Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - "You’re Not Howard Hughes!"

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

By the 1970s Howard Hughes was the "invisible billionaire”. A business tycoon, a daring aviator and Hollywood Lothario, Hughes had an amazing life story... but hiding away in luxury hotels he wasn't sharing his memories with anyone. Then the recluse told a respected publishing house - via intermediaries - that he was working on an autobiography. The book would be a blockbuster... only it was all a lie. For a full list of sources go to timharford.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin In 1971, the prestigious New York Publishers McGraw Hill made a sensational announcement. Howard Hughes had written his autobiography. The announcement was sensational because Howard Hughes had lived one of the most extraordinary lives of the 20th century. Born in Texas in 1905, he became a movie mogul in the golden age of Hollywood, and a handsome dashing lover of movie stars from Betty Davis to Catherine Hepburn to Ginger Rogers. He was an aviator back in the days when planes were novel and dangerous.

He set air speed records. In 1938, he flew around the world in half the time anyone had managed before. New York City threw him a ticket-tape parade. Hughes designed new and audacious aircraft and insisted on test piloting them himself. Twice, he was nearly killed in spectacular crashes. Between the movies and the planes, investments in real estate, and the oil drill company he'd inherited from his father. Howard Hughes became one of America's richest and most famous men. But his fortune couldn't buy him mental health. Hughes suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. At first, the symptoms were manageable. He insisted on the same dinner every night, medium-rare

steak with salad and peas. He'd eat only the small peas. He was a germafob, picking things up in a tissue. As he got older, his behavior became stranger. In 1958, Hughes went into a studio's darkened screening room to watch a movie and didn't come out for four months. He sat there, often naked, watching movie after movie. He didn't shower. He had his assistants bring him chicken, glasses of milk, and chocolate bars. He wrote the memos reminding them not to look at him.

When he eventually left the studio, he took to living in the penthouse suites of luxury hotels. He'd travelled between them, from Las Vegas, to Beverly Hills, to the Bahamas. He disappeared completely from public view. Years went by. The longer Hugh spent as a recluse, the more the rumours swirled. Was he mad? Was he dead? Then in 1971, that press release by McGraw Hill, Howard Hughes, had written a rollicking

thousand-page account of his incredible life story. The media went wild. It was going to be the publishing event of the decade. There was only one problem. Howard Hughes didn't know a thing about it. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. In December 1970, Clifford Irving was leafing through a copy of Newsweek on an overnight ferry from Barcelona to the Ballyarics, a small chain of islands off the coast of Spain. Six-foot-two, swerve and smooth-talking Irving had grown up in New York, but he made his home on the Ballyaric island of Ibiza, where he shared a 15-room house with his fourth wife,

a Swiss German artist called Edith, their two small children, local servants, and a pet monkey. Irving had just turned 40. His father, a famous cartoonist, had just died. Irving himself was an author, though not a famous one. He'd written a few novels and most recently a biography of a fellow Ibiza resident, a master art forger, published by McGraw-Hill. As the sun rose over the Mediterranean, the ferry stopped first at neighbouring

Mallorca. That gave Irving a few hours to kill, so he called up his friend Dick Suskind, another American writer who'd relocated to a sunny island. Suskind met Irving off the ferry, and they drove back to his house. Listen, said Irving, I've got a wild idea. He pulled out his copy of Newsweek and showed Suskind an article about Howard Hughes. It was titled The Case of the Invisible Being in Air. I read this on the boat last night. Irving explained his idea. Imagine if they wrote a biography of Hughes, but published it as an autobiography, pretending that it was actually in Hughes' own words, as told to Clifford

Irving. An autobiography would be a much bigger deal than a biography. It would sell better and bring in lots more money, they could make millions. The idea was wild because Hughes might deny it, but Irving was willing to bet that he wouldn't. As the newsweek piece made clear, Hughes hadn't spoken to the media for well over a decade. Even more promising, he seemed phobic about appearing in court. There's a story about a lawsuit involving Hughes' airline, his lawyer wanted him to do one simple thing in person. Go to a courthouse, let a judge watch him sign a certain document, and leave again.

