J. Paul Getty
American petroleum industrialist and founder of Getty Oil Company
Los Angeles Daily News · via Wikipedia: J. Paul Getty · CC BY 4.0
Fortune magazine identified Getty as the richest American alive in 1957, and the 1966 Guinness Book of Records called him the wealthiest private citizen globally.[1] His reputation for being thrifty included bargaining with the captors during his grandson's 1973 kidnapping.[2]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Jean Paul Getty
- Born
- 15 December 1892
- Birthplace
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
- Died
- 6 June 1976
- Place of death
- Woking, Surrey, England
- Burial place
- Getty Villa; Los Angeles, California
- Education
- Magdalen College, Oxford
- Occupation
- Businessman
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
In 1914, his father gave him $10,000 to invest in expanding the family's oil field holdings in Oklahoma.[3] In 1948–49, he paid Ibn Saud $9.5 million in cash for the Saudi Arabian Neutral Zone concession.[4] Sarah Catherine McPherson and George Franklin Getty, an insurance industry attorney, were the parents of Getty, who was born in Minneapolis.[5] The Nancy Taylor No. 1 Oil Well Site near Haskell, Oklahoma, which was his initial purchase, produced oil in August 1915, and by the following summer he had become a millionaire.[3]
Pacific Western Oil Corporation was bought by Getty during the Great Depression, and he also started the process of acquiring the Mission Corporation.[4] Approximately 200 businesses, Getty Oil among them, had their controlling interest held by him.[6] Getty experienced five marriages and five divorces, fathering five sons with four of his spouses.[7] At Sutton Place on June 6, 1976, at age 83, he passed away due to heart failure.[8]
What the cited sources add
A Vanity Fair article notes that Getty's friend and lawyer Robina Lund explained his duality by saying "Paul could hardly ever say 'no' to a woman, or 'yes' to a man."[9] A Psychology Today article states that Getty wrote "I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all of my millions for just one lasting marital success."[10] A BBC News profile notes that when Sir Paul Getty II asked his father for help paying the ransom for his kidnapped son, he was refused.[11] The same article notes that Lord Beaverbrook characterized Getty as "priapic" and "every-ready" regarding his sexual behavior.[9]
References
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lubar, "The Odd Mr. Getty: The possibly richest man in the world was mean, miserly, sexy, fearful of travel and detergents", Fortune, March 17, 1986; McWhirter, "Guinness Book of Records", Jim Pattison Group, 1966, p. 229; Lenzner, Robert. 1985. The great Getty: the life and loves of J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world. New York: Crown Publishers.; Klepper, "The wealthy 100: from Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates: a ranking of the richest Americans, past and present", Carol Publishing Group, 1996 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lenzner, Robert. 1985. The great Getty: the life and loves of J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world. New York: Crown Publishers. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pearson, "Painfully Rich: J. Paul Getty and his heirs", HarperCollins, 1995 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "3 GETTY UNITS SET A SINGLE COMPANY", The New York Times (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The McPherson ancestry of the Getty Family", Clan MacPherson Association, 2019, p. 62 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Farnsworth, "Surrey Estate Seat of Getty Empire", The New York Times, July 30, 1964 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lenzner, Robert. 1985. The great Getty: the life and loves of J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world. New York: Crown Publishers.; Vallely, "Don't keep it in the family", The Independent, July 19, 2007; Getty, "As I see it: the autobiography of J. Paul Getty", Getty Publications, 1976, p. 91 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "J. Paul Getty" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Whitman, "J. Paul Getty Dead at 83; Amassed Billions From Oil", The New York Times, June 6, 1976 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Miller, "Yes, J. Paul Getty Reportedly Had as Many Live-In Girlfriends as FX's Trust Claims", Vanity Fair, March 25, 2018. facts only, no text reused. vanityfair.com
- Bloom, "The Price of Success", Psychology Today, April 24, 2012. facts only, no text reused. psychologytoday.com
- "Profile: Sir John Paul Getty II", BBC News, June 13, 2001. facts only, no text reused. news.bbc.co.uk
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article J. Paul Getty (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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