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Glam Descendant wrote: While reading an article on the passing of Melvin Dummar (subject of the Jonathan Demme film MELVIN & HOWARD), I stumbled upon unexpected trivia: in the film, Paul Le Mat (playing Melvin) tells his wife "Rome wasn't burned in a day."
Of course Melvin Dummar was unaware of any Howard Hughes connection to the dishevelled man he had picked up on US Route 95 and dropped off in Las Vegas back in 1967. It was a surprise in May 1976 when a mysterious stranger arrived at Dummar's Gas Station and Vehicle Recovery and handed him a copy of a will reportedly belonging to Howard Hughes (who had died a few weeks earlier). In this will Howard Hughes left Dummar $156 Million.
It took the Hughes Aircraft Corporation, various family members and a Nevada Court until 1978 to overturn this (alleged) will. The Dummar Versus Hughes Estate film (Melvin and Howard) was released in 1980. Dummar's kindness to the dishevelled stranger back in 1967 never earned him any reward.
"Reward" was released by The Teardrop Explodes the following year and contains the lyric "Live in solitude like Howard Hughes".
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