Robert Maheu

In the 15 years that Robert Maheu served as the public face of Howard Hughes, he never once met his reclusive and eccentric boss in person. A former operative for both the CIA and the FBI--he notoriously solicited the help of the Mafia in an assassination plot against Fidel Castro--Maheu first came to know Hughes when the famous aviator enlisted his help in spying on an ex-girlfriend.

Before long, Maheu, who died Aug. 4 at age 90, became Hughes' right-hand man. During the 1960s, when Hughes lived in seclusion in a penthouse atop the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas, "Maheu was running around town, cutting deals, assuaging politicians, making things happen--and keeping Howard apprised every step of the way," explains Pat Broeske, who interviewed Maheu extensively while writing a biography of Hughes.

Over time, the billionaire's connection with reality had eroded so severely that Maheu--with whom he communicated solely by phone and memo--was his primary source for learning about the goings-on of the outside world.

In a way, Maheu represented everything Hughes wasn't. "Hughes was drawn to men who could do things that he couldn't do," Broeske says. To Hughes, Maheu "was like one of those guys out of a spy movie: he kind of bested James Bond."