Nearly everyone, young or old, remembers the unusual saga of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. During the late 1960’s, by most accounts he had become a recluse who’d cut himself off from the outside world. Even his own aides saw less of him. But my association with the tycoon was just beginning. Just before Thanksgiving in 1970 I was in Las Vegas to entertain at a convention. While there, I attended one of comedian Jack Benny’s performances at the Desert Inn (now the Wynn Hotel). After his show I saw Benny standing near the hotel’s casino entrance, watching his wife Mary Livingston play at a blackjack table. He noticed me and called out, “Are you looking for a spirit, Kenny?”  We talked for a couple of minutes and then I actually did see a spirit – that of former New York Mayor Jimmie Walker.  Walker passed away in 1946, after being in office 10 years. “Oh, really?” Benny smiled. “What does Walker say?” he asked. “He’s on his way up to the ninth floor, to the Howard Hughes suite,” I said.  Benny stopped smiling and became very attentive. It was well known that Hughes was living at the hotel, which he also happened to own.  But no one had seen him recently. I told Benny that Walker’s spirit would be back in a moment to tell us the latest Howard Hughes news. “I knew Jimmie Walker quite well,” Benny told me.  “I’ve got to wait for this!” Soon, I saw Walker’s spirit again and shared this with Benny. “What’s he saying?” he pressed. Walker told me, and I relayed the message to Benny – that Hughes had just left the hotel. “He’s gone to Nassau, in the Bahamas. No one will learn of this, including his top aides, till the first or second of December,” I was told by Walker’s spirit. “Now that’s news,” Benny said. We both shared a friendship with well-known syndicated newspaper columnist James Bacon.  When Benny said, “news”, I thought of Jim Bacon. “I wonder if he’d like to carry the story in his column,” I said. James Bacon had printed every story I’d told him about my spirit contacts with celebrities. We used the house phone to place a call to Bacon. His gravelly voice answered and I said hello.  “Alright, who’ve you heard from now?” he asked, as he always did. I told him the Howard Hughes story.  “Damn right I’ll use it in my column,” he said. “I’ll use it as soon as I can.” Bacon did use the story, on November 30.  As time went on and my psychic “scoop” was proven to be true, national papers including the National Enquirer ran a story of how I’d told James Bacon that Hughes had vanished from his Las Vegas suite and his top aides were unaware of it for a week. Before this, I’d given one other Howard Hughes story to Bacon. That time, I said that I psychically felt Hughes would be flying his own plane into Las Vegas. Bacon ran the story and then was due to go to Vegas himself to do a celebrity interview. When he arrived at the airport, one of the personnel said, “I read your column, Mr. Bacon. Believe me; two nights ago Howard Hughes did pilot his own plane here. Only a couple of people saw him.” Because he was so mysterious, I was often asked about Hughes’ whereabouts, especially as sightings of him became scarcer. There were rumors in the early 1970s that he’d passed away. I contacted his mother, Alene, on the other side to see what she would say. She told me her son was indeed still alive and often roaming incognito in Southern California. She said people no longer knew how to expect him to look, so they might see him and not even know it. She told me he suffered from severe hypoglycemia, which is low blood sugar.  “Illness is the main reason he’s avoided people,” her spirit said. “Stress makes his blood sugar drop and he passes out.” I appeared on the Merv Griffin Show and told this story. Merv, too, suffered from hypoglycemia and identified with its problems. Shortly afterwards I received in the mail two copies of the book “Sugar, Sex and Sanity” from author Isabelle Walsh Evans, also a low blood sugar victim. One copy had been signed for me. The other was autographed to Howard Hughes. Her book detailed ways to cope with the disease. I called to thank her and she said she had a feeling that if anyone could get the book to Howard Hughes, it would be me. “You have no idea how right you are about his illness,” she told me. She’d been in a Boston hospital in the late 1950s and a doctor told her she had hypoglycemia. She’d never heard of it and he explained the disease and how a particular diet could help control it. “You’re in good company,” the doctor said. “Another patient of mine that I treated for it in this hospital was Howard Hughes.” Following these events in the early 1970s, I had my first in-person encounter with the billionaire. I’d been going to the salon at the famed Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for a haircut and manicure. My barber, Harry Shirley, had been cutting hair for years for many famed personalities. We all affectionately called him Shirley. His manicurist, Ruth, had been with him at the Hollywood Roosevelt, too, for many years. One day I arrived a bit early for my manicure. Ruth was finishing with a previous client.  She called out to me teasingly, “Kenny – you’re one of the greatest psychics in the world. What do you have to tell me today?” I told her I’d give her a psychic message when she was doing my nails. “Ok, Kenny,” she smiled. She looked back to the man whose nails she was working on and said, “Are you satisfied with your nails, Mr. Hughes?” He looked sharply at her, then abruptly stood up and said, “Yes, they are fine. You don’t have to do any more.  