Man Who Claimed Howard Hughes Inheritance Dies in Nevada

Melvin Dummar, whose tale of rescuing eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes on a desert road was portrayed in the 1980 movie, “Melvin and Howard,” died Sunday under hospice care in rural Nevada at the age of 74. His brother, Ray, said that Melvin had battled with cancer for years, and had not mentioned the story or the will in 10 years.

Dummar claimed that he found the billionaire in 1967 on a dusty road outside of Las Vegas near a brothel, bloody, unshaven, and face-down. He did not believe Hughes when said who he was as Dummar gave him a ride into the city. Eight years later, a handwritten document was delivered to the gas station Dummar owned, addressed to the president of the Mormon church.

The so-called “Mormon will” allegedly also named The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as beneficiary of $156 million, the same amount Dummar claimed Hughes bequeathed him when he died in 1976. A U.S. appeals court in 2008 disagreed when it affirmed a Nevada state court jury’s decision 30 years earlier that found the will was a fake.

See Ken Ritter, Man Who Claimed Howard Hughes Inheritance Dies in Nevada, Yahoo News, December 10, 2018.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Florida Probate Attorney) for bringing this article to my attention.

Special thanks to Logan Underwood for bringing this article to my attention.