The Story of the Kidnapping of Paul Getty III. History's first dollar billionaire Paul Getty grandson
Thanks to a number of famous American patrons of the arts - passionate collectors and lovers of beauty, who collected the most valuable works of art around the world and took care of their increase even after their death, California museums of fine and applied arts occupy a very respectable place not only in the country, but also in the world. Among them: William Hearst, Armand Hammer, Henry Huntington, Norton Simon and, of course, Jean Paul Getty - an extraordinary and very curious person, a kind of phenomenon.
Prophecy of the "Roman Emperor"
In the life and actions of this strange gentleman, this richest miser and the stingiest rich man, a certain mystical vein is visible - from the day of his birth to his last breath, which had a huge impact on the fate of not only his own, but also his offspring... and on Americans in general as his heirs. Essentially he should be called: the great Caesar Paul Getty-Adrian. At least that's how he identified himself.
One of the biographers of this “global oil rig” launched into the world a certain mystical story, which since then everyone and everyone has been rehashing in different ways. I’ll sing too – very briefly. Paul's father, George Getty, an oil magnate and first-generation millionaire, grieving the loss of his only daughter (a 10-year-old girl died of typhoid fever in 1890), became interested in seances. The tycoon tried to get an answer from otherworldly forces: whether God would send him an heir in return for his daughter and, if so, when. And one day a spirit who appeared in response to a call, vaguely announcing that during his lifetime he was the ruler of Ancient Rome, promised the inconsolable father that in two years he would have a son. Exactly two years later, in 1892, Jean Paul was born.
Whether the father told his son about the prophecy of the “Roman Emperor” or not is unknown, but only the first insight came to Paul in adolescence, when he first saw an illustration in a textbook in the school library: a sculptural bust of Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, and suddenly felt that it was too good “ knows" this person.
Since then, Getty Jr. has carried within himself the spirit of the ancient Roman emperor with reverent reverence, being extremely proud of having become his chosen one, and striving to live by his laws and tips (which he constantly heard within himself). He thoroughly studied his biography - his “past incarnation”, and tried to follow it in everything.
Perhaps by learning what the Roman Caesar Hadrian was like during his lifetime, who mystically possessed the American tycoon, taking possession of his soul and thoughts, we will better understand the actions of Paul Getty.
This was one of the greatest rulers of Ancient Rome. Stingy and ambitious, smart and calculating. He also suffered from a special predilection for the female sex. According to ancient rumors, he had four hundred concubines. He did not recognize any obligations - neither marital nor paternal. Actually, the latter did not threaten him, since he managed to remain childless.
More than anything else, Caesar loved to travel and collect monuments of antiquity (that is, the Hellenistic era that preceded him). He was especially partial to marble statues. In Tibur (now Tivoli) - in the vicinity of Herculaneum, Hadrian allegedly built for himself a country residence, which became one of the most outstanding monuments of antiquity and was called "Villa dei Papiri" - for its priceless library on papyri. Adrian brought his treasures to this residence, turning the “Villa of the Papyri” into a real museum.
In an effort to imitate his idol, Paul Getty began collecting works of art, of course, antique ones, making an exception only for the Renaissance, investing a fortune in his almost manic hobby. He acquired Roman statues in any form - even damaged, even in fragments, experiencing an irresistible “genetic” passion for them. This is how he came into possession of part of the marble torso of Hercules, which caused Getty a real shock. He had no doubt that he had seen this torso once before. After contacting the previous owner of the ancient relic, Getty learned that the torso was found during excavations at the Villa dei Papiri, buried under a layer of volcanic ash. It was as if he had been shocked. Possessed by an obsession, Getty rushed to Italy, to Tivoli. And there, standing on the ruins of “his villa,” he experienced another insight - a clear feeling of being transported in time, to the era of Hadrian. “I have already been here in a past life!” he wrote in his famous black notebook.
It was then that the oil magnate decided to recreate in America an exact copy of the villa of the man with whose soul - he no longer doubted it - he shared his body, or who himself was this soul. He commissioned detailed drawings of the remains of the Villa. From the quarries, Tivoli purchased 16 tons of magnificent golden-cream travertine, the natural stone from which the villa was built, and shipped it to California. The antiquities curators he hired found and bought fragments of ancient bas-reliefs throughout Italy to decorate the facades of his own future villa. And also - he ordered his portrait in marble, in the antique style, ordering the sculptor to enhance the resemblance that he always saw with Caesar Hadrian. (The bust is in his Museum in Malibu.)
Lover, businessman, collector
As you might guess, I did not invent this fairy-tale-like story, but only retold it. But! After delving into the sources, I discovered one tiny discrepancy, which immediately destroyed all its harmony and reliability. The fact is that Herculaneum, next to which the Villa dei Papiri was located, and Pompeii died on the same day - from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. And Caesar Trajan Adrian Augustus lived in 76-138 of the same era. It turns out that, due to the discrepancy between the dates, he could not have anything to do with the Villa of the Papyri. So, either the biographer had too much imagination, or the American tycoon was in a paranoid delusion.
Now let's see what Jean Paul Getty himself was like. He seemed to do everything he could to make the people who came in contact with him hate and curse him. He hardly had any friends given his life credo: you can only trust someone who has the same income as you. And for those few who could visit him, he kept special pay phones in the house so that no one would try to call at his expense.
