The "Iron Man" film, starring Robert Downey Jr., was a huge box-office and critical success earlier this year, yet a lot of moviegoers probably didn't realize that the Marvel comic book series on which the movie was based was inspired by none other than Howard Hughes.
Stan Lee, creator of "Iron Man," said he was thinking of Hughes when he invented the character Tony Stark in the early 1960s. "I kind of had Howard Hughes in mind when I was thinking of Tony Stark," Lee says in the DVD extras to the film. "Without being crazy, he was kind of Howard Hughes and he became very popular."
Director Jon Favreau, reportedly a Hughes fan, added another connection: Portions of the movie were filmed in the Southern California hangar where Hughes built Hercules, aka the Spruce Goose.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Two columnists cover Dummar case
I wrote about the Melvin Dummar case in my column today in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. To see the column, click here.
Lee Benson also tackled the subject in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. See his column here.
One problem with Benson's column: He makes a huge leap of logic that I certainly could not support. Considering the new evidence on which Dummar has based his new court case, Benson writes: "It seems irrefutable now that Dummar indeed picked up Hughes in 1967 and likely saved his life."
Oh really? I speculate in my book that Dummar may have picked up somebody in the desert in 1967, and that person might have identified himself as Howard Hughes. But there is nothing "irrefutable" about the claim that it actually was Hughes. The new evidence is highly circumstantial and full of holes. Benson's statement reminds me of the famous "X-Files" mantra, "I want to believe."
Lee Benson also tackled the subject in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City. See his column here.
One problem with Benson's column: He makes a huge leap of logic that I certainly could not support. Considering the new evidence on which Dummar has based his new court case, Benson writes: "It seems irrefutable now that Dummar indeed picked up Hughes in 1967 and likely saved his life."
Oh really? I speculate in my book that Dummar may have picked up somebody in the desert in 1967, and that person might have identified himself as Howard Hughes. But there is nothing "irrefutable" about the claim that it actually was Hughes. The new evidence is highly circumstantial and full of holes. Benson's statement reminds me of the famous "X-Files" mantra, "I want to believe."
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Appeals court rejects Dummar suit
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has rejected Melvin Dummar's latest attempt to claim a piece of Howard Hughes' fortune. The court ruled Friday that Dummar's case was sufficiently litigated during a 1978 jury trial.
Dummar claims to have saved Hughes' life in the Nevada desert in 1967 and then to have been named in Hughes' will as a one-sixteenth beneficiary of his empire, or $156 million. But the 1978 trial determined that the handwritten will was a fake.
In 2006, Dummar took another shot at the case after pilot Robert Deiro came forward with a story of repeatedly flying Hughes from Las Vegas to a rural brothel around the same time as Dummar allegedly picked up the billionaire near the brothel south of Goldfield. Deiro said that during his last flight with Hughes, the pilot fell asleep at the brothel while waiting for Hughes and when he woke up, Hughes was gone. The theory is that Hughes left the brothel for some reason during the night and was left for dead in the desert a few miles away, where Dummar picked him up and drove him back to Las Vegas.
Many people who worked closely with Hughes at the time insist that he never left the penthouse floor of the Desert Inn Hotel between 1966 and 1970, and they dismiss Dummar's and Deiro's stories as impossible.
In my Hughes book, I have a long chapter dissecting the Dummar story. I interviewed Dummar for several hours in a motel room in Tonopah, during which he recited the story he has told so many times over the years. After the book came out in February, I spent several hours with Deiro as well, during which he told me his story. I plan to post a summary of that latter conversation on this blog soon. I think I'll also call Deiro again and get his reaction to the appeals court ruling.
Dummar claims to have saved Hughes' life in the Nevada desert in 1967 and then to have been named in Hughes' will as a one-sixteenth beneficiary of his empire, or $156 million. But the 1978 trial determined that the handwritten will was a fake.
In 2006, Dummar took another shot at the case after pilot Robert Deiro came forward with a story of repeatedly flying Hughes from Las Vegas to a rural brothel around the same time as Dummar allegedly picked up the billionaire near the brothel south of Goldfield. Deiro said that during his last flight with Hughes, the pilot fell asleep at the brothel while waiting for Hughes and when he woke up, Hughes was gone. The theory is that Hughes left the brothel for some reason during the night and was left for dead in the desert a few miles away, where Dummar picked him up and drove him back to Las Vegas.
Many people who worked closely with Hughes at the time insist that he never left the penthouse floor of the Desert Inn Hotel between 1966 and 1970, and they dismiss Dummar's and Deiro's stories as impossible.
In my Hughes book, I have a long chapter dissecting the Dummar story. I interviewed Dummar for several hours in a motel room in Tonopah, during which he recited the story he has told so many times over the years. After the book came out in February, I spent several hours with Deiro as well, during which he told me his story. I plan to post a summary of that latter conversation on this blog soon. I think I'll also call Deiro again and get his reaction to the appeals court ruling.
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