Howard Hughes is the archetypal super-rich hermit, said never to have trimmed his nails and to have kept urine in jars. But who was he really? Nicholas Barber takes a look.

Howard Hughes (1905-1976) ... into seclusion years earlier, the medical examiner emphasized that the eccentric Hughes did not have three-inch long fingernails, ...

Before he became the circus-freak hermit with long hair and fingernails, Howard Hughes was one of the most colorful personalities ever in show business, ...

Melvin Dummar, who made international headlines and inspired the 1980 film “Melvin and Howard” with claims that Hughes had bequeathed him more than $150 million, has died. News Home Page ...

Dummar, a delivery driver who falsely claimed that billionaire Howard Hughes left a handwritten will bequeathing him $156 million, ... his hair and fingernails grown long. ...

By 1968 Hughes had become the ghoulish recluse that history would remember. He was only 63, but looked thirty years older. Emaciated, with freakishly long hair and nails, the wheelchair-bound ...