Once the richest man in the world, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty was so frugal that he wouldn't pay his 16-year-old grandson's ransom — until his kidnappers cut off his ear and sent it to the family.
Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesA former wife of Getty’s once remarked that business was his “first love.”
At one point in time, J. Paul Getty was considered the wealthiest man on planet Earth. Despite his exorbitant wealth, however, Getty was perhaps best known for his frugality — even when it came to his grandson’s kidnapping ransom. Though Getty reluctantly paid millions of dollars in ransom in 1973, he didn’t spend a penny until after the kidnappers had cut off his 16-year-old grandson’s ear.
This was hardly the only time that Getty displayed his frugality. He also purportedly did his own laundry by hand, and allegedly scolded one of his wives for spending “too much” money on their terminally ill son’s medical treatments. That said, he also had a deep interest in his arts and left much of his massive collection to a museum that still bears his name.
In the end however, Getty was a penny pincher despite his extreme wealth — to a comical and sometimes frightening degree. Though he died nearly 50 years ago, J. Paul Getty’s life still offers a fascinating, unique insight into the minds of the ultra-wealthy.
How J. Paul Getty Made His Fortune By Following His Father Into The Oil Business
Jean Paul Getty Sr. was born on Dec. 15, 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Sarah and George Getty. George was, at the time, an attorney and devout Christian Scientist. In 1903, however, George Getty embarked on a new venture — one that would have his coffers positively teeming with wealth. He purchased 1,100 acres of land in Oklahoma and started drilling for oil, establishing the Minnehoma Oil Company.
George moved his wife and son out to Oklahoma with him, where young J. Paul would go on to attend the Garfield School. A few years later, George Getty’s oil company was producing roughly 100,000 barrels of crude oil each month, and he was raking in millions.
Public DomainGeorge F. Getty, father to J. Paul Getty.
With their newfound wealth, the Getty family moved once again, this time landing in Los Angeles, California. J. Paul Getty eventually graduated from Los Angeles’ Polytechnic High School in 1909, after which he attended the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley before transferring to Oxford University. Getty would ultimately receive his degree from Oxford, with a focus on political science and economics.
When Getty returned to the United States in June 1914, he followed his father into the oil business. George gifted him with $10,000 which Getty used to purchase a lot in Haskell, Oklahoma. It would, a year later, make him a millionaire when the well there struck oil.
With his newfound wealth, Getty returned to Los Angeles and spent his time leisurely for a few years before returning to the oil business in 1919. Over the course of the next decade, Getty would go on to add $3 million to his estate.
Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo J. Paul Getty once remarked that “a billion dollars isn’t worth what it used to be.”
But things weren’t always smooth sailing.
J. Paul Getty’s Tumultuous Personal Life, From His Womanizing To His Five Wives
Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock PhotoJ. Paul Getty with his fifth wife, Louise Dudley Lynch.
Unsurprisingly, a young man as wealthy as J. Paul Getty started to get noticed — especially by women. In the 1920s alone, he was married three times. But Getty was also a known womanizer in his younger years, and this got him into trouble with both women and his own father.
In 1917, for instance, a paternity suit was filed against the 25-year-old Getty by a woman named Elsie Eckstrom. Eckstrom claimed that Getty was the father of her daughter, Paula, and — to make matters worse — she said he had taken her virginity when she was drunk. According to a 1986 Los Angeles Times report, Getty’s lawyers attempted in court to paint Eckstrom as promiscuous to undermine her claim. But Getty ended up settling the case for $10,000, and Eckstrom went off to raise her daughter alone.
Six years later, in 1923, Getty married his first wife Jeanette Demont with whom he had one son: George Getty II. They divorced in 1926, the same year Getty met 17-year-old Allene Ashby while he was visiting Mexico City. She was the daughter of a Texas rancher, and though Getty was not yet divorced from Demont, he and Ashby eloped. The marriage lasted just two years.
The same year he split from Ashby, Getty met another woman, 17-year-old Adolphine Helmle, in Vienna. Her father, a German doctor, was opposed to the marriage, seeing as Getty was more than twice her age and had been twice divorced. Going against his wishes, Getty and Helmle got married, moved to Los Angeles, and had a child together, Jean Ronald Getty.
Ultimately, however, Helmle’s father convinced her to return to Germany with her son in 1929. Getty and Helmle then spent three years in court finalizing their divorce, ending with Getty paying out a massive sum of money and Helmle retaining full custody of their son.
Keystone Press/Alamy Stock PhotoJ. Paul Getty talking with a woman at party.
Meanwhile, this string of marriages and divorces caused George Getty’s faith in his son to waver. He felt that J. Paul Getty was too careless, and cut his son’s share of his fortune. When George died in 1930, with a net worth of $10 million, J. Paul Getty received just $500,000.
Undeterred, Getty remarried again in 1932, this time to a woman named Ann Rork. Disturbingly, Getty had actually met Rork for the first time nine years earlier — when she was 14 and he was 28. They first entered into a romantic relationship in 1930, when she was 21, but had to wait for his divorce from Helmle to be finalized. They had two sons together, John Paul Getty Jr. and Gordon Peter Getty, but this marriage, too, would not last. Getty spent most of his time abroad in Europe, and four years into their marriage, Rork sued him for divorce, citing emotional abuse and neglect.
