James Phelan, an investigative reporter who wrote the first major biography of Howard Hughes, died Monday died of lung cancer at 85. The New York Times once called hime one of the country’s best investigative reporters.

Born in 1912 in Alton, Ill., Phelan grew up reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and dreaming of becoming a reporter. He got a job on his hometown paper, the Alton Evening Telegraph, then moved to the West Coast in 1947 to work for newspapers in Long Beach.

By 1954, chafing against the restrictions of newspaper writing, Phelan quit and became a free-lancer.

Over the years, he contributed articles to more than 60 magazines, including True, Fortune, Time, Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post.

One of his pieces in the Post first drew critical attention to what Phelan considered the fabricated conspiracy charge by New Orleans’ District Attorney Jim Garrison against businessman Clay Shaw in President Kennedy’s assassination.