Hughes winced. Supposing he didn't do it, he asked. How much might it cost him? Maybe $100 million, said the lawyer. Okay, said Hughes. I won't bother. So, if McGraw Hill published an autobiography of Hughes, would he really take them to court? Surely the chances were that he wouldn't contest its authenticity. You flipped your lid. McGraw Hill's the most conservative publisher in New York.

Let never go for an idea like that. ''You're probably right,' said Irving. A drunk coffee, Ed Breck first, and talked about other things. Then it was time to drive back for Irving's ferry. ''What if they didn't know it was a hoax? Suppose I told McGraw Hill I was in touch with Hughes, assume I could work out a phony private contract between me and Hughes for bidding communication between him and the publishers. Jesus Christ, that could work! Replied Suskind.

What a fantastic idea! You know, it could work, we could do it! They'd have to learn everything they could about Hughes' life. Suskin was good at research. Then they'd have to make it sound like Hughes had told the story. Irving had the literary flair for that. They went back and forth, planning out the details. First, Irving would write to Beverly Lou, his editor at McGraw Hill. He could say that Howard Hughes had known his father, and that it sent Hughes a copy of his latest book, The Biography of the Art Forger, along with a note about his

father's recent passing. He'd say that Hughes had written back to express his condolences, and also to say that he'd enjoyed the biography. That started to correspond. Hughes had expressed an interest in meeting with Irving, so he could write Hughes' life story too. McGraw Hill would want evidence, of course. Irving would have to try his own hand at forgery. The Newsweek article contained a photo of a note in Hughes' handwriting, including his signature. It also mentioned that Hughes always wrote on yellow lined notepads of the kind used by lawyers.

Suskind had just such a notepad at home. What about money? McGraw Hill would pay Irving for his part in the book, but they'd have to pay more to Howard Hughes. After all, it was his autobiography. That presented a problem. If McGraw Hill wrote checks to Howard Hughes that didn't clear, they'd get suspicious. Irving and Suskind would need some way to pay those checks into a bank account. Irving had an idea.

His wife, he told Suskind, just happened to have a spare Swiss passport. The last one she'd applied for had seemed lost in the post. She got a replacement, then the first passport but laterally turned up. What if he could doctor that passport to change the name? Say, to Helga Hughes? Edith could open an account with a Swiss bank, they were famous for protecting their clients' privacy. He'd just have to make sure that McGraw Hill made the checks out to HR Hughes rather than Howard. But would Edith be up for the subterfuge? How would you like to change your name to Helga Renata Hughes?" said Irving,

expatriate Swiss businesswoman who conducts her financial affairs only with her initial. I well, Wig. Sure, and dark glasses and lipstick. Maybe? Maybe not. I think about that. I thought you might not do it. I wasn't sure it was fair to ask. I help you. I don't let you down." They seemed to have covered every angle. Except one. It seemed unlikely, but what if Hughes did appear in public to deny he had been involved in the book? What then? You say, but you're not how it used? said Suskind. Hell, I've been duped. The plan seems foolproof. Irving has a go at mimicking Hughes' handwriting. He drafts

a series of letters on the yellow legal pad. They look convincing enough. Next, he tackles Edith's spare passport. Passports in those days were less sophisticated than they are today, no microchips or holograms or biometrics. Irving explores the art supplies he's inherited from his cartoonist father and gets to work. He uses Inca-radicator to erase Edith's name, takes a black felt tip and carefully writes in, Helga Renata Hughes. He changes the number on the passport, turning three's into eights. He takes a photo of Edith in a wig and lipstick and replaces the

existing passport photo. Now he tries to erase Edith's signature but the Inca-Addicator starts to bleach the watermarked paper. He's getting tired and frustrated. He signs Helga Renata Hughes over the top and hopes it'll be good enough. Suskind isn't impressed. You must be kidding. Christ it looks like it was made by a six-year-old kid with a felt-tip laundry

marker. You're out of your mind. Look here at the Helga. You can see Edith coming through like a palimpsest. It doesn't matter, Irving replied. I've talked to a few people who have bank accounts in Switzerland that don't give a damn about those ID papers. If the money's real, that's all they'll care about. If the money's real, that's all I'll care about. I sure hope you know what you're doing," said Suskind. So do I. Reply derving. Corsion retails will be back after the break.

