Hughes-Hepburn love telegrams go for auction

Twenty-two telegrams Howard Hughes sent to Katharine Hepburn during their brief romance in the late 1930s are to be put up for auction.

Dallas-based Heritage-Slater Americana is holding the auction of items associated with the reclusive billionaire, whose life of designing and flying planes and producing movies was dramatised in 2004’s The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes.

The auction was to begin tonight and end tomorrow. Included is a telegram that Hughes sent to Hepburn on January 19, 1937 – the day he set a new air record, flying from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey, in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

The flight was over, and Hughes apparently was running behind schedule to meet Hepburn at Chicago’s Ambassador Hotel before she performed in a play.

“Supposed to arrive six something in the afternoon,” the Western Union telegram reads. “Probably not in time to see you before the theatre so will try to contain myself until eleven thirty, love Dan.”

Dan was short for Dynamite, one of several nicknames the two shared, said Michael Riley of Heritage-Slater Americana.

Riley said the owner of the documents, which include two 1939 hand-written draft telegrams by Hepburn, isn’t being identified.

Other items in the auction include a brown hat with the initials “HRH”.

“He had so much money, he had so much power,” said Riley. “He truly was a legendary aviator. He did incredible things in terms of flying. He led the kind of life a lot of people would like to live,” he said.

Hughes died in Houston, Texas, on April 5, 1976. He was 72 years old.