J. Paul Getty

Not to be confused with John Paul Getty Jr. or John Paul Getty III.

J. Paul Getty
Getty in 1944
Born
Jean Paul Getty

(1892-12-15)December 15, 1892
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
DiedJune 6, 1976(1976-06-06) (aged 83)
Woking, Surrey, England
Burial placeGetty Villa
Los Angeles, California
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley
Magdalen College, Oxford
OccupationBusinessman
Spouses
Jeanette Demont
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(m. 1923; div. 1926)​
Allene Ashby
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(m. 1926; div. 1928)​
Adolphine Helmle
​
​
(m. 1928; div. 1932)​
​
​
(m. 1932; div. 1936)​
​
​
(m. 1939; div. 1958)​
PartnersLady Ursula d'Abo
Mary Teissier
Rosabella Burch
Penelope Kitson
Children
Parents

Jean Paul Getty Sr. (/ˈɡɛti/; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family.[1] A native of Minneapolis, he was the son of pioneer oilman George Getty. In 1957, Fortune magazine named him the wealthiest living American,[2] while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records declared him the world's wealthiest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $8.6 billion in 2023).[3] At the time of his death, he was worth more than $6 billion (approximately $25 billion in 2023).[4] A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th wealthiest American who ever lived (based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product).[5]

Getty is considered to have been frugal, notably negotiating his grandson's kidnapping ransom in 1973. He had five children and divorced five times. Getty was an avid collector of art and antiquities. His collection formed the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; more than $661 million of his estate was left to the museum after his death.[4] He established the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1953. The trust, which is the world's wealthiest art institution, operates the J. Paul Getty Museum Complexes: the Getty Center, the Getty Villa and the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute.[6]


Getty was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Sarah Catherine McPherson (Risher) and George Getty, who was an attorney in the insurance industry. His parents raised him as a Methodist; his father was a devout Christian Scientist, and both were strict teetotalers. He was of part Scottish descent.[7] In 1903, when Getty was 10 years old, George Getty traveled to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and bought the mineral rights for 1,100 acres of land. The Getty family subsequently moved to Bartlesville, where J. Paul Getty attended the Garfield School. Within a few years Getty had established wells on the land that were producing 100,000 barrels of crude oil a month.[8]

As newly minted millionaires, the family moved to Los Angeles, but J. Paul Getty later returned to Oklahoma. At age 14, he attended Harvard Military School for a year, followed by [[John H. Francis Polytechnic High School|Polytechnic High Schoolof reading.[9] He became fluent in French, German and Italian, and conversational in Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Russian. A love of the classics led Getty to acquire reading proficiency in Ancient Greek and Latin.[10]

Getty enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, but did not complete a degree.[11][12] Enamored of Europe after traveling abroad with his parents in 1910, he enrolled at the University of Oxford on November 28, 1912.[12] A letter of introduction by then-President of the United States William Howard Taft enabled him to gain independent instruction from tutors at Magdalen College. Although he was not registered at Magdalen, he claimed the aristocratic students "accepted me as one of their own" and he fondly boasted of the friends he made, including the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.[13] He obtained a diploma in economics and political science from Oxford in June 1913,[12] then spent months traveling throughout Europe and Egypt before meeting his parents in Paris and returning with them to the U.S. in June 1914.

  1. ^ Whitman, Alden (June 6, 1976). "J. Paul Getty Dead at 83; Amassed Billions From Oil". On This Day. The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 21, 2016.
  2. ^ Lubar, Robert (March 17, 1986). "The Odd Mr. Getty: The possibly richest man in the world was mean, miserly, sexy, fearful of travel and detergents". Fortune. New York City. Archived from the original on August 13, 2017. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  3. ^ McWhirter, Norris; McWhirter, Ross (1966). Guinness Book of Records. London, England: Jim Pattison Group. p. 229.
  4. ^ a b Lenzner, Robert. 1985. The great Getty: the life and loves of J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world. New York: Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-56222-7
  5. ^ Klepper, Michael M.; Gunther, Robert E. (1996). The wealthy 100: from Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates: a ranking of the richest Americans, past and present. Secaucus, New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8065-1800-6.
  6. ^ Wyatt, Edward (April 30, 2009). "Getty Fees and Budget Reassessed". The New York Times. p. C1. Archived from the original on February 6, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  7. ^ Creag Dubh The Annual of the Clan MacPherson Association, no 71, p62 The McPherson ancestry of the Getty Family
  8. ^ John Pearson (1995). Painfully Rich. HarperCollins. p. 20.
  9. ^ Alden Whitman (June 6, 1976). [https://web.archive.org/web/20180330155805/https://archive..com/www.com/learning/general/on this day /bday/1215.html "J. Paul Getty Dead at 83; Amassed Billions from Oil"]. The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 30, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2018. {{cite news}}: Check |archive-url= value (help); line feed character in |archive-url= at position 101 (help)
  10. ^ Alden Whitman (June 6, 1976). "J. Paul Getty Dead at 83; Amassed Billions from Oil". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 30, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2018.
  11. ^ Tran, Mark (July 12, 2001). "The Getty fortune". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 17, 2019.
  12. ^ a b c Museum, J. Paul Getty (2007). The J. Paul Getty Museum: Handbook of the Collections. Getty Publications. ISBN 9780892368877.
  13. ^ Pearson, John (1995). Painfully Rich. New York City: HarperCollins. p. 29.