Wives and children are a special, unprecedented article. He loved all five of his wives until the next one announced that she was expecting a child with him. From that moment on, he lost all interest in her; moreover, she began to irritate and burden him. So they had to raise his four sons alone. He treated his 14 grandchildren even worse, about whom he simply did not want to know anything.
The story of one of them became the talk of the town: when a 16-year-old boy was kidnapped in Italy by Calabrian mafiosi for 5 months, asking for a ransom of 3 million dollars, the old miser, entrenched in his London villa, did not think to react. Then the bandits, as a first warning, sent the severed ear of Getty III Jr. to the newspaper publishing house in Rome. But even after this, Getty II was still considering whether to pay or not pay. Luckily for him, he didn’t have to fork out the money - the police found the boy. And when his granddaughter died of AIDS, he not only did not come to the funeral, but did not even express condolences to his son and daughter-in-law. And the relationship of Jean Paul Getty with his loved ones is full of episodes of this kind.
But what he loved - from adolescence to old age - were women. It would be more correct to say, not women, but sex, considering it the key to youth and even immortality of the soul. He could call paid priestesses of love from the Place Pigalle to his Paris office, and could arrange a real hunt for some social beauty, seducing her with his restraint and encyclopedic erudition and, as a rule, did not lose in achieving his goal. Despite the fact that he did not have an attractive appearance, and in his old age he was simply repulsive. But in addition to his erudition, he had the fame of the richest man in the world. It was, as they say, the same Caesar Adrian who pushed him into endless exploits in bed. Wanting to keep up with the ancient Roman Don Juan, he kept records of all his “concubines,” writing them down in a black notebook in alphabetical order—several hundred women’s names, accompanied by addresses.
He simply swallowed his competitors whole. Personally, I associate Getty the businessman with the antlion - there is such an unpleasant predatory insect. An antlion ambushes itself at the bottom of a sand crater, hiding its large pale body in the sand. And with only his head exposed, he patiently waits for an ant running past to fall into the trap he has set and fall straight into his mouth. This is exactly what Paul Getty did. He had an inconspicuous office in Paris, at the George V Hotel, from which he could not leave for months. They say that he bought concessions over the phone and negotiated tax breaks with sultans and kings over the phone. From this tiny office he directed his army of sales agents, brokers and geologists, an entire fleet of tankers...
His company Getty Oil managed to take over a giant concern Tidewater Oil, then Skelly Oil and owned by the Rockefellers Standard Oil. For 20 years, he ruined and destroyed competitors - company after company, until he turned Getty Oil into a global concern. And then he bought an entire oil concession in Saudi Arabia, from which he earned additional billions. Since 1957, he became the richest man on the planet, holding the palm for almost 20 years - until his death.
After World War II he moved to Great Britain. The English immediately hated him because the tycoon bought up the estates of bankrupt aristocrats at bargain prices, because he “ate the corpses of bankrupts and unfortunate people,” as Lord Beaverbrook once said about him. Getty purchased the huge old Sutton Place estate in London from the largest but bankrupt collector in England, the Duke of Sutherland, for only 600 pounds. He has lived on this estate in solitude and for at least the last dozen years - behind a blank stone wall, guarded by armed guards with 20 dogs.
Paul Getty began collecting works of art from the ancient world in the 50s. Its numerous curators scoured the world, concluding deals with any art dealers and black archaeologists. And although he now lived in England, he collected his collection in the States, on the Pacific coast, in a villa in Malibu purchased specially for this purpose. In 1953, Jean Paul founded a charitable foundation Getty Trust, into which he transferred almost all of his fortune. And on its basis a museum was created J.Paul Getty Museum. I have already described above how Getty built his “Villa dei Papiri” on the Pacific Ocean. He supervised the construction work and the transfer of works of art there in absentia - from Sutton Place. And, ironically, he never saw the results of his labors, his dream come true. The frail old man no longer dared to take a long voyage across the ocean, and was completely terrified of airplanes.
Knowing that Caesar Adrian died in his own bed, in his sleep, Getty spent the last years of his life sleeping only in a chair, by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket. He died in it at the age of 83 - at night, in his sleep. And there was no one next to him except the servants. Announcing his death, a BBC TV news presenter said: "The richest and loneliest man on the planet has died." He finally returned to California, and by plane. Only already in the coffin.
Inheritance
Jean Paul Getty left behind the largest fortune in the world - a giant oil company Getty Oil and over 200 different concerns, as well as villas, palaces, estates in different countries. However, he went down in history as the largest collector and founder of a private museum. Its collection is classified as the best among the world's collections of ancient and medieval art.
The single philanthropist, even after death, wished to remain for his loved ones a stingy, eccentric, hateful egoist. With such a huge fortune, he practically disinherited his sons and grandchildren, not to mention their mothers - his ex-wives. Listening to the notary read out the will, his relatives allegedly could not believe their ears. However, this is not entirely true. Looking through the future lives of his sons, it is easy to see that they lived in idleness and prosperity, in particular, with money from the sale of part of the oil shares left to them by their father.
So who ended up getting the fabulous wealth of the oil king? Of course - Caesar Hadrian! Or rather, the memory of him embodied in the villa in Malibu. Travertine walls and marble statues from distant Tibur. After all, the old man, who despised his own children and grandchildren, did not think about future generations when he passed away, but about his glory and immortality. But this, so to speak, comes from the realm of mysticism and speculation. During his lifetime, he transferred his entire fortune to the Getty Foundation. And the Foundation had and still has only one task - to preserve and increase the collection of its creator.
