7. The Tycoon and the Teenage Girl
Jane Greer caught Howard Hughes’ eye in 1942 when she was eighteen years old and he saw her in a magazine. Greer’s mother worked for the War Department, and she ensured that her daughter was one of three young women chosen to model uniforms for the new Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in 1942. When Greer appeared in the June 8th, 1942, issue of Life magazine, many across the country were smitten. Their numbers included Howard Hughes. He became infatuated with the teenage girl, sponsored her, and sent her to Hollywood to become an actress. The eccentric tycoon liked to collect people – especially beautiful women – like normal folk collect stamps. So he signed the eighteen-year-old model to a personal contract.
“Personal contract” was as creepy as it sounds: soon after she signed, Hughes told the teenager that he never wanted her to marry anyone. At first, that was not a problem for the inexperienced Greer, who initially liked Hughes. As she recalled years later: “I found him rather endearing, like a child. His idea was to go to the amusement park … He won a large collection of Kewpie dolls for me“. Trouble arose when Greer eventually began to take an interest in other men. That enraged Hughes, who reasoned that he had made her so she was his, and that he had every right to break her if she stopped being his.