On the 20th floor of the offices of McGraw Hill in New York, Clifford Irving and his editor, Beverly Lou, a meeting Beverly's boss. What I don't understand is why a man like Howard Hughes, whose avoided publicity all his life, should suddenly want to have his biography written. And with all due respect to you as a writer, why should he choose you to work with him? He had to choose somebody, replied Irving. He wouldn't pick someone very well known, someone like Norman Maylor, would he? Then the book would be Maylor, not Hughes.

Beverly Lou has been completely taken in. Cliffs a perfect choice, he's a professional, he delivers. She's not just Clifford Irving's editor, she's his friend, or so she thinks. They've known each other for years, she's vacationed at his house. It would hardly cross her mind that Irving was flat out lying about his access to hues. Well, let's see these famous letters. Irving takes out the correspondence he's forged from Howard Hughes. One of the letters contains an answer to the boss's first question, why Hughes was

suddenly embracing publicity. It would not suit me to die without having certain misconceptions cleared up, without having stated the truth about my life. That sounds plausible. Beverly Lou seems less skeptical than perhaps she should be. This much is certain. These are from Hughes. He always writes on that yellow legal paper.

It's a pattern we've seen time and again in cautionary tales. If you want to believe, you'll find reasons to believe. Irving draws Beverly Lou further into his world of make believe. He tells her that Hughes told him to stay at a particular hotel in New York and await instructions. Those instructions have now come through. Irving must go to a certain American express office, where he'll find that Howard Hughes has bought him a plane ticket to their first rendezvous.

Would Beverly like to come along and see where he'll be going? Or she certainly would. They go to the American express office. Do they happen to have a ticket for Mr. Clifford Irving? Yes! It's to Wahaka in southern Mexico. Irving pretends to share Bevel is surprised. Of course he bought that ticket himself.

And not just one ticket. He's going to Wahaka with his long-time mistress. Of course Irving-time mistress. Of course, Irving has a mistress. She's a Danish aristocrat and folk singer, once famous as part of a husband and wife duo, now struggling to make a new solo career, the Baroness, Nina von Palant. Irving has solemnly promised his wife, Edith, that he will never see his Danish lover again. Irving and Nina check into their Mexican hotel and go straight to bed. Listen, Nina, I want to tell you something.

I need your word that this stays with you, that your lips are sealed. You have it. I'm not meeting Howard Hughes. It's all a lie, a hoax, a letters of forged, and I never spoke to the man in my life. What's so funny? I think that you're quite quite mad, but the world is mad, so what's the bloody difference? When Irving gets back to New York from his Mexican vacation, he tells Beverly Lou all about his meeting with Howard Hughes.

The more details he gives, he decides, the more believable his tale will be. He was woken at 5 a.m. in his hotel by a phone call from a man called Pedro, who picks him up in a Volkswagen, then flies him an a saasner to a town called Twahan Tepek. Howard is waiting for him in a little hotel and they drink orange juice together. The publishers are completely duped. They agree to Howard's fee, five hundred thousand dollars, and to his demands for secrecy. He wants to deal only with Irving. McGraw-Hill draw up a contract and give it to Irving for him to get Hughes to Sime.

This time, he flies to Puerto Rico and comes back with a story about driving with Hughes into the tropical rainforest, where the billionaire instructs him to buy a bunch of bananas. Very fat, short, sweet bananas, Irving explained. I said I thought the Puerto Rican bananas were the best art ever eaten, and then he got very friendly. He likes a man who appreciates a good banana.