Thus, the multi-billion dollar Getty Museum Foundation became the largest legacy ever left to an official institution - not only in the United States, but in the world. This gave him unprecedented freedom in acquiring works of ancient and classical art at the most prestigious auctions in London and New York.
The collection of artistic works of the Getty Museum, growing from year to year, could no longer fit in the villa in Malibu, and the Foundation decided to create a new Getty Center, much more spacious than the previous one. So that more people could visit it, Los Angeles was chosen as the location for the Center-Museum. But the Malibu Museum has been preserved intact. It still displays a collection of works of art from ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria, the total value of which is estimated at 2.5 billion dollars.
Getty Center in Los Angeles
Construction of the Center, which began in 1983 in Brentwood, lasted 14 years and cost $2 billion. 33 venerable architects submitted their design options to the competition. After much debate and hesitation, the choice was made by 63-year-old modernist architect Richard Meier from New York, which, frankly, does not seem certain. When the innovative architect Frank Lloyd Wright built the Manhattan Museum building in an abstract avant-garde style for the collection of abstract art of gold miner Solomon Guggenheim, the result was an organic unity of “packaging” and contents. Whether the modern architectural forms of the Getty Center correspond to the works of the “old masters” and ancient sculpture is a big question. Moreover, the Foundation, respecting the lifetime preferences of its creator, does not acquire works of art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Getty Center in Los Angeles includes the Paul Getty Museum, a special Grant program and a research institute for the history of art and the humanities, with its own library of 800 thousand volumes, plus more than 10 branches in the United States. The complex of buildings, located on the top of a hill and organically integrated into its topography, consists of six interconnected structures with terraces and spacious viewing platforms, offering majestic views of Los Angeles lying below, the distant mountain peaks on one side, and the The Pacific Ocean is on the other.
The same travertine was used as a building stone. It was imported, as Getty himself did, from the Bani di Tivoli quarry, which was used by the ancient Romans during the construction of the Colosseum, the colonnade of St. Peter's Basilica and the Trevi Fountain. The layout of the complex includes the truly architectural gardens of landscape designer Robert Irvine, the central part of which alone, with a labyrinth of azalea bushes in the middle of a pond, occupies an area of 12,400 square meters. meters.
Thanks to the successful financial transactions of the managing director of the new Center, Harold Williams (former US Security Advisor under President Carter), the funds bequeathed by Paul Getty increased significantly, amounting to 4.3 billion dollars (which is 4 times the funds available to the largest US museum - Metropolitan). Thus, the Getty Center has the opportunity to spend 225 million dollars annually, of which 40 is allocated for the acquisition of new works of art, and the rest goes to finance various programs.
This unprecedented financial freedom of the American Getty Foundation has hurt the interests of European museums, which cannot compete with it. Inflating prices exorbitantly, the Foundation bought at auctions all worthwhile works of painting, sculpture and applied art. As a result, the Getty Center has become the largest art museum in California, joining the ranks of the most famous museums in the world. The museum's collection is so extensive that some of its exhibitions are updated every 10 weeks.
In the summer of 2007, all the media wrote that the Italian Ministry of Culture, after many years of negotiations and costly disputes in court, filed claims against the Getty Center in relation to 52 works of art that it allegedly acquired illegally. The latter pledged to return 40 ancient works of art to Italy for a total of $100 million. The conflict erupted over a marble statue of Aphrodite, dating back to the 5th century BC. e. (2.20 meters high) - a Roman copy from a Greek original. The Italian side was able to prove that the statue was purchased from intermediaries who illegally took it from the Apennine Peninsula. Then, in 1988, the Getty Foundation paid $18 million for it. The sculpture is thoroughly damaged and chipped, and in fact does not really match the proportions of its powerful body to Aphrodite. In the end, an agreement was reached: the marble “Aphrodite” will remain on display at the Museum until the end of 2010. In March 2011, she was quietly transported by diplomatic mail, first to Rome, and then to Sicily, where she was originally found.
No less heated debates took place with the Greek Ministry of Culture, this time around the amazing beauty of the bronze “Victorious Youth” - not a Roman copy, but an original from the 4th century BC. The statue is classified as the greatest masterpiece of ancient Greece that has survived to this day. It was discovered and raised from the bottom of the sea in international waters by Italian fishermen, after which the bronze youth was bought by antiquity hunters and taken to Switzerland, where in 1977 the Getty Foundation acquired it for $4 million.
Claims against both the Getty Museums and the New York Metropolitan began with an investigation into the activities of the art dealer Giacomo Medici, the largest reseller and intermediary between black archaeologists in Italy and Greece, on the one hand, and private and public collections in the United States, on the other. Well, yes, such misunderstandings and problems surrounding the purchase and sale of works of art arise constantly and everywhere. And you probably shouldn’t delve too deeply into this kitchen. More importantly, the Getty Center keeps its doors wide open to visitors who want to plunge into the world of the eternal and beautiful.
A miniature train takes them from the parking lot to the top of the hill. In the exhibition halls and throughout the territory, guests are accompanied by audio guides that provide comprehensive professional comments about the Museum and the unique masterpieces of world art on display here. According to the will of its creator, not a cent is charged for delivery and visiting the museum.
So, no matter what oddities Jean Paul Getty committed during his lifetime, Americans should feel a sense of deep gratitude to this man, because as a result, they turned out to be the only and rightful heirs of the aesthetic treasures he collected and the enormous capital spent on their increase.
