One of the most colorful characters of Hollywood's Golden Age, Howard Hughes (1905-1976) was legendary for his visionary, provocative filmmaking as well as his feats in aviation, far-reaching investments and carefully guarded privacy. Born in Houston, Texas, he inherited a successful oil-drilling equipment company from his father and by age 20 was investing in Hollywood movies.

Our salute coincides with this month's theatrical release of The Aviator, Martin Scorsese's film biography of Hughes. Part One includes three silent films from Hughes' early career as a producer that have not been seen since their initial release, along with two key Hughes movies from the early sound era. The silent films are part of an extensive collection of memorabilia donated by the Hughes estate and the Howard Hughes Corporation to the Film Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and digitally restored through TCM funding by special arrangement with Flicker Alley. Each has a new score by composer Robert Israel.

Two Arabian Knights (1927), which won Lewis Milestone the only Academy Award® given for Best Comedy Direction, is about a pair of roughnecks who pose as Arabs in escaping from a World War I prison camp. The Racket (1928), nominated for Best Picture and also directed by Milestone, is an expose of Chicago gangsterdom. The Mating Call (1928) features Thomas Meighan and Renee Adoree in a screenplay by the celebrated Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Hughes made his name as a top-flight producer of the sound era with the aviation epic Hell's Angels (1930), which he also directed, and the newspaper comedy The Front Page (1931).

Part Two of TCM's tribute looks at Hughes' later film career. After creating an uproar with censors over The Outlaw (1943), featuring Jane Russell in the first "sexy" Western, he acquired a controlling interest in RKO, where he produced such movies as His Kind of Woman (1951) and Affair with a Stranger (1953). In his heyday a man of enormous power, wealth and charm, Hughes spent the final decade of his life as possibly the 's most mysterious recluse.

The third night of our Hughes festival, Howard Hughes: His Women, opens with Christian Sebaldt's documentary Howard Hughes: His Women and His Movies (2000), which offers insights from Jane Russell, Janet Leigh, Terry Moore and others. Following are three films starring women who were significant in Hughes' life: Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Jean Harlow in Bombshell (1933) and Ava Gardner in My Forbidden Past (1951).

by Roger Fristoe