Howard Hughes was one of the most mysterious men in America. He lived the American Dream of not only becoming wealthy, but of building an empire. His father made a lot of money by patenting a drill bit for oil wells. After his death, Hughes inherited a large sum of money and a large portion of his father's company, and he proceeded to buy the remainder of company, so that he could own it all. After a few years of running the tool company, Hughes decided to go into the movie-making business. He made several movies, the most famous being "Hell's Angels," and he began dating movie stars. After a few years in Hollywood, Hughes went into the aircraft business. He started Hughes Aircraft, and invested heavily in TWA. In the aircraft industry, Hughes was a pioneer. He set many records at the time for fastest flights and also succeeded in building the world's largest airplane, the "Spruce Goose." In 1966, Hughes sold his aircraft investments for over half of a billion dollars and rented the top floor of a Las Vegas hotel for ten days. When his time had expired, Hughes would not move and decided to buy the hotel so he did not have to leave. He remained in this hotel as a hermit (Sauter). Hughes was forced into seclusion by his mental disorder and his drug addiction. Although Hughes' actions were inexplicable, the public loved to hear of his exploits. There was such a demand for his story that Clifford Irving had the idea to pretend to be the authorized autobiographer of Hughes.
             In his recount of writing Hughes' false autobiography, The Hoax, Irving speculates that Hughes' mental disorder stems from his worrisome mother. Irving creates a tale of how Hughes' mother believed that one could get leprosy from eating cornbread. Pretending to be Hughes, Irving writes, "She had a lot of theories about disease, I remember. I think it was you couldn't eat gi
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