The court ruled in her favor, awarding her $2,500 monthly in alimony, and an additional $1,000 for each of their sons in child support.
Getty married his fifth and final wife, Louise Dudley “Teddy” Lynch, in 1939, with whom he had one son, Timothy Ware Getty. Lynch was the most vocal about her relationship with Getty, and even wrote extensively about their marriage in her book Alone Together: My Life With J. Paul Getty. In one particularly telling moment, she described an argument that ensued between her and Getty, who scolded her for spending money on a treatment for their six-year-old son who had become blind as the result of a brain tumor. When the boy died six years later, J. Paul Getty — living abroad — did not return to the United States for the funeral.
In the end, J. Paul Getty was married more to his work than to any of his five wives. He even once quipped: “A lasting relationship with a woman is only possible if you are a business failure.”
But Getty’s concern for money over people was perhaps best illustrated in 1973. Then, his 16-year-old grandson, John Paul Getty III, was kidnapped by members of an Italian organized crime ring.
The Kidnapping Of John Paul Getty III
Getty ImagesJohn Paul Getty III was 16 years old when he was kidnapped in 1973 and held by his kidnappers for five months as they negotiated a ransom with his family.
Shortly after John Paul Getty III was kidnapped in Rome, his kidnappers demanded $17 million (more than $100 million today) for his safe return. But J. Paul Getty was in no hurry to pay it.
Estranged from John Paul’s father, critical of John Paul’s bohemian Italian lifestyle, and suspicious that the kidnaping was a set-up to extort money from him, J. Paul Getty told the press: “I have 14 grandchildren, and if I pay a penny of ransom, I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.”
The kidnappers were astounded.
“Who is this so-called grandfather?” one of the kidnappers demanded in a phone conversation with John Paul’s mother, Gail, according to Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. “How can he leave his own flesh and blood in the plight that your poor son is in. Here is the richest man in America, and you tell me he refuses to find just 10 miliardi for his grandson’s safety. Signora, you take me for a fool.”
Four months later, the kidnappers tried to pressure the family by cutting off John Paul’s ear and sending it in the mail. They also agreed to lower the ransom to $3 million. J. Paul Getty agreed to pay $2.2 million of the new proposed ransom — the maximum that his attorneys told him was tax deductible. He also loaned the remainder to John Paul Getty III’s father, but only on the condition that it would be paid back with four percent interest.
When John Paul Getty III was released in December 1973, he was deeply traumatized. But his grandfather had little sympathy for him. When Gail insisted her son call his grandfather to thank him for his help, J. Paul Getty didn’t even pick up the phone.
Vittoriano Rastelli/Corbis/Getty ImagesJohn Paul Getty III with his mother after being returned by his kidnappers.
John Paul Getty III subsequently sank into a drug and alcohol addiction. He suffered a stroke in 1981 that left him unable to speak, barely able to see, and partially paralyzed for the remainder of his life.
A Legacy Of Miserly Frugality
Keystone Press/Alamy Stock PhotoJ. Paul Getty said the role of the wealthy is to “provide others with incentives which would not exist if we were to disappear.”
Despite his great wealth, J. Paul Getty always had a reputation for being frugal. That didn’t change, even in his later years when he could have afforded any luxury he wanted. For a time, he was living at the Ritz in London, but then moved to Sutton Place because the cost of living was lower. Getty also purportedly hand washed his own underwear at night and at one point forced his guests to use a coin operated phone.
Alongside his frugality, J. Paul Getty also remained a womanizer until the end of his life. His sexual appetite proved to be insatiable. As Vanity Fair reported, Getty had numerous live-in girlfriends at his estate and took an experimental drug known as H3 to maintain his potency.
But any of these women hoping to get a share of Getty’s fortune ultimately found themselves disappointed. He bequeathed them insultingly small sums in his will — one woman only received a bequeathment of $209 monthly.
Indeed, Getty spoke publicly about the downsides of his exorbitant wealth. As the New York Times reported at the time of Getty’s death, he often felt that people only liked him for his money, and that because of his money he believed people felt he could be overcharged or expected to tip more. At one point, Getty said he was receiving 3,000 letters a month from strangers demanding money.
“If I were convinced that by giving away my fortune I could make a real contribution toward solving the problems of world poverty, I’d give away 99.5 percent of all I have immediately,” he once said. “But a hard-eyed appraisal of the situation convinces me this is not the case.”
J. Paul Getty did, of course, donate much of his art collection to the Getty Museum, and so despite claiming that charity would not be beneficial, he at least did one charitable act before he died of a heart attack on June 6, 1976.
Ultimately, he was many things. But his reputation and legacy often boils down to not greed, as it would for many other billionaires, but frugality: an unwillingness to spend the massive fortune he had amassed.
After reading about the life of J. Paul Getty, read about Leona Helmsley, the real estate mogul dubbed the “Queen of Mean.” Then, meet the only seven Black billionaires in America.
