His first marriage, to Agnes Wheeler Hedge in 1893, ended in divorce in 1903. The couple had one child, daughter Elspeth, born in 1897. (In 1981, heirs to Howard Hughes feuding over his estate claimed that Elspeth was not really Rupert Hughes's daughter, but the child of Agnes's illicit lover.) His second marriage, to actress Adelaide Manola Mould Bissell, took place in 1908. She starred in his stage production "All for a Girl" that same year. In December 1923, she died of an apparent suicide while on tour in Hai Phong, French Indochina. Rupert Hughes' final marriage, to Elizabeth Patterson Dial, took place the next year, 1924. The third Mrs. Hughes died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills in 1945. Hughes' daughter from his first marriage died a few months later.