It just so happens that successful people attract not only money, but also attention. The story from the life of our hero became the plot for several film adaptations at the same point in time. Ridley Scott, with some notorious difficulties, made the film All the Money in the World. Director Danny Boyle directed the series "Trust". And everything would be fine, but the film and the series describe the same story in different ways. We, in turn, invite you to familiarize yourself with some facts from the biography of the odious billionaire and draw your own conclusions.
Starting point
Jean Paul Getty was born in 1882 into a Puritan family from the American city of Minneapolis. The father of the family, George Getty, and his wife Sarah followed the canons of the Methodist Church and raised their son in severity and asceticism. In every possible way to protect their child from falling under the bad influence of his peers, the parents forbade Paul to communicate with them.
Paul's business skills were evident in his childhood. He kept pedantic records of money, scrupulously recording all his income and expenses. Paul's father began his career as an insurance agent, but soon succumbed to the oil rush that was sweeping Oklahoma and leased 1,100 acres of land (approximately 450 hectares) for just $250. His idea turned out to be successful, and within a few months he was producing about 100 barrels of oil per day at his site.
Young Getty received his first business lessons from his father, whom the boy constantly followed on trips to the oil fields. He would later say that it was this experience that helped him most in life, and that his years of study at Berkeley and Oxford can be considered wasted time.
George Getty's business developed so successfully that already in 1906 the amount of his capital exceeded a million. The constantly busy father did not immediately notice that his now adult son had ceased to adhere to the strict rules of Puritan morality accepted in their family. Strict upbringing and numerous prohibitions had the opposite effect: instead of becoming modest and pious, Paul went into all serious troubles. Getty would carry his unbridled passion for women throughout his life, as well as his passion for making money.
First million
After graduating from the University of California and Oxford in 1914, the young graduate plans to enter the diplomatic service, but soon changes plans and returns to Oklahoma to develop the family business. His father gave him a salary of one hundred dollars a month. From that moment, spurred by his father's ridicule, Paul began to build a purely business relationship with him. He opened his own business and entered into a business contract with George: Getty Sr. received 70% of the income from joint activities, 30% - Jr.
Paul had a special sense that allowed him to recognize the quality of oil fields. He personally inspected oil-bearing areas and was directly involved in the process of oil production at all stages. It was thanks to his professionalism and business acumen that Jean Paul managed to earn his first million by the age of 24.
Crisis as a second wind
Black Thursday 1929 turned everything upside down. An unexpected stock market crash brought with it the collapse of shares of large companies.
Paul Getty became one of the few Americans who managed to get rich and not go broke during the Great Depression. The realization that buying oil companies brings in more money than doing oil exploration on his own was our hero’s main trump card. From that moment on, he began to absorb dying companies and thereby radically changed the strategy of the family business. The new method was to look for companies whose shares were listed on a trading exchange below their book value. If the company had valuable assets at its disposal, Paul immediately acquired the company.
The largest purchase was Tidewater Associated Oil Company. In total, he spent $90 million on the purchase of company shares.
In 1930, Jean's father died - and he became president of the family company and began to consistently expand it. Soon he created a “full cycle” business, everything was in his hands: production, transportation, refining, sale of oil and petroleum products.
New Horizons
When huge oil deposits were discovered on the Arabian Peninsula in the 1930s, Jean Paul saw great prospects for his business. In 1949, he acquired a concession from the ruling Saudi dynasty to develop a neutral zone between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The rights to mine black gold cost him $10.5 million. In addition, he pledged to pay another million dollars every year. This was very risky, because he had no guarantee that oil sources would be in this particular area of the desert.
The investment has fully paid off. In 1953, the first oil gusher came from an oil well. Thanks to Middle Eastern oil, Getty became the richest man on Earth, and the world learned about the enormous reserves of black gold in the area.
"Favorite" grandson
On July 10, 1973, the grandson of billionaire Jean Paul Getty was kidnapped in Rome. The criminals demanded $17 million for 16-year-old John Paul Getty III. The billionaire grandfather refused to pay a ransom for his grandson. He believed that John staged the kidnapping, because his grandson often joked that the only way to lure money out of his grandfather was in such an extraordinary way.
Paul Getty III was kidnapped in Piazza Farnese, blindfolded and taken to a mountain hideout in Calabria. Paul's father, oil magnate John Paul Getty, who did not have that kind of money, asked his father Jean Paul Getty for the ransom amount. Billionaire Jean Paul refused, explaining that if he paid the kidnappers, his remaining 14 grandchildren would be kidnapped one by one. In November 1973, the family received an envelope containing a lock of hair and part of an ear, as well as written threats to permanently mutilate Paul if the extortionists did not receive $3.2 million within ten days.
Only after this, Getty Sr. reluctantly, but still agreed to pay a ransom of $2.2 million - this was the maximum amount that was not taxed. He lent the missing money for the ransom to his son at 4 percent per annum. As a result, the thieves received approximately $2.9 million. Paul himself was found alive in southern Italy after a ransom was paid.
After some time, the police detained nine thieves. Most of the ransom money disappeared without a trace, and John Paul Getty III suffered serious psychological trauma.
