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World Hotels - Howard Hughes: The Secret Life
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List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $11.16
Your Save: $ 2.79 ( 20% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.767092
EAN: 9780312329976
ISBN: 0312329970
Label: St. Martin's Griffin
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2004-11-10
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 2004-10-21
Studio: St. Martin's Griffin
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Editorial Reviews:
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His wealth was legendary. His passions were bizarre. Now, the truth about the money, the madness, and the man behind the enigma.
Howard Hughes is one of the best known and least understood men of our times--famed for his wealth, his daring, and his descent into madness. Bestselling biographer Charles Higham goes beyond the enigma to reveal the incredible private life of Howard Hughes:
* his romances with the great stars of Hollywood--Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, and numerous others
* his forays into sadomasochism
* his involvement with Richard Nixon and Watergate
* his bizarre final years
This is a compelling portrait of a unique American figure--in a story as revealing as it is unforgettable.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Unsympathetic and slanted
Comment: The Aviator is one of my favorite movies, and is why I was drawn to this book. But here in the book the author quickly goes over all the most important issues from the movie in very small detail. Very little was said about Howard Hughes at the Congressional hearings. Which was the most dramatic part of the movie. Also the book only briefly talked about the Hercules and TWA, when both where major parts of the movie. Toward the end of the book in Howard's recluse days, the book sometime spends more time talking about other people other than Hughes for long stretches. Highman never really backed up his conclusion that Hughes had AIDs and because of the disease he died.
The other main complaint I have with the biography is that Highman usually wrote about Hughes's actions as if he was in complete control of his feelings, especially in his recluse years. He made Hughes seem more of a monster and less of a sympathetic tragic human being. The sympathy Scorsese displayed for Hughes was why the movie was so great. Most of the rest of the book when not condemning Hughes for his actions, and only praising him of his shrewd business transactions, was full of gossip. The gossip was almost always about which actors in hollywood were gay.
The book was very interesting to read, mainly for my fascination of Howard Hughes, but I'm sure there are better biographies than this one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the better biographies I've read
Comment: Once I got into this book I couldn't put it down. I did not know much about Howard Hughes prior to seeing the movie based on his life, The Aviator. The movie made me want to know about such an interesting and complex man. I inadvertently picked up the biography from which the movie was made and loved it. This book does not disappoint.
Like all good biographies, The Secret Live doesn't harp over every childhood moment; it tells the reader what we need to know in order to understand what shaped Hughes into the man he became and then it moves on. And what a fascinating life... from rich heir to Hollywood the sky literally was the limit for Hughes. The book gives proper attention to his various affairs (with men and women alike), his numerous careers, and his eventual descent into madness.
After reading the book I was disappointed that the movie left out the so-called ugly parts of Howard Hughes' life; the bisexuality, the sadism, and the true extent of his madness. The book certainly doesn't sugar-coat anything, but then again it shouldn't! The author offers an interesting diagnosis for Hughes. Based on evidence, he concludes that Hughes died of HIV or AIDS, unknown at the time of his death. It is very interesting.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Most Scandalous Book I've Ever Read
Comment: I picked up this book out of curiosity, so I was unprepared for the page by page expose of rampant bi-sexuality, drug addition, psychotic behavior, Hollywood scandal, high stakes government intrigue, business shenanigans, and the ruthless accumulation and spending of one of America's great fortunes. Fast reading and recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting look at the secrets behind the man
Comment: This book was interesting although it deals more with Howard's eccentricities and sexual exploits than his business life. The book paints a sleazy picture of Hughes but it is entertaining. Many reviewers doubted the authenticity of the author's claims yet the book has a good size bibliography to lend credibility to this look at the secret life of Howard Hughes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: How does this stuff get published?
Comment: Like many new readers to the Hughes tale, I picked up Howard Hughes: The Secret Life (the bookstore was out of Citizen Hughes). Given the preface and afterword of the book, associating itself to the Martin Scosese film,The Aviator, I was misled to think it would be a correspondingly detailed and insightful account of Hughes successes and personal demons (with words instead of pictures). Instead it was the worst sort of puerile incoherence; the caliber of literature which is often hailed in bathroom stalls and tea parties. In fact, I was a bit surprised not to see "Hughes Eats It!", or "For a good time call HH" somewhere in the book.
The events are not approached with any linear semblance and dates and events bounce back and forth. There is very little structure to the varied liasons attributed to Hughes, and none of them offer a scintilla of insight as to why Hughes was engaged in them, and how it affected his business, reputation, etc. The author has, a particularly, hard time working, a comma, into a sentence, with any literary aptitude. Some of his conjectures are simple falisity and are in direct opposition to verified accounts, in numerous text (see his insinuation of what when on at San Simeon....in short that type of open behavior was forbidden at the Hearst Castle and violators were sent packing (literally)-not to say that it didn't happen, but not at the level Mr. Higman suggests. Additionally he fails to properly index the book, leading references off the index altogether. Stylistically, formatting and content wise this book falls harder then Hughes on Bell Air Drive.
It almost seems that Mr. Higham had something personal against Mr. Hughes (and certainly had a lot of choices to pick from). But an academic interest of Hughes is not served in this book. What might be served is an author's personalized attempt to denigrate a sick man, using conjecture, pubescent embellishments, and sexually charged schedenfreude. He's happy to take care of that on his own.
The APA might concider how this books simply demonizes the effects of OCD, as opposed to helping society understand it. An easy misunderstanding of this book, and one would think all OCD people are bisexual bigamists, who are facinated with their own urine, and have an unatural fetish with Kleenex.
This work might have been amusing article to read in the grocery check-out line, and put down without buying it. (Given it's an easy read, you might finish the whole book before your eggs are secured under your gallon of milk) Having made the mistake of buying it, please consider some advice that a better account of Hughes is out there...somewhere. Don't do what I did. Instead, go to another bookstore and look for a more credible biography. Or if salacious gossip, blissfully free from fact is really what your after...don't buy this book either. By something by Bob Woodward, or heck, just buy the Enquiror
or.....maybe Mad Magazine....I hear the Star is good too.
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