In West Los Angeles. Yes, I remember that I had a house up there. But I never met Balzer in my life.
Correct. Your lawyer told Balzer you wanted to rent the house for a year. Balzer said he had just built it and wasn’t interested in renting it. Your lawyer said, ‘But Mr. Hughes will pay a year’s rent equal to the cost of the house.’ Balzer said, ‘Well… that offer is hard to resist.’
It was a beautiful house, unusually secluded – suited me perfectly. I told you I had several houses I was renting, a few bungalows and a couple of larger ones like this man Balzer’s place. What’s the point of this story?
Your lawyer met with Balzer at the Beverly Hills Hotel to sign the lease. Balzer said, ‘I’ll give you the keys tomorrow as soon as I’ve moved my things out, and then Mr. Hughes can move in.’ Your lawyer said, ‘Mr. Hughes has already moved in, and never mind the keys, the locks have been changed.’ Balzer turned pale and said, ‘What about my clothes?’ Your lawyer said, ‘Go buy a new wardrobe and send the bill to Mr. Hughes care of me.’ Balzer got furious, and charged up to the house. He knew a way over the garden wall and in through the back door. He climbed over, but two guards grabbed him and heaved him back over the wall. They said, ‘Mr. Howard Hughes is renting this house, we don’t care who you are, get out.’
They never would have revealed that I was leasing it.
Balzer knew who he’d leased it to. He went out, bought new clothes, and sent you the bill.
In which case the bill was paid. I’m terribly sorry that the poor man was thrown over the garden wall. I had no knowledge that such a thing had happened.
There’s a climax to this. A year later, a year to the minute that Balzer had rented it to you, he showed up at the front door with two bodyguards of his own, resolutely determined to get in and to throw you out on the dot. But the door was open, and his old locks had been reinstalled, and when he walked in, the house was empty. Not a soul there. He ran around, of course, inspecting for damage –
There was no damage. Whoever said that is lying.
Balzer didn’t find any damage. However, he walked into the bedroom, where he’d slept exactly one year ago, and the cufflinks that he’d worn the night before, a year ago, were on the dresser, and the same yellow striped sheets he’d slept in were still on the bed. Nobody had slept there. The liquor cabinet, the kitchen, the living room, all were untouched. You’d never used the house, never slept there in the entire year, and it cost you, according to my friend, about $200,000 to rent the place.
It’s not true – I did sleep there. People tell ridiculous stories about me. They exaggerate terribly. I slept there several times.
But the bed was untouched, they were the same sheets. Balzer’s shirt was still hanging on the back of a chair the way he’d left it a year ago.
I didn’t sleep in the man’s bedroom. I slept in the maid’s room. I don’t need sunken bathrooms and a suntan machine. The servant’s quarters were much more private and quite comfortable, and nearer the back gate. I slept there at least three or four times, maybe more. That’s a while ago – I don’t remember.
I was recently in Palm Springs to see my aunt. She knew you years ago. Her name is Beabe Hamilburg and her husband was Mitchell Hamilburg. Do you remember them?
He was a talent agent. And if I’m not mistaken, I met your father through Mitch.
That could be. Beabe told me a story that I wanted to check on. She said that you flew her and Mitch and the actress Mitzi Gaynor and Mitzi’s mother down to Las Vegas for a weekend.
When was this?
In the Fifties. She didn’t know where she was going and they had no clothes packed, and she said you kept her virtually a prisoner in the Frontier Hotel for a week.
Hardly a prisoner, since they had the best suite in the hotel and I made sure they had ample chips to gamble with. Besides, now that I’m recalling some details of this, they came down to Vegas inadequately equipped for a week, and I sent a big choice of clothes for them to pick over. And jewelry for your aunt. And they had a chauffeured limousine at their disposal.
But Beabe said she never saw you the whole time they were there. What was the purpose of your inviting them if you didn’t see them?
I saw them, I’m sure, but the purpose of the trip, as you probably guessed, was for me to get into Mitzi Gaynor’s pants.
Did you need Beabe and Mitch to hold your hand?
Maybe to hold Mitzi’s mother’s hand. I’ve always needed other people around. The point is that I didn’t want to spend that much time with Mitzi. It was an interlude, nothing more. I wanted Mitzi occupied when I wasn’t with her, because I had business down in Vegas at the same time. And if I’m not mistaken, your Uncle Mitchell was Mitzi’s representative at the time. He introduced me to Mitzi. Very wholesome girl. I needed chaperons, that’s another point to the way I did things. I had the mother along, as I’ve mentioned. Of course she knew what was going on. But I wasn’t interested in marriage. I’ve said many times since, and at that time I said, I wasn’t going to get married again until I was in my fifties. I had too many things to do.
During the war didn’t you have sunken gasoline tanks in the San Fernando Valley?
Why would I do a thing like that? That’s ridiculous. Who told you such a thing?
Gasoline was rationed and it was hard to get. I don’t remember who told me.
It’s not true. One tank, that’s all – one five-thousand-gallon tank. That’s reasonable, I think. I owned a lot of Chevrolets.
Over-population is the over-riding critical problem today and it’s going to become more so as time goes on. And I don’t see any workable man-made solution to this problem.
Do you think it’s a possible solution to populate outer space? Other planets, or satellites?
No, I think that’s quite hopeless. It cost us the better part of several billion dollars to send three guys to the moon. I know a fair amount about this, because my equipment, Hughes equipment, was used up there and was key to the project. It’s a losing battle. I know that guy, Armstrong, the astronaut, said, ‘One giant step for mankind.’ One step forward, two steps back, that’s about the size of it. Technology can’t solve this problem. It will be solved by nature, but not in a way that we’ll enjoy. New and virulent diseases can sweep away two thirds of humanity as they did in the time of the Black Death, before any solutions can be found and applied. I think that it’s a historical necessity that something of this sort will happen. The deck is stacked against humankind. The world is only able to hold a certain number of people and we’re fast approaching that limit. My vision of the world in a hundred years is one great big India. When I was out there I saw what could happen, and I know how horrible and frightening it is. And it could easily happen, even in the United States.
You don’t think it’s possible to colonize outer space, in any form?
Not for the next five to seven hundred years, that’s my estimate. But there certainly are observers from other planets down here, checking us out, putting us into the scheme of things. UFOs, most of them, are not optical illusions. I have a copy of the Air Force’s top-secret Blue Book that tells the true tale of the so-called flying saucers.
I’m sure there are, at the very least, hundreds of inhabited planets in our galaxy alone, not to mention how many thousands of other galaxies, and some of them have been inhabited for millions of years.