Irving presents them with the signed contract, and leaves with a check made out to H.R. Hughes. The eccentric old man insists on using his initials, Irving says. He takes the check home to Ibiza and gives it to Edith. She packs her bag for Zurich with a Helga Hughes Wyrgen lipstick. She's nervous. She picks a bank at random and gives them the passport that Irving doctored. She stealed herself for awkward questions. But no, they barely even look.

The money is deposited without a problem. Relieved and triumphant, Edith heads home to Ibiza, where Irving has been with Nina von Paland. His mistress leaves the island just in time. By summer, Irving and Suskind realize they have a problem. They've read every public document about Howard Hughes that they can lay their hands on. They have a lot of detail about some parts of his life, but none at all about others. It's going to be difficult to keep up the pretence that Irving has interviewed Hughes if they're agaping emissions from his life story.

They start to think that they might have to pull the plug on the project. Hughes is known for his eccentricity. Irving can simply tell McGraw Hill that Hughes has changed his mind and returned the money he's received so far. They needn't know it was all a hoax. And anyway, what if they did find out? We haven't stolen anything, reasoned Irving. I've lied, that's all. What can they do to me? As long as they get their money back, the worst thing they can do is yell, and I have a feeling they won't yell too loud, because they might look pretty foolish.

Before they give up, Irving and Suskin decide to make one last trip to the states to see what other information they can on earth. Driving past Palm Springs, Irving decides to call in on his aunt, and there, they have a stroke of luck so ludicrous that you're going to believe Irving must have made it up. But he didn't. With the aunt, they see an old friend, a television producer, who'd once encouraged the young Irving's ambitions as a writer. "'I might have a project for you,' says the friend. Have you heard of someone called Noah Dietrich? Irving certainly has. Noah Dietrich was Howard Hughes' right-hand man for 32 years.

Well, he's written a tell-all memoir that he's trying to get published, but he's not having any luck. The writer he employed did a lousy job. He's asked for my advice. Maybe you could take a look at the manuscript and see how to improve it. I'll lend it to you. But keep it confidential, won't you? Sure, says Irving. Somehow keeping a straight face. He and Suskin take the manuscript straight to the nearest Xeroch shop. Jesus! Marvel's Suskin. Could you imagine using a coincidence like this in a novel the editor would laugh you out of his office? The manuscript has everything they needed, not just for the anecdotes but for the insight

into how it uses voice, the rhythms of his speech, his favorite expletives, earring types of a list of recurring phrases and exclamations. He and Suskind learn it by heart. Then they write the book by interviewing each other, taking turns to play the role of Hughes, where they don't know a detail, they simply make it up. Their fictional Hughes, for example, traces his germophobia to a time his mother told him he could catch leprosy from cornbread. What about his first sexual experience? They make that up too.

At the age of 15, with his father's mistress, not knowing that his father, Drunk, was watching. You know, said Irving, I have the feeling I know more about this man than anyone else in the world. Don't get carried away by all this, want Suskind? It's fiction. We made it up. Don't forget that. In December, a year after his wild idea, Irving is putting the finishing touches to his

manuscript. He's on yet another Caribbean island, with yet another woman, not his wife, supposedly conducting his final meeting with Howard Hughes. Back in New York, meanwhile, McGraw Hill makes the official announcement. They will be publishing the autobiography of Howard Hughes. This is the story of my life, in my own words, says the press release, quoting someone claiming to be Hughes. This Hughes then pays full some tribute to his co-author, Clifford Irving,

for his discernment, discretion, and integrity as a human being. It doesn't take long for Irving to get a nasty shock. How would Hughes' company put out a statement? There is no such book, and Hughes himself will speak to the press to confirm that. Corsion retails will return soon. In her book The Confidence Game, the psychologist Maria Connacova analyses what's happening at each stage of a contract.

