Howard Hughes - Mental Illness and Physical Decline

Mental Illness and Physical Decline

As early as the 1930s, Hughes displayed signs of mental illness, primarily obsessive-compulsive disorder. Close friends reported that he was obsessed with the size of peas, one of his favorite foods, and used a special fork to sort them by size.

While directing The Outlaw, Hughes became fixated on a minor flaw in one of Jane Russell's blouses, claiming that the fabric bunched up along a seam and gave the appearance of two nipples on each breast. He was reportedly so upset by the matter that he wrote a detailed memorandum to the crew on how to fix the problem. Richard Fleischer, who directed His Kind of Woman with Hughes as executive producer, wrote at length in his autobiography about the difficulty of dealing with the tycoon. In his book, Just Tell Me When to Cry, Fleischer explained that Hughes was fixated on trivial details and was alternately indecisive and obstinate. He also revealed that Hughes' unpredictable mood swings made him wonder if the film would ever be completed.

In 1947, after his near-fatal aircraft crash in 1946, Hughes told his aides that he wanted to screen some movies at a film studio near his home. Hughes stayed in the studio's darkened screening room for more than four months, never leaving. He subsisted exclusively on chocolate bars, chicken, and milk, and relieved himself in the empty bottles and containers. He was surrounded by dozens of Kleenex boxes, which he continuously stacked and re-arranged. He wrote detailed memos to his aides on yellow legal pads giving them explicit instructions not to look at him, to respond when spoken to, but otherwise not speak to him. Throughout this period, Hughes sat fixated in his chair, often naked, continuously watching movies, reel after reel, day after day. When he finally emerged in the spring of 1948, his hygiene was terrible, as he had not bathed or cut his hair and nails for weeks (although this may have been due to allodynia - pain upon being touched). The Screening Room was located at Sunset Boulevard and Doheny Drive in Los Angeles; it was owned by Martin Nosseck and was called the "Martin Nosseck Projection Theatre" - Martin Nosseck was the full-time projectionist for Hughes during that time.

After the screening room incident, Hughes moved into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He also rented out several other rooms for his aides, his wife, and his numerous girlfriends. His erratic behavior continued, however, as he would sit naked in his bedroom with a pink hotel napkin placed over his genitals, watching movies. Like the tissue boxes instead of shoes, he likely sat around naked because the touch of clothing (and shoes) would trigger an extremely painful condition called allodynia. He likely watched movies on a constant basis as a distraction from his pain. Distraction, including watching TV and movies, is a common survival tactic amongst intractable pain patients, especially the ones who do not receive adequate treatment, to this day. In one year, he spent an estimated $11 million at the hotel.

In a bout of obsession with his home state, Hughes began purchasing all restaurant chains and four star hotels that had been founded within the borders of Texas. This included, if for only a short period, many unknown franchises currently out of business. Ownership of the restaurants was placed in the hands of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and all licenses were resold shortly after.

Another time, he became obsessed with the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra and had it running on a continuous loop in his home. According to his aides, he watched it 150 times.

Hughes insisted on using tissues to pick up objects, so that he could insulate himself from germs. He would also notice dust, stains or other imperfections on people's clothes and demand that they take care of it.

Once one of the most visible men in America, Hughes ultimately vanished from public view, although the tabloids continued to follow rumors of his behavior and whereabouts. He was reported to be terminally ill, mentally unstable or even dead.

As a result of numerous aircraft crashes, Hughes spent much of his later life in pain, eventually becoming severely addicted to codeine, which he injected intramuscularly. Hughes only had his hair cut and nails trimmed once a year. He may have been in severe chronic pain from his extensive injuries, so much so that even the act of tooth brushing was painful, so he avoided it.

A retrospective case study suggests that Hughes' drug situation is more reminiscent of "pseudoaddiction" than true addiction; he suffered chronic pain and used narcotic medicine to control it. He did not inject it intravenously for immediate effect, rather, he injected it into muscle, where it would have more of an effect on pain. However, it should be noted that codeine, when injected intravenously, leads to life threatening symptoms and is not by any means a safe route of administration, under any circumstance. He did not use tobacco or other drugs, and rarely consumed alcohol. He used diazepam to control the symptoms of withdrawal when he had not taken enough codeine. At the time, the field of pain management was small and there were few options for long-term pain control. As codeine is a relatively weak narcotic, his pain was probably not controlled effectively. It should also be noted that many of the behaviors attributed to his alleged OCD were actually the result of his severe, poorly controlled pain.