How much do I owe you?”  It was clear that he was upset and anxious to leave. On his way out, he passed by me and asked if I had a business card.  I reached in my pocket and gave him one. As I sat with Ruth, I said, “What was the matter with that man? He seemed angry with you.” “Oh, I’ll probably never see him again and he’s a longtime customer,” she sighed.  “But he never wants me to mention his name and I just forgot.  That’s been a pact between us and I’m so sorry I broke it.  You know who it was, don’t you?  It was Howard Hughes.” I was impressed that I’d come that close to the intriguing Mr. Hughes. About two weeks later, I received three separate phone messages from someone who left just the initials H.R.H. and the message that he wanted a psychic reading. I called the man back and he still identified himself with initials only.  Ever the good businessman, he asked how long the reading would last and how much it would cost.  He also asked if he could come late at night as my last client. When I opened the door as he arrived for his appointment, I knew positively that it was the man Ruth had identified as Howard Hughes.  I can’t recall the essence of the reading nor would I reveal all the details anyway, but I do remember that he was very direct, very down-to-Earth and all business. We chatted briefly afterward and he said, “I enjoyed this.  I will come back, Kenny.”  He had several pieces of property he said he wanted my impression of and said he would bring photos and details next time. During my readings I always require people to call out their given name so that I can pick up vibrations from the sound of their voice. Spirits might also be more familiar with a given name than they would with a shortened name or nickname. He’d called out unhesitatingly “Howard” at that point. When he was leaving, though, I reverted back to formality and said, “Goodbye.” Instead, he said, “We’re alone. Call me Howard and I’ll call you Kenny.” I had occasion at a later date to be in Acapulco and gave a reading to him there, at the Hotel El Presidente, which he was rumored to own. How ironic that he had a reputation as being so elusive yet I’d given him two readings as though it was the easiest thing in the world. I lost touch with him, however, for several years. In 1975, it was widely assumed that he was desperately ill. I went into the Studio City, California branch of my bank.  While completing my transaction, I sensed someone staring at me.  I glanced to my side and at a distance was a man looking at me. I knew it was Hughes. As I was leaving I looked for him, but he’d disappeared. On April 6, 1976, worldwide newspapers carried the story that a long-nailed, long-haired and filthy-looking Hughes had passed away on a flight from Mexico to Houston, Texas. Psychically, I didn’t believe it. I contacted Alene Hughes’s spirit again and she said he was still not on the other side. In 1980, a British reporter set up a lunch interview with me at the famed Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  As lunch progressed, he brought out his tape recorder and began asking about my various celebrity clients and friends. All was going well. “So, tell me about your belief that Howard Hughes didn’t pass away but is in fact still alive,” he said.  With this, the tape recorder shut off. “Oh, let me just check something,” he apologized. “Maybe I need to turn the tape over.” But plenty of tape remained. When he played back some of our conversation everything was fine until the Howard Hughes question was asked. “Wait – let’s try again,” he suggested. He asked me about my claim that I’d been in touch with Alene Hughes in spirit and she’d told me her son was alive. I confirmed this, but the recorder shut off once more.  He became frustrated. “This is a new recorder. Let me just pop up to my room and get some fresh batteries.” He returned and we began again, with talk of another celebrity. The recorder worked beautifully when he did a playback. “And now to Howard Hughes,” he said. Click! Off went the recorder. I told him it was obvious the spirit world was protecting the release of information on Howard Hughes. We concluded the interview on a friendly note and he said he had more than enough material. A couple of months later, I answered my telephone to hear a male voice say, “It is H.R.H.” I wondered if it was a hoax. Nevertheless, I made an appointment for late at night as requested. When I opened the door that evening, there was no doubt it was Howard Hughes in the flesh, once again.  He had a twinkle in his eyes and explained that he had business in California and wanted to consult with me.  He mentioned this all very matter-of-factly, with no mention of the fact that according to the media, he was “dead.” Following our session I walked him to the door of my home. I watched in disbelief as he headed toward an old model, inexpensive car. I wondered, “Could this be the car he really drives? He could have a Rolls Royce, Bentley or any other exclusive model.”  I chuckled lightly and he said, “What are you laughing at?” I could tell, though, that he understood the humor in the situation. I said, “Howard, people would certainly wonder why a man of your stature is driving an old, outdated car.” He smiled and said, “Kenny – who do I need to impress?” That was my last time meeting with him. I stopped keeping track of him and truly do not know when he actually passed away. But his final words summed up the man.  He was quirky and totally candid and I treasure my association with him. ]]>