Tuesday, 4 November 2014

J. Paul Getty

 NAME Jean Paul Getty

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Oil tycoon, founder of Getty Oil Company, and once declared the richest man in the world.

BIRTH December 15, 1892, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

FAMILY BACKGROUND J. Paul Getty was the only child of lawyer-turned-wildcatter of Scots-Irish descent, and Sarah Catherine McPherson Risher Getty (1852-1941), a strict Methodist. An elder sister, Gertrude Lois, died in the 1890 typhoid epidemic in Minneapolis, intensifying parental focus on their surviving son.

CHILDHOOD In 1904, his family moved to Oklahoma, where his father entered the oil business. Two years later, they relocated to Los Angeles. As a teenager, he was strong and athletic, an amateur boxer, weightlifter, and swimmer. During summers, he worked as a roustabout on his father's Oklahoma oil rig developing both technical knowledge and business acumen.

EDUCATION Getty briefly attended Harvard Military Academy followed by Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, Los Angeles where he graduated in 1909)

Getty enrolled at the University of Southern California and University of California Berkeley (1909-1911), then transferred to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he earned a diploma in Politics and Economics in June 1913 (graduating 1914). At Oxford he befriended the future King Edward VIII and developed his lifelong Anglophilia.

Getty was linguistically gifted - he was fluent in six languages including Arabic, French, German, Italian, plus conversational Spanish, Greek, and Russian. 

CAREER RECORD Became an independent “wild-catter” in Oklahoma, making his first million in 1916 at 23.

1916–30: Built Lorena and other firms, then inherited partial control of Minnehoma Oil.

1930s–40s: Bought Tidewater, Skelly and Pacific Western during the Depression, creating vertical integration.

1949: Paid $9.5 m cash plus $1 m a year for a 60-year Saudi–Kuwaiti Neutral Zone concession; gushers in 1953 yielded 16 m barrels annually, catapulting him to billionaire status.

1967: Consolidated holdings as Getty Oil.

By the 1970s he controlled interests in nearly 200 companies and was worth an estimated $2–6 billion

APPEARANCE Lean and standing 5 feet 11 inches tall at around 180 pounds, Getty had a pale complexion, a long fleshy nose, and a penetrating gaze.. His swept-back hair and deeply etched, expressive face gave him a distinguished—if sometimes slightly disheveled—appearance. Even in his eighties, Getty was described as an impressive figure. 

Getty in 1944. By Los Angeles Daily News

FASHION Getty favored rumpled, often threadbare business suits and reused shirts as part of his studied frugality, contrasting sharply with his expensive art purchases. He had little interest in fashion trends.

CHARACTER Getty was renowned for his sharp business acumen and strategic mind. Quiet and mild in manner, he was nonetheless a vivid presence—his deeply expressive face and penetrating gaze could dominate a room. Though famously frugal, even to the point of installing a payphone for guests at his Sutton Place estate and haggling over his grandson’s ransom, he was also described as witty, self-mocking, and charming in conversation.

Journalist Alan Whicker, who interviewed him, called Getty “the classic anti-interviewer: reluctant, modest, shy, set in his conversational ways, and (as a man who always issues orders) unused to questions—for who would dare question the richest man in the world?” Despite this, Getty was remarkably honest and introspective during their exchange. 

After his grandson’s abduction, he developed a deep, almost pathological fear of kidnapping, which added to his already cautious and withdrawn nature.

SPEAKING VOICE Journalists described him as "croak-voiced" with a gravelly baritone that contrasted with his physical slightness and added gravity to his terse remarks.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Getty displayed a dry, aphoristic wit with famous quotes including: "The meek shall inherit the Earth—but not its mineral rights" and "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars". His formula for success: "Rise early, work late, and strike oil".

RELATIONSHIPS Getty was married and divorced five times: 

(1) Jeanette Demont 1923-1926 (son George F. Getty II).

(2) Allene Ashby 1925/1927-1928 (no children).

(3) Adolphine Helmle 1928-1932 (son Jean Ronald).

(4) Ann Rork 1932-1936 (sons Eugene "Paul Jr." and Gordon).

(5) Louise Lynch 1939-1958 (son Timothy, died age 12). 

Getty maintained numerous mistresses and distant relationships with most children. He apparently maintained amicable relationships with several of his ex-wives, providing them with elegant places to live on the grounds of his Sutton Place estate.

BUSINESS CAREER Paul Getty’s business career reads a bit like an improbable fable about how to become obscenely rich without ever quite learning to enjoy it. He was, to borrow the phrase, the kind of man who could find a ten-dollar bill in a hurricane—and then haggle over the damage.