Famous American billionaire, oil tycoon, considered in the 1960s. the richest man in the world. Philanthropist who has donated more than $200 million to charities. A mystic who all his life believed that the spirit of the Roman Caesar Adriana had moved into him. (b. 1892 - d. 1976)
On June 6, 1976, the richest man on the planet, Jean Paul Getty, died in a London clinic. The announcement of his will had the effect of a bomb exploding. Paul Getty's four sons and 14 grandchildren, as well as his devoted servants, received a pittance. For example, one of the sons, Ronaldo, inherited from his father only a diary with critical remarks about his abilities. Getty bequeathed all his billions to a museum in Malibu - so he wanted to gain immortality. It is now the richest museum in human history, its contents worth about $2.5 billion.
Getty's offspring, who had been at odds with each other for a long time, began visiting each other after the billionaire's death. There's only one place on earth that neither of them likes to visit: the old family estate in Malibu, California, near Hollywood.
In the main hall of the museum there is a marble bust of the late owner, made during his lifetime. By order of the old man, the sculptor especially emphasized the similarity of the original with the ancient statues of Caesar Hadrian, because Getty was sure all his life that the spirit of the Roman emperor lived in him. Obviously, some interesting statements of the eccentric billionaire will remain in history: “Unselfish friendship is possible only between people with the same income. If you don't have money, you think about money all the time. If you have money, you only think about money.”
Getty could go down in history as the richest man of his era - after all, he had more money than any of the Rockefellers. However, the world remembered him for another reason. Getty believed until his death that his body was possessed by a mysterious creature that forced him to wage oil wars, cold-bloodedly destroy competitors and hunt hundreds of women. He believed that the spirit of Caesar Hadrian had destroyed his life and turned him into the most unfortunate rich man on the planet.
Paul's parents - George Franklin Getty, an Irishman by birth, and Sarah Catherine McPherson, the daughter of Scottish emigrants, strictly followed the canons of the Methodist Church and believed that the Almighty rewards the observance of Christian commandments with wealth. Misfortune forced the devout head of the family to commit a dangerous act for a Christian: after the death of his ten-year-old daughter Gertrude, who died in 1890 from typhus, he began to seek solace in the occult sciences. George spent his evenings at seances, summoning spirits and begging them for the birth of an heir. One day, from the lips of a medium who had entered a trance, he heard the expected news. A certain spirit, who told about himself only that during his lifetime he was endowed with imperial power in Ancient Rome, promised that in two years a son would be born into the Getty family.
The prophecy came true; on December 15, 1892, a boy was born, to whom his parents gave the name Jean Paul. The future creator of the oil empire grew up small, weak and ugly. The mother loved her son very much, but tried to restrain her feelings so as not to spoil him, and forbade him to communicate with peers in order to avoid bad influence. Subsequently, Getty recalled that as a child he felt lonely and deprived of parental warmth. Strict upbringing and numerous prohibitions played a bad joke on Paul: in the end, his violent temper broke out.
Paul's father was rarely home. Starting out in the insurance business, he soon succumbed to the oil rush that had taken hold of Oklahoma and tirelessly increased his capital. In 1906, Getty Sr. became a millionaire. Having finally turned his attention to his grown-up son, he was surprised to find that he had completely gotten out of hand. On the day he turned 14, Paul proudly announced that he had long since lost his virginity. At the age of 17, he dropped out of school and plunged headlong into the nightlife. At the same time, Paul began to stubbornly, even fanatically, make money from his father's oil fields.
The parents didn’t know what to think, but in reality everything was very simple. Paul saw a statue of Caesar Trajan Adrian Augustus in a school textbook - and immediately the boy was overcome by a strange, inexplicable feeling, the nature of which he was able to understand much later. Paul believed that the spirit of the Roman emperor, whom he really resembled in appearance, returned to Earth with him. Gradually, it began to seem to the young man that he was looking at the world through the eyes of a Roman dictator and hearing his menacing voice. This voice was terribly annoying, but it was impossible to resist his orders. Therefore, the young man decided to do everything to live like an emperor himself. To do this, it was necessary to become fabulously rich and increase the list of his mistresses to 400.
To get closer to his dream, Paul needed money. Only they could give the young man what the battle-hardened Roman emperor was accustomed to taking by force. And Paul Getty began to create his own empire.
When he turned 20, he borrowed $500 from his parents and became the owner of his first oil well. Two years later, having long since paid off his debt, he was able to proudly announce to his parents: “I just made my first million dollars, and believe me, it won’t be my last!” Indeed, this was only the beginning of a long chain of successes. Paul had an exceptional sense of smell that allowed him to recognize rich oil deposits. It should be noted that it was on his advice that George Getty made the best deal of his life: he acquired a concession in Santa Spring, which everyone refused.
Parents could calmly look at the future of their heir. But neither his abilities nor the brilliant results he achieved, combined with frugality, reassured them. They recognized that Paul was ambitious and hard-working, and did not throw money away. However, the son’s excessive passion for women and the so-called “dolce life” ran counter to their Puritan views. Therefore, fearing that their son’s excesses might affect the state of the family business, they decided to keep him away from the company’s affairs for as long as possible, despite the fact that sooner or later this would have to happen, since he was their only heir. Moreover, they convinced each other that Paul did not have real professional qualities, although he daily proved the opposite. His parents stubbornly insisted that he was simply lucky and that this would not last long. Therefore, before his death, George Getty in his will appointed his wife as the administrator of his entire estate, estimated at several tens of millions of dollars, placing his son under humiliating financial guardianship.
