard a private plane in April 1976. No less beguiling in death than he had been in life, Hughes retained a currency with the American public who remembered him as a mad genius who struggled at times, but nonetheless achieved great things.