Rupert Raleigh Hughes (January 31, 1872 – September 9, 1956) was an American novelist, film director, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, military officer, and music composer.

He spent his early years in the Lancaster area until age seven when the family moved to Keokuk, Iowa, where his father established a successful law practice.

Hughes was a noted founding member of the student newspaper The Adelbert beginning in 1890, contributing numerous submissions of poems, satire, comedy, and storytelling.

Hughes often blurred the lines of job description in his early years, working at various times as a reporter for the New York Journal and editor for various magazines including Current Literature, all the while continuing to write short stories, poetry, and plays.

Hughes' Musical Guide (1903) is notable for including a definition for zzxjoanw, a fictitious entry that fooled lexicographers for seventy years.

The story rapidly spread across America, with the misquoted Hughes lambasted by everyone from newspaper editors to religious figures and temperance leaders coast-to-coast.

Hughes cast his second wife, Adelaide Mould Bissell, alongside a young Douglas Fairbanks in his first New York theater role in the 1908 production All for a Girl.

[2] His 1909 play The Bridge, starring Guy Bates Post, ran in New York for a respectable thirty-three performances before going on tour for three years.

Hughes' next effort, 1910's Two Women, starring the famed stage actress Leslie Carter, made forty-seven performances before also touring extensively.

A stage version of the novel Tess of the Storm Country followed, and in 1920 Hughes' final play, The Cat Bird, starring John Drew, Jr.

[2] The behind-the-scenes goings on of show business provided ample fodder for Hughes' novel Souls for Sale (1922), a scathing look at Hollywood scandals of the era.

[2] Hughes' greatest success in Hollywood came in 1928 when he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Patent Leather Kid.

When President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. troops to Mexico in 1916 in pursuit of bandit Pancho Villa, Hughes, now a Captain, and the 69th were one of the regiments assigned to the mission.

[3] With America's entry into World War I the following year Hughes expected to see service in France, but a slight hearing impairment prevented him from overseas duty and he was assigned to work in Military Intelligence in Washington, D.C. in early 1918 and promoted to Major.

The Hughes Trench Knife was evaluated as a potential military arm by a panel of U.S. Army officers from the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in June 1918.

[3] Rupert Hughes is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in suburban Los Angeles, California.