Paul did not have sufficient cash reserves to carry out his gigantic plans. Here he could count only on the capital obtained by his own labor, that is, on ten thousand shares of the Getty Oil Company. Having entered into inheritance rights, Sarah made it clear to her son that he would not receive a single cent from her. Paul was well aware that he could not break his mother’s firmness, especially since she, extremely dissatisfied with her dissolute lifestyle, told everyone that her son was good for nothing and simply could not be trusted with anything.
However, when the financial crisis of 1929 occurred, Paul was able to show what he was capable of. For a forward-thinking and daring player like him, there were plenty of opportunities for enrichment. Without hesitation and against the advice of his mother, he sold the shares of the family company, and invested the money in an enterprise in whose ability to survive the crisis, it seems, he was the only one who believed: the enterprise was called the Pacific Western Oil Company.
As risky as it was, it was a masterstroke. The operation was so successful that even Sarah wavered in the opinion she had about her son. Well, Paul’s ambitions, already huge, increased even more. In an instant, he made a decision that determined the purpose of his life: to collect the necessary funds for as long as necessary, but to gain control of the Tidewater Associated Oil Company, one of the largest companies in the United States.
He fanatically strived to achieve success, fighting for black gold with the rest of the world - and won, capturing more and more spheres of influence. At first, oil tycoons paid no attention to the young upstart. Getty approached his victims slowly and carefully, and his competitors did not immediately notice that they were in mortal danger.
In an office on the third floor of the George V Hotel in Paris, Paul worked for days, sometimes even forgetting about food. Over the course of twenty years, it absorbed half of its competitors, and each time the victim was several times larger than the predator. In business, Getty was distinguished by icy restraint and a fantastic memory. He built his empire with purpose and soon owned hundreds of oil rigs in America and the Middle East, an entire fleet of tankers and an army of subordinates.
In 1933, his mother finally transferred control of the Getty Oil Company to Paul, placing almost the entire capital of the family enterprise at his complete disposal, although she left a certain part for common use that could serve as a guarantee for both of them in the very possible event that in her opinion, if they face collapse. And finally, Sarah, although with considerable skepticism, gave her son her maternal blessing to carry out grandiose plans of conquest, which, he was convinced, would certainly be crowned with success.
Two years later, Paul had the opportunity to come close to fulfilling his cherished dream. Taking advantage of the fact that the capital under his control had grown sharply (due to his mother's decision), Getty seized control of one of Tidewater's subsidiaries. Under the very nose of John D. Rockefeller, the undisputed king of oil, he managed to eat a hole, a very tiny one, in this huge and so tempting piece of cheese. Several years of bitter struggle followed, but he still achieved his goal - in 1939, the merger of Tidewater and Getty Oil took place. Since then, Paul Getty's fortune began to grow at a breakneck pace. Initially considerable, it increased so rapidly and with such consistency that in the end Paul became one of the richest men in the world.
Another 25 years passed, and Getty defeated the once all-powerful Standard Oil, owned by the Rockefeller clan. Already by the mid-1960s. Getty Oil's profits reached fantastic proportions: the oil magnate increased his inherited fortune, which was $15 million, to an unprecedented amount of $700 million, and the total value of his company's assets significantly exceeded $3.5 billion. According to Fortune magazine's calculations, in those years Getty increased his capital by half a million dollars every day.
Over time, the American upstart began to be hated not only by businessmen, but also by the British nobility - because he bought up the estates of impoverished aristocrats on the cheap. Paul Getty bought his English estate Sutton Place from the bankrupt Duke of Sutherland for only 600 thousand pounds. In those years, he earned that kind of money in two days.
Once in one of Getty's occult books he read that sexual activity is one of the nine causes of reincarnation. From then on, he perceived sex as a cure for old age. It is known that he made love until his old age, carefully selecting his partners. On the personal “front”, the most beautiful women became his trophies. Getty considered his affair with Marie Tessier, the grandniece of one of the Russian Grand Dukes, to be the great victory of his life, although he forgot her as quickly as he forgot everyone else. None of his five wives managed to stay close to Paul for more than three years. As soon as his next wife announced to him that she was pregnant, Paul immediately ended all relations with her. Even to those who knew Getty well, this seemed strange. They did not know that Emperor Hadrian hated everyone in whom he saw his successors to the throne, and died childless. And Paul Getty tried to imitate his life in everything.
To relieve the stress caused by constant nervous stress, Getty became interested in drugs. They carried him into the world of fantasy, reconciling his two “I”s with each other. However, he was able to stop in time and get rid of drug addiction. Later, to take his mind off business, Paul became involved in philanthropic activities. Imitating his idol, the businessman invested a fortune in works of art. Although Getty could not distinguish the work of one artist from another, his first purchase was a precious van Goyen landscape. The businessman simply liked the rural house in the picture and reminded him of his childhood. The next acquisition in 1940 was “Portrait of the Merchant Martin Luten” by the great Rembrandt. Here he was attracted by the cheapness: the owner of the painting, a Dutch Jew, gave it up for only 65 thousand dollars, as he was frightened by the approach of the Nazis. In general, while collecting art, Getty remained primarily a businessman, most often buying what was sold at a bargain price.
The only thing that really interested him was marble sculptures. Mr. Getty acquired ancient Roman sculptures from various owners. At the end of the 1960s. he bought from Lord Lansdowne part of the Roman statue of Hercules. When the ancient fragment was delivered to Getty, it made an inexplicable, almost mystical impression on the collector. The billionaire immediately called Lord Lansdowne back and asked where the sculpture was found. As it turned out, the statue was discovered during excavations of the ancient palace of Villa dei Papiri, buried under a layer of volcanic ash after the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. e. It was there, according to historians, that the great Roman emperor Trajan Adrian Augustus lived for several years.
