The Big Picture
The Aviator
depicts Howard Hughes’ life accurately but omits sinister behaviors towards women.
Howard Hughes’ childhood introduced him to technology, media, and flying.
Hughes’ success with
Hell’s Angels
propelled him to Hollywood stardom, despite problematic behavior.
Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator is a portrait of aviation pioneer, filmmaker, and lothario Howard Hughes. The film is mostly accurate in its depictions of Hughes’ business endeavors, daredevil stunts, and romantic pursuits. It also adheres relatively closely to the historical record in its portrayal of Hughes’ adventures (or misadventures) in Hollywood. But The Aviator does stray from the facts in a number of ways, mostly by omitting the more complicated and sinister aspects of Hughes’ behavior, especially towards women. More recent portrayals of Hughes, such as Karina Longworth’s nonfiction book Seduction, delve into the details of Hughes’ manipulative and exploitative tactics, which The Aviator mostly glosses over. As we explore the true story of Howard Hughes, we’ll see how Scorsese’s superb film nails certain aspects of Hughes’ character, while shying away from more disturbing truths.
The Aviator
A biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes’ career from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s.
Release Date December 17, 2004
Runtime 169
What Was Howard Hughes’ Childhood Like?
The trajectory of Howard Hughes’ life cannot be understood without first taking a look at his family. His father, Howard Hughes Sr., was the founder of Hughes Tool Company, which manufactured drill bits for the oil industry. His uncle, Rupert Hughes, was a successful novelist, historian, screenwriter, and film director who worked on dozens of films throughout his nearly five-decade-long career in Hollywood. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the young Howard Hughes Jr. quickly gravitated towards engineering and filmmaking.
Born in Houston, Texas, Howard Hughes soon made a name for himself at the tender age of eleven, when he reportedly constructed the city’s first wireless radio transmitter. He then became one of the first licensed ham radio operators in Houston, demonstrating early interest in both technology and media. But it was flying that Hughes initially found most intoxicating. He took his first flying lesson at age 14 and later attended the California Institute of Technology to study aeronautical engineering. Both of his parents died when he was still a teenager, resulting in him maintaining control over a vast family fortune at only 19 years old.
When Did Howard Hughes Arrive in Hollywood?
Image via Miramax Films
What to do with a colossal sum of money? This was young Howard Hughes’ big decision when he entered adulthood. When he was 20, he married Ella Botts (The Aviator doesn’t depict this marriage at all), and the newlyweds ran off to Los Angeles in pursuit of a film career. According to BrightLights Film Journal, Hughes’ first project was financing (to the tune of $80,000) and producing a short film called Swell Hogan. But Hughes reportedly found the film to be so awful that he ordered it destroyed. Howard’s uncle, Rupert Hughes, soon realized that the industry regarded his young nephew as merely a foolish amateur with deep pockets. Rupert discouraged Howard from pursuing additional film projects, believing it could result in him wasting away his fortune. Howard, being headstrong and obsessive, ignored his uncle’s advice.
Howard founded a production company called Caddo and teamed up with director Lewis Milestone to produce a series of successful comedies, including The Front Page (which was later remade as the screwball classic His Girl Friday). But Howard’s first real introduction to Hollywood was his 1930 war epic, Hell’s Angels.
What Happened on the Set of Howard Hughes’ ‘Hell’s Angels’?
Image via Warner Bros
In The Aviator, we meet adult Howard Hughes during his production of Hell’s Angels, and much of what we see in Scorsese’s film is accurate. Per BrightLights Film Journal, Hughes spent three years of his life obsessively working on what he thought would be his masterpiece. He financed the picture entirely on his own dime, determined not to let studio bigwigs interfere in his process. But Howard’s independent-mindedness soon grew into irrational arrogance, as he demanded that his stunt pilots risk their lives for the sake of his movie. When they refused to do so, Hughes hopped into a plane and attempted to perform an aerial stunt on his own. Predictably, he crashed, and barely escaped with his life.
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As depicted in The Aviator, the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 launched Hollywood into the era of synchronized sound. Hughes decided it was necessary to keep up with the latest trend, and he began extensive reshoots on Hell’s Angels. Hughes recast one of the lead roles, discovering a young Jean Harlow. He soon began having an affair with her, in addition to another affair he was having with silent star Billie Dove. Thus would begin Hughes’ long, sordid history of seducing, using, and discarding dozens of women. His wife Ella became an inconvenience, and she was banished to Houston. Eventually, she unsurprisingly filed for divorce. Her story would not be included in The Aviator.
How Did ‘Hells Angels’ Change Howard Hughes’ Status in Hollywood?
Image via United Artists
Despite predictions of disaster, Hell’s Angels ended up being moderately successful. The film earned mediocre reviews and did well at the box office, although it would take many years for Hughes to recoup the film’s massive budget. But the film did make Hughes a fixture in Hollywood, proving that he was not quite the lunatic rube the industry had made him out to be. Although his involvement in actual film production waxed and waned over the years, Hughes used his status in the industry to meet young actresses. When he liked one of them, he would sign them to a contract. But rather than secure them acting roles, he would instead assert total control over not just their careers, but their entire lives. He repeated this practice over and over again, sinking many blossoming careers and tormenting women he claimed to love.
According to Seduction author Karina Longworth, Hughes “wanted to have ownership over things, whether he played with them or not.” In The Aviator, we do see signs of Hughes’ possessiveness, especially towards Faith Domergue (Kelli Garner). But we also see his romantic interests, such as Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale) push back against his more ridiculous demands and assert their independence. Sadly, this was not the case with many of the more helpless and naive young women Howard placed under contract. As The New Republic succinctly phrased it, “The film minimizes Hughes’s aggressive, transactional, and compulsive womanizing.”
How Accurate Is ‘The Aviator’s Depictions of Howard Hughes’ Mental Health Struggles?
In The Aviator, an opening scene suggests that Howard Hughes’ obsessive-compulsive disorder may have stemmed from his mother’s fear of disease and uncleanliness. These assertions about his mother’s behavior seem to be based on facts.According to OCD-UK, “his mother checked him every day for diseases and was cautious about what he ate and would have him sleep in her bedroom most nights.” But there are a variety of other explanations for why Hughes eventually retreated from public life and isolated himself inside ritzy hotel rooms for months on end. It’s possible that he may have also suffered from allodynia, a condition that causes someone to find ordinary sensations painful. This might explain why Hughes often refused to wear clothes since the sensation of garments on his skin could’ve caused him physical pain.
It also seems likely that the many plane and automobile accidents that Howard Hughes suffered throughout his life had an impact on his mental well-being. Longworth has said that she believes “his brain was changed by head injuries that were not understood at the time.” The Aviator accurately portrays much of the physical and psychological hell that Hughes lived through, allowing us to understand how he ended up being popularly known as an eccentric old hermit.
The Aviator is now available to watch on Prime Video in the U.S.
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