The final years of RKO....and how Howard Hughes nailed the last nails into the coffin!

This episode, the final episode of the series, is about Howard Hughes' ownership of RKO and how his mental illness resulted in the destruction of the studio. His obsessive attention to meaningless details, his weird relationships with female actresses (acting as if by owning their contracts he owned them) and bad choices did a lot to ruining the once-proud lot. Now, bad and mediocre films were the norm and the studio struggled through his ownership to a slow, inexorable end. A few of the weird things you learn about him was that he never once visited the studio, destroyed womens' careers because they refused to sleep with him and seemed to enjoy the most artless and awful films...sometimes watching a film a hundred times or more!

A fascinating episode...not just because it is the history of Hollywood but because it's an interesting portrait of a crazy man who got away with so much because he was so incredibly rich and spoiled. And, my favorite part was when Stewart Granger talked about seriously considering killing Hughes because of all the unwelcomed advances he made on Granger's wife, Jean Simmons!

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Howard Hughes' purchase of RKO has a devastating effect on the studio.

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Hollywood the Golden Years: The RKO Story (1987)

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