After attending Oxford,  Getty decided that what the world needed most was more oil and less leisure. He headed to Oklahoma, then a kind of grubby mecca for oil wildcatters and people with very optimistic hats. In 1916, he struck it rich—literally—on the Nancy Taylor Allotment in Haskell. Getty pocketed $11,000 from selling his lease stake, which in today’s money would buy you a modest flat in London or approximately three liters of oat milk at a boutique grocery store.

Where most people would have paused to celebrate, Getty saw the Great Depression as a shopping opportunity. While the rest of America queued for soup, he was snapping up oil companies like they were on clearance. His acquisitions included Lorena Oil, Minnehoma Oil, Pacific Western, Tidewater Oil, and Skelly Oil—all of which sound like brands of furniture polish but were in fact the building blocks of his empire.

In 1948–49, Getty made a bold move that would define his fortune. He negotiated a concession in the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—a desolate stretch of desert that turned out to be sitting on enough oil to make a Rockefeller blush. He paid $9.5 million upfront, offered generous terms, and waited. In 1953, oil gushed forth at a rate of 16 million barrels a year, and suddenly Getty was no longer just rich—he was staggeringly rich, like gold-plated toothbrushes and “buy your own newspaper” rich.

By 1967, he had bundled his many holdings into Getty Oil, a vertically integrated empire that controlled everything from oil wells to filling stations to—quite possibly—the air freshener dangling inside your car. At his zenith, he had fingers in nearly 200 companies across multiple continents, which sounds exhausting, but Getty seemed to thrive on it. Or at least hoard it.

At the time of his death in 1976, estimates of Getty’s fortune ranged from $2 billion to $6 billion, depending on how you counted it—and he certainly did. Getty Oil remained in the family until the 1980s, when it was wrestled away in a spectacular corporate soap opera involving Pennzoil, Texaco, and enough lawyers to field a small army.

KEY TRAITS OF GETTY’S BUSINESS CAREER Took risks early and often, and insisted on doing things hands-on—even if it meant dodging rattlesnakes in Oklahoma.

Saw the Great Depression not as a catastrophe but as a clearance sale.

Understood that oil was about geography, timing, and being slightly better at math than your competitors.

Built an empire by insisting on controlling every last drop—from wellhead to pump handle.

Negotiated everything down to the last decimal and famously never left money on the table—unless it was his.

MONEY AND FAME By 1957, Fortune magazine had declared Getty the richest man on Earth, and by 1966, the Guinness Book of Records confirmed him as the wealthiest private citizen alive. When he died in 1976, his fortune was estimated at over $25 billion in today’s money—a staggering sum for a man who washed his own shirts in the sink and thought envelopes deserved a second (or third) life. 

His legendary thrift became global gossip during the notorious kidnapping of his grandson, when he haggled over the ransom and initially refused to pay. 

At his palatial English estate, Sutton Place, guests had to feed coins into pay phones if they wanted to make a call. 

He once stood in line for hours just to save 50 cents on theatre tickets—proving that while Getty never missed an opportunity to make a fortune, he certainly never missed a chance to save one, either.

FOOD AND DRINK A modest eater despite his wealth, Getty wasn’t known for indulgence in gourmet food or drink. He favored simple meals like cottage cheese and fruit over elaborate banquets.  Getty avoided alcohol, staying true to his Methodist upbringing. (1)

MUSIC AND ARTS Getty was a passionate art collector, beginning his collection in 1938 with pieces such as a Persian carpet and works by Gainsborough and Raphael. His interest in art and antiquities led him to acquire an enviable collection of paintings, Greek and Roman antiquities, Persian carpets, and 18th-century French furniture.

Getty also had an extensive collection of international photographs. 

He founded the J. Paul Getty Museum at his Malibu villa in 1954 and left over $661 million to the Getty Trust, creating the world's wealthiest art foundation.

LITERATURE Getty was a voracious reader who earned the nickname "Dictionary Getty" in high school for his love of languages and learning. 

He authored a bestselling memoir As I See It (1976) and business advice manual How to Be Rich (1965), sharing his business philosophy and maxims.

NATURE Getty treasured the formal gardens and ancient trees of his Sutton Place estate in Surrey, and landscaped his Malibu villa to echo a Roman seaside estate with Mediterranean-style gardens.

His philanthropic endeavors include the Getty Conservation Institute, which works to advance conservation practice through research, education, and applied field work, 

PETS Getty kept a pack of eight Alsatian guard dogs at Sutton Place (one mauled a neighbor's calf), plus peacocks and exotic birds patrolling his Surrey manor. The dogs were fierce guardians - one employee recalled being warned about an untrained Alsatian named Prince. (2)

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Getty was an amateur weightlifter who installed a fully equipped gymnasium at his Los Angeles home in the 1920s and trained with world champion Henry "Milo" Steinborn. He advocated daily exercise well into his seventies and continued training programs throughout his life.

