Melvin and Howard
Melvin and Howard is a 1980 American comedy-drama film directed by Jonathan Demme. The screenplay by Bo Goldman was inspired by real-life Utah service station owner Melvin Dummar, who was listed as the beneficiary of USD$156 million in a will allegedly handwritten by Howard Hughes that was discovered in the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. A novelization of Goldman's script later was written by George Gipe.
The film starred Paul Le Mat, Jason Robards and, in an Academy Award-winning performance, Mary Steenburgen.
Plot
In the opening scene, Howard Hughes loses control of and crashes his motorcycle in the Nevada desert. That night, he's discovered lying on the side of a stretch of U.S. Highway 95 where Melvin Dummar stops his pickup truck so he can relieve himself. The disheveled stranger, refusing to allow the Good Samaritan to take him for medical help, asks him to drive him to Las Vegas. En route, the two engage in stilted conversation until Dummar cajoles his passenger into joining him in singing a Christmas song he wrote. Hughes then suggests they sing his favorite song Bye Bye Blackbird, and they do. The man warms up to his rescuer and before he's dropped off at the Desert Inn (which Hughes owns and therein resides), he identifies himself as the reclusive billionaire.