A predator feeding on its creation.
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This month marks the 45th anniversary of the publication debut of BEAVER magazine (1976). The final print issue was Mar 1984.


APRIL 1976 ON THE WORLD STAGE Eccentric American billionaire Howard Hughes has died aged 70. One of the world's richest men, Mr. Hughes was best known as a movie magnate, aviation pioneer and businessman who spent the last 20 years out of the public eye living as a notorious recluse in hotel penthouses around the world. He died on a plane flying him from Acapulco,Mexico to Houston,Texas for medical treatment at the Methodist Hospital. There has been much speculation in the media about his lifestyle with some reports saying he had an extreme phobia of germs that kept him out of contact with the outside world -- predominantly residing in darkened rooms, eating little and wearing nothing for fear of catching a disease. After years of neglect, his was almost physically unrecognisable and the FBI had to take fingerprints to identify it. Hughes is believed to have lived on the top floor of the Xanadu Princess Hotel in Freeport,Bahamas since 1973 (after his purchase the year before). Before that he had spent a few months in a penthouse at London's Inn on the Park, and some years in Managua,Nicaragua. From November 1966 until December 1970, he occupied the top floor of the Desert Inn in Las Vegas where he bought several properties, casinos and mining claims. Howard Robard Hughes was born in Houston,Texas in December 1905. He was just 17 when he took over his father's Hughes Tool Company that patented a drill bit used on most of the world's oil drills. The company became the foundation of his fortune which now stands at around $2 billion. He used his wealth to become a Hollywood producer where he made such films as Hell's Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1941). During this time he "discovered" actresses Jean Harlow and Jane Russell and was reported to have had affairs with Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Gene Tierney and Ava Gardner. He married actress Jean Peters in January 1957 but they divorced in June 1971. Hughes had a passion for aviation and founded the Hughes Aircraft Company in February 1934, even setting a world speed record flying his own plane in September 1935. Three years later in July 1938 he flew around the world in record time taking just 3 days. His company designed and constructed airplanes for commercial and military use, and during the 1940's and 1950's a subsidiary - Hughes Electronics, was one of the major suppliers of weapons to the US Air Force and Navy. He designed several aircraft himself including the massive 8-engine 'Spruce Goose', made mainly out of birch and designed to carry 700 passengers. It had been commissioned by the US government for use in World War II but was not completed until after the war in June 1946. It flew only once with him at the controls in November 1947. That same year back in July, Hughes was nearly killed in an air crash while testing one of his prototype other planes - the XF-11. In the early 1950's he gave up control of the Hughes Aircraft Company to an independent executive board following senior executive departures. In December 1953, he donated all his stock in the company to his new Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Delaware founded for biomedical research. Hughes was embroiled in several legal lawsuits against him by aggrieved employees with the most costly involving TransWorld Airlines (TWA) of which he had been a majority shareholder since April 1939. He was forced to sell up in May 1966 after a wrangle over his failure to invest in jets for the fleet.