SCIENCE AND MATHS Getty applied geological data analysis and scientific methods to oil exploration long before it became standard practice, hiring top geologists and insisting on "book-learned science" to guide drilling decisions, earning comparisons to John D. Rockefeller's methodical approach.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Getty was raised Methodist but became culturally Protestant while remaining intellectually skeptical. 

He preached self-reliance and thrift while doubting charity's power to "solve world poverty," preferring to invest in art and culture as civilizing influences on society.

POLITICS Getty was publicly pro-free enterprise, anti-tax, and hostile to socialism. 

After relocating to England in 1951, he quietly supported pro-business causes in Britain while maintaining conservative Republican sympathies in American politics.

KIDNAPPING OF GRANDSON On July 10, 1973, sixteen-year-old John Paul Getty III, grandson of  J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped by an Italian gang in Rome. When the family initially dismissed the abduction as a prank or a ploy for attention, the captors escalated: after two ransom notes were ignored, a gruesome package arrived at an Italian newspaper containing a lock of hair and one of the boy’s ears, along with a chilling threat to continue mutilating him unless $3.2 million was paid.

Only then did Getty Sr.—the richest man in the world—agree to pay, though not without haggling. He contributed about $2.2 million (the maximum amount tax-deductible), and loaned the remaining $700,000 to his son at 4% interest. On December 15, 1973—coincidentally the elder Getty’s 81st birthday—Getty III was found alive, abandoned at a petrol station in Lauria, in southern Italy, after the ransom was delivered. (3) 

SCANDAL (1)  Getty's refusal to pay full ransom for kidnapped grandson John Paul Getty III in 1973, only agreeing after the boy's ear was severed

(2) There was a FBI investigation and accusations of Nazi sympathies - Getty attended Hitler's 1938 Sportspalast speech and attempted to purchase art seized from imprisoned Jewish collectors. 

(3) Serial affairs, five divorces, and legal feuds over inheritance fueled tabloid speculation about a "Getty curse".

MILITARY RECORD During World War II, Getty approached Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox about enlisting but was told at age 49 he was too old for commission. Instead, he took over management of Spartan Aircraft Company, producing thousands of aircraft subassemblies for B-24 Liberators, B-29 Superfortresses, and P-38 Lightnings, as well as training pilots and mechanics including RAF pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Getty maintained a daily exercise routines and avoided rich food throughout his life. However, he suffered from recurrent heart problems in his later years and died of heart failure at age 83.

HOMES His major residences included: 

South Los Angeles mansion (1920s-1930s),

64-acre Getty Villa, Malibu, California (purchased 1945) A lavish re-creation of the Villa of the Papyri, an ancient Roman home. He converted part of his ranch house into a museum in 1954, and the new, larger Getty Villa opened in 1974.

Sutton Place, Surrey, England: A 16th-century Tudor mansion that served as his primary residence from 1959. It was furnished with period pieces and adorned with art, also serving as the headquarters for his worldwide enterprises.

Villa Getty at Ladispoli, near Rome: Where he housed much of his art collection and served as his winter retreat..

TRAVEL Getty traveled around Europe after graduating from Oxford in 1914.

He logged over a million miles courting Gulf oil monarchs. Getty's mastery of Arabic greatly aided his Middle Eastern business expansion.

Getty toured U.S. operations by private jet, and spent extensive time on the Mediterranean art-buying circuit. 

DEATH Getty died on June 6, 1976 of heart failure in his bedroom at Sutton Place, Surrey, England, aged 83. His estate was valued at $2-6 billion, with 90% bequeathed to the Getty Trust. 

He was buried at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Getty is the subject of numerous documentaries including BBC's 1960s profile by Alan Whicker, 

All the Money in the World (2017 film): Directed by Ridley Scott, based on John Pearson's book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. Christopher Plummer played J. Paul Getty (Originally Kevin Spacey, but was reshot).

Danny Boyle's HBO series Trust (2018), focusing on his wealth, frugality, and the grandson kidnapping saga.

ACHIEVEMENTS Amassed a vast fortune, becoming one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.

Successfully expanded the Getty Oil Company through strategic investments and oil discoveries, notably in Saudi Arabia.

Established the J. Paul Getty Museum, which houses his extensive art collection and is a major cultural institution.

His philanthropic legacy through the Getty Trust continues to support art conservation, research, and education.

Sources: (1) Biography (2) The Guildford Dragon (3) Encyclopaedia of Trivia

No comments:

Post a Comment