Howard Hughes was a true American original: legendary lover, record-setting aviator, award-winning film producer, talented inventor, ultimate eccentric, and, for much of his lifetime, the richest man in the United States. His desire for privacy was so fierce and his isolation so complete that even now, twenty-five years after his death, inaccurate stories continue to circulate, and many have been published as fact. Hughes explodes the illusion of his life and exposes the man behind the myth. He was a playboy whose sexual exploits with Hollywood stars and starlets were legendary. He was a man without compassion,; an entrepreneur without ethics; an eccentric trapped by his own insanity, sealed off from reality, who died a lonely and, until now. mysterious death.