Town seeks to cash in on motel, site of recluse's secret weddin

TONOPAH, Nev. -- The last thing Howard Hughes wanted when he married the Hollywood heartthrob was a media frenzy.

Paul McCartney and other celebrities might marry in such romantic getaways as Irish castles, but the reclusive billionaire tied the knot with actress Jean Peters in -- of all places -- a struggling mining town miles from nowhere.

Nearly a half-century later, a group of local residents is trying to save the obscure site of the secret Jan. 12, 1957, wedding: Room 33 of the L&L Motel.

Supporters want to turn the room and office below into a Howard Hughes Museum and Wedding Chapel to lure visitors to the town that once thrived as a center of political and financial influence in Nevada but today is little more than a pit stop on U.S. 95.

Locals embrace the wedding's novelty, saying it was as improbable as Bill Gates getting married at a Motel 6.

"We think we have a natural," Tonopah businessman Bob Perchetti said.

Perchetti and others want to restore the room and office to their original condition and raze the rest of the shuttered, 51-year-old motel.

Plans call for the room to be available for weddings and the office to house a museum featuring exhibits on the mysterious wedding and Hughes' role in Nevada history.

Bought seven casinos

While holed up at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas from 1966 to 1970, Hughes bought seven casinos and scores of mines, including one in Tonopah. He helped transform Las Vegas from a mob-dominated gambling town to a corporate-owned modern resort destination.

Before becoming the "invisible man" in Nevada, Hughes was a movie producer, record-setting aviator, Trans World Airlines owner and major defense contractor.

Until recently, little has been known about the quickie, no-frills wedding in Tonopah because of Hughes' penchant for secrecy.

The wedding became the subject of lore in this central Nevada town of 2,800 residents. Tonopah is midway between Reno and Las Vegas, more than a 200-mile drive in either direction.

Surrounded by stark mountains, sagebrush and mine shafts, Tonopah features the grandiose Mizpah Hotel, ramshackle old buildings and other reminders of its glory years a century ago when mining thrived. A McDonald's is one of its few concessions to modernity.

Local legend has it that Hughes and Peters lingered a few days at the L&L on their honeymoon and even allowed some locals to attend the wedding ceremony. Hughes also is said to have visited Tonopah after buying a mine here.

Former Hughes aides D. Martin Cook and Robert Maheu debunk the myths, but acknowledge the wedding took place at the modest motel.

"The site is not surprising if you understand Howard Hughes," Maheu said. "Privacy was more important to him than glamorous surroundings."

Cook, a wedding witness, said the only people in the motel room other than the happy couple and himself were Hughes aide James Arditto and Justice of the Peace Walter Bowler, who performed the five-minute ceremony.

To avoid publicity, Hughes and Peters registered for a marriage license under fictitious names: he as G.A. Johnson and she as Marian Evans. Arditto, who oversaw wedding arrangements, also used a fictitious name as a witness: James Perry. Nevada law now is clear that wedding parties must use real names.

Hughes and Peters flew in and out of Tonopah that day from Los Angeles, with the entire Nevada stay lasting about two hours, said Cook, the only one of the five still alive.

Peters appeared in 19 films with such stars as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Ray Milland and Spencer Tracy. She left Hollywood after marrying Hughes, who was 21 years her senior.

"Jean Peters was lovely and beautiful," recalled Cook, a 76-year-old retired Anaheim, Calif., lawyer. "She was dressed in regular clothes: a skirt and blouse. She was extremely happy. It was obvious they were in love.

"Howard Hughes didn't show his emotions as much as her, but he was real happy. The only time I ever got a handshake from him was after we got back to Los Angeles that day," he said.

Behind-the-scenes role

Then-Nye County District Attorney William Beko played a major, behind-the-scenes role in the wedding, Perchetti said.

Beko selected hunting partner Bowler to perform the ceremony and the L&L as the wedding site. The motel, one of only two in town at the time, was owned by then-Assemblyman Leroy David, a close Beko friend.

Beko, who later became a district judge, did not file the marriage certificate until more than four months after the wedding.

"Bill promised Howard Hughes that it would be kept absolutely secret and he never broke a promise," said Beko's widow, Dorothy. Bowler and David also have since died.

The cloud of secrecy prevented the news media from learning about the wedding until two months later.

Afterward, Hughes' mental condition deteriorated, and both he and Peters vanished from public view. Except for a brief period, they lived apart.

In 1970, she filed for divorce, but refused to discuss the marriage the rest of her life. It was Hughes' second and final marriage and her second of three marriages. Hughes died in 1976 at age 70; she died in 2000 at age 73.

"If not for Hughes' erosive mental condition, I believe it would have been a lasting relationship," said Pat Broeske, co-author of "Howard Hughes: The Untold Story."

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a native of another old Nevada mining boomtown about 250 miles to the south, said he thinks the Hughes museum and wedding chapel would draw visitors to Tonopah.