Includes: 22 telegrams from Howard Hughes to Katherine Hepburn - 13 are from January 19 to March 12, 1937; 4 are from March 8 to March 30, 1938; 4 are from March 21 to March 27, 1939; and 1 is undated. Plus 2 handwritten drafts of telegrams, undated but thought to be from March 1939, written by Hepburn and addressed to H.R. Hughes. Together, 24 items.

In June 1935, Howard Hughes received an invitation for lunch from close friend Cary Grant, who was filming "Sylvia Scarlett," in Malibu. Hughes flew his Sikorsky amphibian, landing it on the golf course where director George Cukor and co-star Katharine Hepburn were playing. While Hepburn, in her autobiography "Me," remembered Hughes’ entrance as “rather nervy and romantic, in a bravado sort of way,” she couldn’t forget it. A year later, they began an affair that lasted for more than two years and attracted a media frenzy of attention. The first telegrams from Hughes to Hepburn are from one of their most celebrated periods in their courtship. The very first, dated January 19, 1937, sent at 10:34 pm is, unusually, addressed directly to Hepburn at the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago, where she was starring in the theater production of Jane Eyre. Most of the telegrams were sent in the name of Hepburn’s assistant, Emily Perkins, to avoid unwanted attention. It reads, “Darling, cannot call you this evening because shall be on a train bound for that great Midwestern metropolis considered by some the seat of culture and learning supposed to arrive six something in the afternoon probably not in time to see you before the theatre so will try to contain myself until eleven thirty, love Dan” (as in Dynamite, one of their nicknames for each other). Hughes was on his way to meet Hepburn in Chicago. What it neglected to mention is that very day Hughes had flown from Burbank to Newark, lowering his own transcontinental speed record and at one point losing consciousness when his oxygen system malfunctioned. Hughes spent a few days in Chicago, causing speculation of a possible marriage between the two that Hepburn had to release a statement to deny. Hughes then left for the Bahamas and onto Washington, D.C., where he received the Harmon International Trophy as aviator of the year. The only other Americans to win this award were Charles Lindbergh and Wiley Post. He then wired Hepburn “Safe and down in Washington. Also Downhearted, Love, Dan.” All of the 1938 telegrams are addressed to Emily Perkins at 211 South Muirfield Road, Hughes’ home that Hepburn had moved into approximately a year earlier and where she spent time when she was not on the road or with her family at their Connecticut home, Fenwick. These include one simple telegram, “Here I am Boss, hope to see you tomorrow, Love Bobb Boss Bobb." While it has been widely reported that Hughes and Hepburn ended their affair in the fall of 1938, the March 1939 telegrams between the two speak of a deep friendship, if not the possibility of an ongoing relationship. For instance, Hughes’ telegram, dated March 21, 1939 and addressed to Emily Perkins at the Ritz Carlton in Boston reads: “Conkshell, you are terrific, but you might say something nice amid cleverness and reminders which make me lonesome. Don’t worry about any English duty, light or heavy, Love, Boss." One of Hepburn’s handwritten drafts, which appears to be from the same time period reads: “Arrived one item, missing one boss, lonely one mouse, empty, one conkshell.” While the Hughes-Hepburn love affair did fade in 1939, that year, Hughes helped Hepburn revive her film career by purchasing and then reselling her the movie rights to the Philip Barry play, The Philadelphia Story, which was specifically written for Miss Hepburn by Barry.