It's a step-by-step process. The con artist must carefully choose their victim, suck them in, make them believe, and keep ratcheting up their commitment. Up to now, Irving has done a textbook job. The final stage of the con, she calls the blow-off. That's when the victim realizes they've been had, and the con artist needs to avoid any unpleasant consequences. In this way, cons are no different to many other risky ventures, starting a business

say, or a war. They make sense to think about an exit strategy. If this doesn't go to plan, how do I get out with minimal damage? The blow-off is often easier than we might think, says Connacover. Many victims of cons don't make a fuss, because they don't want a reputation as a schmuck. If everyone knows you were taken in by a car artist, you'll be seen as an easy touch. Other people will try to fool you. You might decide it's better to keep silent, swallow your loss, and preserve your reputation. As Connick overputs it, we ourselves are the grifters best chance of a successful blow off. We don't want anyone to know we've been duped.

Like all good con artists, Clifford Irving instinctively understood the importance of reputation to his victim. Remember what it said to Dick Suskind when they'd fretted that McGraw Hill might find out about the hoax? The worst thing they can do is yell, and I have a feeling they won't yell too loud because they might look pretty foolish. That might have been true if they'd discovered Irving's con before the book was public knowledge, but once McGraw Hill had made their announcement, keeping quiet was no longer an option.

That left the other exit route. Irving could say, help, I've been hoaxed by someone pretending to be Howard Hughes. In other words, he could get off the hook by sacrificing his own reputation. But whenever you start a risky venture with an exit strategy in mind, there's a danger. You can get so caught up in chasing success that you forget what you'd plan to do in case of failure. With every detail he'd improvised to make his meetings with Hughes seem more believable to McGraw Hill, Irving had closed off his escape route. The imposter Hughes would have needed an accomplice called Pedro who could fly a sessner, and a lot of trouble to go to.

Irving had even said that in one clandestine meeting Hughes had introduced him to the vice president of the United States, Spiro Agnew. Another imposter just how stupid would Irving have to say he'd been. It would never work. Clifford Irving had blown his blow off. His only hope now was that Howard Hughes wouldn't go public after all. On the 7th of January 1972, seven journalists sat around a semi-circular table in a conference room in a Los Angeles hotel, surrounded by cameras and facing a telephone on loudspeaker. There had been carefully selected by Howard Hughes' representatives. Most had known Hughes back in the day. If anyone could vouch for the voice that was about to come through the phone line, they could. I only wish I was still in the movie business because I don't remember any script as wild

or stretching the imagination as this yarn has turned out to be. I take it, sir, you do not know a man named Clifford Irving, then. I don't know him, I never saw him, I've never heard of him until a matter of days ago when this thing first came to my attention. The air conditioning in the room was too loud, so the hotel had turned it off. The television lights were sweltering. The journalists began to wilt. But on the other end of the line, Hughes seemed to be having fun. He reminisced about the technical details of aircraft he had designed, for two and

a half hours. I'd be happy to talk to you all just as long as you want. Irving and Suskind watched the press conference on TV, and hearing the voice of Howard Hughes was a shock. It wasn't just that they'd bet on him staying silent. They were shocked to remember he actually existed. They'd got so used to thinking of Howard Hughes as their own fictional creation. But with no way out of the hoax, Irving had to double down. If he couldn't claim that his Howard Hughes had been an imposter, he'd have to insist that this one was instead.

That's not him, said Irving. It's a damn good imitation of what he might have sounded like a few years ago when he was healthy, but it's not him. A disembodded voice on a speakerphone is one thing, Irving reasoned. A flesh and blood-houred hues in a courtroom was another thing altogether. If only he could keep some doubt alive, he might force hues to sue him. And maybe hues wouldn't go through with that. It was a desperate throw of the dice, and it convinced hardly anyone. Most people thought it really had been Howard Hughes on the phone, but they also doubted what Howard Hughes had said. One journalist

summed up the consensus view. It's entirely consistent with the personality of Howard Hughes to dictate his autobiography and then deny it. McGraw Hill continued to insist that their book was genuine and then publish it as planned. The boss held a press conference. Despite his denial today, McGraw Hill has in its possession a tremendous amount of documentation, which in our opinion indicates beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is the authentic autobiography and that we have the authorization to publish it. They weren't just taking Clifford Irving's word for it.

