interesting facts

These gems just wouldn't fit anywhere else, but we want you to see them.  Here is more insight into the life of Howard Ruff, written by himself over the years.

Amazing... just amazing!

  • My 1978 book and my newsletter, The Ruff Times, helped start and sustain the great gold and silver Bull Market of the 1970s, and I made several hundred percent for my subscribers in the metals! That was my first financial home run. But that’s not all I have done.
  • I once traded one spool of 8 pound test monofilament fishing line to the chief of a village in the Amazon jungle in return for two monkey skull necklaces, a blow gun and darts, a bow and arrows and an Anaconda snake skin. And, after consulting with Kay, I respectfully declined the Chief’s offer of a night with one of his four wives in return for a second spool.
  • I’ve walked through the dramatic story of the death of Rasputin, the Mad Monk, right on the actual murder scene in a restored palace in Leningrad.
  • I’ve interviewed (with Jack Anderson) newly elected President Havel of Czechoslovakia in Prague Palace while he was wearing Nike shoes and a UCLA Bruins sweat shirt. He had been a political prisoner until the Iron Curtain went down.
  • I’ve visited the Forbidden City and the Great Wall in China, Machu Pichu, the Imperial Palace in Bangkok, wild game preserves in Kenya and South Africa, snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef and watched great sea turtles lay their eggs and their baby turtles hatch.
  • Ollie North, my Washington staff and I persuaded Ronald Reagan to send Stinger missiles to the Afghan Freedom Fighters, which bogged down the Soviet army in Afghanistan for six years, which led to Soviet bankruptcy, which led to Gorbachev withdrawing Russian financial and military support from Eastern Europe, Cuba and Nicaragua, which led to a break out of freedom, which led to the crash of the Iron Curtain.
  • I have sung as a featured artist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Philadelphia orchestra, the National Symphony, and on the Ed Sullivan Show. I also performed in, conducted or directed hundreds of performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operas and became deeply involved with the Utah Lyric Opera society as a performer, director and General Manager, and was a church choir director at age 16.
  • I had my own national TV talk show and daily two-minute radio commentary in more than 300 markets.
  • I was called a liar in an angry speech on the floor of Congress by Congressman Neal of South Carolina, and was denounced by Pravda, Tass, and Soviet controlled radio Kabul as a “radical reactionary.”
  • I once refused a phone call from an angry President Ronald Reagan. He swore at me, and then sent me an unsolicited, personally autographed portrait as a peace offering. 
  • A ruffled Jimmy Carter succeeded in knocking 50 stations off my radio syndicate by threatening them with trouble at license renewal time if they didn’t cancel my show.
  • I married a Celestial woman, Kay. We’ve been through thick and thin (I used to be thin) for 49 years, probably because we have one thing in common; we’re both in love with the same man!
  • We have given birth to nine children, adopted four teenagers, and helped raise 18 foster children — and endured the heart-breaking death of one child.
  • I broke up an orphanage run by American pedophiles in Bangkok, which resulted in jailing them and caused an international incident between ABC, me and the Thai government. I set up my own orphanage in Bangkok to take care of the children. 
  • I was on Donahue, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Merv Griffin, Dinah Shore, Oprah, Regis and Kathy Lee, Crossfire, PBS Late Night, Nightline, Charlie Rose, McNeil Lehrer, Wall Street Week, and hundreds of local radio and TV talk shows, many of them multiple times.
  • I have had dinner with Chiang Kai Shek and Madame Chiang, the Secretary to the King of Denmark, and President Synghman Rhee, the Father of modern Korea. 
  • I sang the Star Spangled Banner at the White House numerous times as a soloist for the Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants. 
  • I sold 100,000 copies of an album, Howard Ruff Sings, with the Osmond brothers and the BYU Philharmonic and A Cappella Choir as my backup groups.
  • I caught a piranha in the Amazon and ate it (poetic justice?). It tasted like a bluegill.
  • I’ve owned nine airplanes, and have logged 3,500 hours as “pilot in command.”
  • I was forced into bankruptcy in 1968 by a newspaper strike, and then paid off $500,000 (plus interest) in debts from which I had been legally discharged. It took me 12 years.
  • Evelyn Wood personally taught me to read 3,000 words per minute, and I then developed the marketing and advertising which made her famous.
  • I cruised the Mediterranean with Art Linkletter.
  • I took over Madame Tussaud’s Wax Works in London one night for a private party for my subscribers, and Kay and I flew to Ireland just to spend a weekend in a castle with Elizabeth Taylor. Unfortunately, she didn’t show, so we spent a weekend in a castle in Ireland without Elizabeth Taylor.

Whenever I think I’ve accomplished a lot, I just remind myself that when Mozart was my age—he’d been dead for 35 years.