New book examines Hughes

Louie Traub/ViewJoan Lapan, right, receives a signed copy of "Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue" from author Geoff Schumacher during a Feb. 5 discussion and book-signing event at the Nevada State Musuem, 700 Twin Lakes Drive. Advertisement

By ERICA VITAL

VIEW STAFF WRITER

More than 30 years after his death, the name Howard Hughes still carries with it the stuff of myth.

At a Feb. 5 event at the Nevada State Museum, 700 Twin Lakes Drive, Hughes' one-time pastry chef, Curt Maeglin, a dapper 84-year-old with fashionably spiked hair and gold-tinted glasses, said he knew Hughes before the days of the mogul's much publicized isolation at the Desert Inn.

"I know him like my pockets," Maeglin said as he recalled the millionaire aviator's daily requests for honey-cakes. "And they had to be lukewarm. You know, he was very eccentric."

Cane in hand, Maeglin stood away from the gallery area, where Hughes fans lined up during the museum's packed book-signing and reception for author and local journalist Geoff Schumacher's newly released "Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue."

Schumacher is the director of community publications for Stephens Media, which includes View Neighborhood Newspapers.

Schumacher attributed the fascination the public has for Hughes to the romance and mystery of celebrity.

"I think he did so many amazing things that he created legends and mythologies around his life," he said. "People are constantly trying to find out what's true and what isn't."

Carolyn Hayes Uber, president of Stephens Press, which published Schumacher's "Sun, Sin and Suburbia" in 2004, said that as the writer of that definitive history on the growth of Las Vegas in the 1990s, Schumacher was the only author who could pick up the Hughes legend where other biographies left off.

"Although Hughes' years in Las Vegas were very important, they hadn't been covered very well," Uber said. "... We really felt it was important to re-examine the impact he had. And certainly, he has had a phenomenal impact."

In a panel discussion of the book, Schumacher was joined by Peg Crockett, who with her husband, George, owned and operated Alamo Airways on the site that is now McCarran International Airport.

Crockett first met Hughes in the 1940s. In later years, he would stop at the Crocketts' modest home on their airfield when he flew into town from California.

"People wonder whether he was a genius or a near-genius," said Crockett. "I know he was a genius. He was so extraordinary because he had so many talents and they were diversified. He was an engineer and a pilot like nobody ever heard of. He was respectful. Always a perfect gentleman with perfect manners."

Others on the panel who knew Hughes personally included Paul Winn, who worked for Hughes in 1957 in Hollywood.

Comparing the true-to-life man with depictions in film, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal in "The Aviator," Winn said the cockiness, halted speech and disregard for women were not aspects of the man he knew.

"He was deferential," said Winn. "Always kind. I'll tell you something else. No one knew how he extended a hand to people. He would read about somebody's kid in the paper, maybe someone who needed an operation, an employee or an employee's family, and he would do everything he could for them."

Longtime Hughes aide Robert Maheu was scheduled to sit on the panel, but was unable to attend. Winn described Maheu as Hughes' right-hand man.

"He was the public face of Howard Hughes. But he never met him in person," Winn said.

Moderator Lynn Zook, who is a documentary filmmaker and the historian for Friends of Classic Las Vegas, a local group dedicated to the preservation of 20th century Las Vegas, said the one thing all those attending the event wanted to know was the real story behind the decline of Hughes.

"But what I'm hoping to emphasize tonight," Zook said, "and what Geoff's book does is that more than reflecting on the decline of Howard Hughes is putting a human face to the name."

Hughes' presence in Las Vegas in 1966, said Schumacher, reenergized the city during a time that mirrors present economic woes in real estate and the market.

"Howard Hughes invested in Las Vegas," he said. "He not only nudged the mob out of specific hotels, he nudged them out entirely. Corporate America followed Howard Hughes. They began to think of casinos as legitimate mainstream businesses."

The motivation and the methods of the men who surrounded Hughes, and their possible use of drugs as a means to influence him, are addressed in the Schumacher biography.

Gordon Margulis, a personal assistant to Hughes, left Hughes one afternoon in the care of one of those men. An audible hush fell over the room of Hughes buffs as Margulis shared the legend's last moments with the panel.

"I didn't want to see. I left the room," said Margulis. "He went into a coma. I cut his beard. I soaked and cut his nails. I said to myself, 'nobody should see the man like this.' The next day, he died in the air. You have Winston Churchill. You've got your Roosevelt. And you've got Howard Hughes. He was the last of the giants."