They'd sent the letters from Howard Hughes to a firm of handwriting analysts. To Irving's surprise, the well-respected firm confidently declared the odds of a forgery to be a million to one. At his press conference, the boss of McGraw Hill brandished some of that tremendous amount of documentation, including fact-similies of checks that HR Hughes had counter-signed. The checks revealed at which bank they had been paid in. And that was a crucial piece of information. Hughes, on the phone, had zeroed in on the key question.

This money didn't enter any of my bank accounts. Where is it? Again, Irving hadn't thought things through. The Howard Hughes he imagined so vividly, the fictional Howard Hughes, might ponder legal action, but would then shy away, made helpless by his fear of appearing in public. But the actual real life Howard Hughes,

the billionaire Howard Hughes, and plenty of other options. For example, he could instruct a private detective to assemble evidence for the police. And he did. Thanks to those images of checks, the private detective had a lead. The detective did some digging at the Swiss bank, and soon discovered that the HR Hughes who had paid in the checks was a woman in her mid 30s, 5 for 3 and German. That sounded remarkably like Clifford Irving's wife. The detective sourced some photos of Edith and showed them to the cashier who dealt with Helga Hughes. She looked at them. The hair wasn't right, but the face, yes,

the face looked very close to what she remembered. When the lore got involved, the end came quickly. Irving's trial was a media circus, and there was no doubt about its star performer. The Baroness, Nina von Paland. The beautiful charismatic mistress captivated the public. She was on magazine front pages and TV chat shows. Edith, meanwhile, got two years in prison in Switzerland

for forgery and fraud. Later, she got a divorce. Clifford Irving was given a similar sentence in New York. He promptly wrote a memoir about the hoax in which he seems to struggle with the thought that he really did anything wrong. He talks about his magnificent jape, and how it had a certain grandeur, a reckless and artistic splendor. In the repressed middle-class world of America, where so few men try to do anything other than cut along the dotted line, could the failure itself of a bold and lunatic scheme be the image of ultimate success?

It's one way of looking at it. Although perhaps the person who got most success from this bold and lunatic scheme was a once famous Danish folk singer with a career to rebuild. Brookings flooded in and parts in Hollywood movies. The publicity said Nina's manager was worth as much as an Academy Award. The story of the fake autobiography has a coder. In 2006, 35 years after the hoax, Clifford Irving's memoir was turned into a film. It was called The Hoax. Clifford Irving was played by Richard Geir. Irving hated the film. He complained that it portrayed

him as a sleazy, money-grubbing lowlife. That wasn't true at all, he said. His motives weren't base. They were noble. Having thought of the hoax, he simply had to do it, like a mountaineer has to climb a mountain because it's there. Irving made clear that the film was nothing to do with him. He didn't want people to think that this fictional version of himself was who he really was. Perhaps at last, it come to understand how Howard Hughes must have felt. For a full list of our sources, please see the show notes at timhalford.com. Corsionary Tales is written by me Tim Haferd with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Ryan Dilly with support from Courtney Garino and Emily Vaughn. The sound design and original music is the work of Pascal Weiss. It features the voice talents of Ben Crow, Melanie

Gutridge, Stella Haafard, and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Mia Label, Jacob Iceberg, Heather Fane, John Schnarrs, Julia Barton, Carly McGleory, Eric Sandler, Royston Besserv, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Marano, Daniel LeCarn, and Maya Canig. Corsairry Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review. Tell a friend, tell two friends, and if you want to hear the show ads-free and listen to four exclusive cautionary tales short, then sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show page and Apple Podcast or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

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