The businessman abandoned all his business and went to Italy. “I have already been here in a previous life,” he later wrote in his diary. Getty ordered detailed drawings of the building to be made and decided to build an exact replica of the Villa dei Papiri in Malibu. By his order, 16 tons of golden travertine stone were brought from Tivoli, from which Trajan's Villa was built. Thanks to oil millions, time turned back: the gardens of the luxurious ancient palace turned green under the sun, the splashes of fountains and waterfalls sparkled.
It was a desperate attempt by a billionaire to break into immortality. Like Emperor Hadrian, who immortalized his name by building a renovated Roman Pantheon, old Getty tried to put all the energy of his dollars into one giant leap to eternal glory. Over time, Getty's private house in Malibu turned into a unique museum, where hundreds of precious paintings, sculptures and antiques were kept. But the owner of this luxurious estate never saw it with his own eyes. Paul Getty supervised the construction from London and, due to his old age, could no longer endure transatlantic sea travel, and he was terrified of flying on airplanes.
At the end of his life, Adrian’s spirit completely subjugated the old man’s psyche, and fears and inexplicable manias began to haunt him. First, the businessman got himself a live lion named Nero, as an inner voice told Paul that only lions could protect him from danger. His love for predators was accompanied by attacks of anger towards the people around him. When the grandson of oil magnate Jean Paul Getty III was kidnapped by Calabrian mafiosi, the old man refused to pay them a $2 million ransom. It was only when he was sent the boy’s severed ear by mail that he agreed to hand over the money. Until the end of his life, he was convinced that the kidnapping of his grandson was arranged by the 16-year-old boy himself and his mother in order to force old Paul to fork out money. And when the billionaire’s granddaughter died of AIDS, he didn’t even have a few sympathetic words for a telegram. The fate of his children and grandchildren worried the businessman much less than the future of the noble spirit that lived in his body. The old man was very afraid that after his death the spirit would turn into an unworthy shell.
He categorically did not want to die, until his last days he tried to preserve his youth through plastic surgery and entertainment with women. When Getty learned that Caesar Hadrian had died in his own bed, he ordered the bed to be removed from his room and spent his nights sitting in an easy chair, wrapped in a blanket. In the last years of his life, his face, disfigured by unsuccessful plastic surgery, resembled the death mask of a Roman emperor. He sat motionless in a chair with his eyes closed for hours. On his lap, the stuffed lion cub Nero was “napping.”
Paul Getty died in his sleep at the age of 84. “The richest, loneliest and most selfish man in the world has died. He never gave a single dollar to any charitable organization in his life,” was how one of the news anchors described the event on the day of his death, June 6, 1976. According to doctors, death was caused by a respiratory tract infection, although the main cause was the cause was prostate cancer. The coffin was flown from England to California. And immediately after his death, the shadow of this strange man, who laid down his life on the altar of serving his own mania, fell on his heirs.
Paul Getty's eldest son, George, was quickly destroyed by alcoholism and committed suicide. The life of the second son, Ronald, also did not work out. After the announcement of the will, he became a poor resident of South Africa. The third son of the oil emperor, Paul Getty Jr., went down in history as the “golden hippie from Morocco.” For a long time he caroused and debauched himself in his African villa with a strange name - “Palace of Passion”, trying to “outdo” his father in entertainment and debauchery. However, it all ended in a clinic, where he was diagnosed with diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver and a whole bunch of chronic venereal diseases. The youngest of the old Getty's descendants, Gordon, suffered the least from family problems. Perhaps only because during his father’s lifetime he communicated with him extremely rarely. However, his dreams were not destined to come true: Gordon’s hopes of opening his own opera house with the money owed to him after the death of his parent were dashed.
By the mid-1990s. the heavens seem to have taken pity on the descendants of the oil emperor. Paul Getty Jr. finally recovered from drug addiction and even became interested in cricket. Gordon Getty became rich, bought himself a Boeing and a mansion in California. Ronald Getty lives with new hopes - both of his daughters married millionaires. Who knows, maybe the world will hear about a new millionaire named Getty.
Elena Vasilyeva, Yuri Pernatyev
From the book “50 Famous Businessmen of the 19th - Early 20th Centuries.”
Jean Paul Getty For a long time he was considered not only the richest man on the planet, but also the stingiest rich man, because in 1979 he refused to pay a ransom for his kidnapped grandson. As a result, the heir to the oil tycoon remained hostage to the bandits for several months and even lost his ear. AiF.ru tells the story that formed the basis of the film Ridley Scott"All the money in the world."
Miser
Jean Paul Getty was born into a wealthy family. His father, a former lawyer George Franklin Getty, managed to make a decent fortune for himself in the oil industry and gave his son a first-class education. However, this was where the parent’s generosity ended, and when the young man decided to try his hand at business, Getty Sr. refused to help his son, although later, under pressure from his wife, he nevertheless lent him a small starting capital. Of course, not for free. His father’s genes and cash injections quickly bore fruit: in his twenties, Jean Paul earned his first million! Further - more: in 1949 - the purchase of participation in an oil concession in Saudi Arabia, and in 1957 - the official status of the richest person in the world. By this time, the billionaire, in addition to a successful career, had 5 official marriages and five sons, because he loved women no less than money. True, his love tended to end quickly as soon as his next wife became pregnant. The oil tycoon communicated with his children and grandchildren without much enthusiasm and did not like to pay their bills. But it is worth noting that, being the richest man in the world, he spent only $280 a week on personal needs. The only expense item that Getty did not spare money on was “art objects.” He even created the largest art museum in California.
