TYCOONS: THE HUGHES LEGACY SCRAMBLE FOR THE BILLIONS

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Quite a few of his fellow men, however, were more than ever interested in his riches, and the scramble was beginning for the money—or at least part of the action. Producer David Wolper trumpeted that he would make a film about Hughes titled—guess what?— The Billionaire. It will hardly be factual, since he intends to base it on the fake "autobiography" of Hughes that Writer Clifford Irving foisted on LIFE and McGraw-Hill before he was jailed for fraud. Hughes' former chef, Garry Reich, said that he was ready to sell the recipe for the fudge that Howard savored. Meanwhile, the Mexican authorities seemed piqued that Hughes had got away without leaving anything valuable behind. Two days after his death, Mexican detectives raided his Jasmine suite in the Acapulco penthouse and seized three aides, who had stayed behind to pack furniture and shred files. At week's end the Mexicans charged Hughes Aide Clarence Waldron, 41, with forging Hughes' signature on a Mexican tourist card. The other two were released. Under intense questioning, the aides disclosed that Hughes had been bedridden for years and was too weak to write. He had been unconscious for three days before he was flown to Houston.

The battle over the billions almost certainly will be fought by two groups that could hardly be more opposed. On the one side are Hughes' rather distant Houston relatives, all members of the city's old, tight-knit aristocracy. They live mostly in the genteel River Oaks area, belong to the best clubs (the Assembly, the Tejas Club), are members of the Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) and try—with unusual success—to keep out of the news.

The matriarch is the aged Mrs. Frederick Lummis, a Wellesley graduate (1911) who is the widow of a physician. Her son, William Rice Lummis, is a member of the prestigious Houston law firm of Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Jones, which has handled the Hughes family's private matters for half a century. There are three other Lummis children, all with at least potential claims to Hughes' estate: Frederick Rice Lummis Jr., a physician; Annette Neff, wife of a Houston banker; and Allene Russell, a Boston suburbanite. Another aunt has died, but three of her children could be claimants.

They are: Mrs. Sara Lindsey, a past president of the Houston Junior League; Mrs. Janet Davis, wife of the president of a die-casting company; and James Houstoun, an insurance man. Another cousin is Houston Accountant Howard Gano, who is the son of the brother of Hughes' mother. Most of them had not seen Hughes since he returned in triumph from his world flight in 1938. Says Sara Lindsey: "All the kids in the family rode in the parade in 1938. We haven't seen or heard from him since."