There were real legends about the stinginess of the rich man. One day he wanted to go to a dog show in London. Admission cost 70 cents, but after 5 pm the price was halved: to save a third of a dollar, the billionaire chose to take a walk before the discount took effect. Of course, not everyone knew about this side of Getty. The kidnappers who kidnapped one of the rich man's grandsons for ransom in 1973 apparently had no idea that they would have to deal with a real miser.
It's my own fault
John Paul Getty, the oil magnate's third son, was born from his marriage to Any Rock. Alas, there was no mutual understanding and great love between them, since the son of a billionaire became addicted to drugs quite early. And his own son John Paul Getty III joined the hippie movement. The strict grandfather, naturally, did not approve of such a lifestyle. In 1973, his sixteen-year-old grandson was kidnapped in Rome by unknown assailants, and Jean Paul was greatly surprised when the attackers demanded $17 million ($94 million at today's exchange rates) for his life. The rich grandfather not only was not going to follow their lead, but he sincerely believed that he himself was to blame for what had happened. Moreover, at first he even suspected the young man of staging his own kidnapping for ransom.
Alas, the young man’s parents did not have the amount that the bandits demanded. John's father at that time was depressed due to the death of his second wife and practically did not leave the house. Abigail Harris the mother of John Paul Getty III was able to get only one thing from her father-in-law: he provided her with a security officer and ex-CIA agent Fletcher Chase, who, along with the police, was searching for her son. However, the kidnappers acted professionally and constantly changed their locations, so it was impossible to track them.
Kidnapped grandson of billionaire John Paul Getty III (right). Photo: www.globallookpress.com
5 months wait
The billionaire defended himself against annoying kidnappers and the child’s parents who asked for help for about 5 months. And to everyone who tried to accuse him of stinginess and heartlessness, he repeated the same phrase: “I have fourteen grandchildren. If I pay one penny today, then I will have fourteen stolen grandchildren." However, when the bandits sent the young man's mother his ear and reduced the ransom amount to 3 million, the matter moved from a dead point. The billionaire still had to allocate part of the money: $2.2 million (a large amount would have been taxed). He lent the remaining 800 thousand to his son at interest. After the money was transferred, the family was finally able to find out John's whereabouts. By a strange coincidence, the long-awaited release took place on the billionaire’s birthday. However, when the grandson called his grandfather to thank him for the rescue and congratulate him, he simply did not answer the phone.
In this case, the police detained 9 people, but only two of them received actual prison sentences; all the rest were released due to lack of sufficient evidence.
The further fate of John Paul Getty III was sad: he followed in his father’s footsteps and also became interested in drugs. One day, after taking a deadly “cocktail” of alcohol and potent drugs, he lost his hearing and vision and found himself forever confined to a wheelchair. His legendary grandfather died three years after the ransom story. The billions he worried about all his life went to his children and grandchildren. In turn, they very quickly got rid of the business that Jean Paul Getty had been building for over 60 years.
Jean Paul Getty or Paul Getty is an American industrialist, one of the first dollar billionaires in history, the founder of the Getty Museum in Malibu as an exact copy of the Villa dei Papiri (it houses paintings, sculptures and antiques). The Getty empire included the largest company, the Getty Oil Company, and more than 200 concerns.
Born on December 15, 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, in the family of Irish oil magnate George Franklin Getty and the daughter of Scottish emigrants Sarah Catherine McPherson Risher, who were already at an advanced age and, moreover, two years earlier had lost their only daughter Gertrude.
Jean Paul Getty - oil trader
After graduating from Oxford in 1913, Jean Paul began trading oil in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, and by 1916 he had earned his first million dollars. That same year, his company moved to California.
If you don't have money, you think about money all the time. If you have money, you only think about money.
In the 1920s, Jean Paul Getty bought up several oil companies that became the foundation of his financial empire. In 1949, he bought an oil concession in Saudi Arabia, which began generating billions in profits in the 1950s.
In 1957, Jean Paul Getty was declared the richest man on Earth. He retained this title until his death. In 1968, Getty became a billionaire. It is believed that in the 1960s he increased his net worth by US$500,000 every day.
Here's my formula for success: get up early, work late and pump oil from your wells.
Personal life
By character, Jean Paul Getty was a very eccentric and wayward person, and was actively interested in the female sex. He was married five times, and he had rather difficult relationships with each of his sons from these marriages. Paul Getty said that “a long-term relationship with a woman is only possible if you are bankrupt”.
After World War II, Getty moved to England, to Sutton Place in Surrey. His house was surrounded by a fortress wall and guarded by an entire army of security forces and twenty dogs specially trained to protect people. He was distinguished by his stinginess, which is why he even installed a pay phone in the house for guests and saved on food.
He bequeathed his entire fortune not to 4 sons and 14 grandchildren, but to the Getty Trust, an organization that became the owner of the Paul Getty Museum, as well as the large Getty Center in Los Angeles.
Remember: a million dollars today is not at all what it used to be.
- John Pearson. "Paul Getty. Painful millions."
- Tom Butler-Bowdon. "Jean-Paul Getty. How to be rich."
- John Paul Getty. "How to become rich."
We also offer to watch a video program about Jean Paul Getty