Also known as Paul Getty, the eldest of four children of John Paul Getty and his first wife Abigail Harris, and the grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty. His son, Balthazar Getty, became an actor, he is best known for the series Charmed, Ghost Whisperer, Brothers & Sisters.
John Paul Getty III was born on November 4, 1956 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and spent most of his childhood in Rome, Italy (Rome, Italy), as his father was the head of the Italian division of the Getty family oil company. His parents divorced in 1964, and in 1966 his father remarried Dutch model and actress Talitha Pol. Their marriage lasted five years, during which time Paul's father and stepmother lived as hippies (very wealthy hippies, it is worth noting) and divided their time between England (England) and Morocco (Morocco).
Paul was expelled from St. George's English School in Rome in early 1971. His father returned to England, while young Paul remained in Rome, where he led a bohemian life. Paul Getty was kidnapped in Piazza Farnese in Rome. The kidnappers sent a ransom note of $ 17 million in exchange for his safe return. After reading the note, some family members suspected that the kidnapping was arranged by Paul himself and was a ploy of a rebellious teenager , because earlier he often joked that money could be pulled out of his tight-fisted grandfather only by arranging his own kidnapping.
Semi was blindfolded and taken to a mountain refuge in Calabria. The kidnappers sent a second ransom message, which was delayed due to a strike by Italian postal workers. Paul's father, who did not have that kind of money, asked his father, Jean Paul Getty, whose fortune was already estimated at $ 2 billion, but was refused. Getty Sr. said that if he paid the kidnappers, his remaining 14 grandchildren would start kidnapping one by one. In November 1973, the daily newspaper received an envelope with a lock of hair and a human ear, which included threats to permanently mutilate Paul if the extortionists did not receive $ 3.2 million within ten days.
Then Getty Sr. agreed to pay the ransom, but only $ 2.2 million, since this was the maximum amount that was not taxed. He lent the missing money to save his grandson to his son at 4% per annum. In the end, the kidnappers received an estimated $ 2.9 million, and Paul was found alive in southern Italy on December 15, 1973, shortly after the ransom was paid.
The police detained nine kidnappers: a carpenter, a medical orderly, a former criminal and olive oil seller from Calabria, as well as several high-ranking members of the local mafia group, including Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti. Two of them were convicted and sent to prison, the rest - including the mafiosi - were released for lack of evidence. Most of the money disappeared without a trace.
In 1977, Paul Getty underwent surgery to restore his ear, which he lost due to the fault of the kidnappers. A number of writers have used this incident as a source of inspiration for their books.
In 1974, Paul Getty married a German woman, Gisela Martine Zacher, who was five months pregnant. Paul had known Gisela and her twin sister, Jutta, before the kidnapping. Paul was 18 years old when his son Baltazar was born. The couple divorced in 1993.
The incident killed Paul Getty. He became an alcoholic and drug addict, and his 1981 cocktail of Valium, methadone and spirits led to liver failure and a stroke that left him paralyzed and nearly blind.
In 1999, Getty, along with several other members of his family, became a citizen of Ireland (Republic of Ireland) in exchange for investments in the Irish economy of about 1 million pounds each. Subsequently, this law was canceled.
Jean Paul Getty was known all his life as one of the meanest rich people in the world. By all accounts, the desire to show off one's own wealth has never been the goal of an entrepreneur. He created his empire and billions of dollars in capital practically from scratch and was not going to share it with anyone.
His villas and mansions were works of art, but they were acquired at a time when prices for them were greatly declining. They say that even his move to separate houses from the luxury rooms, which he preferred in his youth, was due to the fact that the costs for the house seemed to him lower than the payment of hotels. By the way, Getty himself washed his own linen every day, saving money.
Other Getty eccentricities include the savings in mailing. He usually wrote answers to letters in their own fields and sent them in the same envelopes, if there was an opportunity to use them again.
The entrepreneur's numerous novels are also worth mentioning. What he really loved, apart from money from adolescence to ripe old age, was women. It would be more correct to say, not women, but sex, considering it a guarantee of youth and even immortality of the soul. He could summon paid priestesses of love from the Place Pigalle to his Paris office, and he could arrange a real hunt for some socialite beauty, seducing her with his self-control and encyclopedic erudition. He was married five times in his life and had, by all accounts, more than a hundred romances - not counting fleeting hobbies and girls for one night.
Getty was cool about charity. He himself claimed that he would give 99.5% of his fortune if he was sure that it would solve the problem of poverty. In his opinion, the best charities simply teach people to passively receive money.
At 3 a.m. on July 10, 1973, Paul Getty was struck by the sad news: his grandson John Paul Getty III had been kidnapped in Piazza Farnese in Rome. The grandson was blindfolded and taken to a mountain refuge in Calabria. The kidnappers sent a ransom note of $ 17 million in exchange for his safe return. After reading the note, some family members suspected that the kidnapping was arranged by Paul himself and was a trick of a rebellious teenager, since he used to often joke that money could be pulled out of his tight-fisted grandfather only by arranging his own kidnapping. Soon, the kidnappers sent a second ransom message, which was delayed by a strike by Italian postal workers. Paul's father, who did not have that kind of money, asked for it from his father, Jean Paul Getty. For Getty, whose fortune at the time reached $ 4 billion, it was not much money, but he was not going to pay. He was guided, in his opinion, by rational convictions. There is a widespread assertion of an entrepreneur that he has fourteen grandchildren and if he pays the ransom for one, the rest will be kidnapped.
The daily newspaper then received an envelope containing a lock of hair and part of an ear, as well as written threats to permanently mutilate his grandson if the extortionists did not receive $ 3.2 million within ten days.
Then Getty agreed to pay the ransom, but only $ 2.2 million, since this was the maximum amount that was not taxed. He lent the missing money to save his grandson to his son at 4 percent per annum. As a result, the kidnappers received approximately $ 2.9 million, and Paul was found alive in southern Italy after paying a ransom.
Police later detained nine of the kidnappers: a carpenter, an orderly, a former criminal and olive oil seller from Calabria, as well as several high-ranking members of a local mafia group. Two of the gang were convicted and sent to prison, the rest - including mafiosi - were released due to lack of evidence. Most of the ransom amount has disappeared.
The grandson never came to his senses and subsequently suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction. Eight years after the abduction, he became blind, speechless and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
The kidnapping and subsequent ransom of John Paul Getty III became one of the most high-profile and famous kidnappings in history, along with the kidnapping of Patty Hirst.
To understand the story of Paul Getty's abduction, you need to know a thing or two about his family. Paul, also known as John Paul Getty III, was the grandson of Jean Paul Getty, the man who founded Getty Oil in the 1940s and became extremely wealthy. He worked hard to get his money, and even studied Arabic to cement his position in the Middle East. Despite his immense wealth, he was a very humble person in life, and he was very careful when it came to giving money to children and grandchildren.
He was such a curmudgeon that his fifth wife, Teddy Getty Gaston, recounted in her 2013 memoir how upset her ex-husband was over spending too much on treatment for Timmy's six-year-old son, who had a brain tumor and who was blind. When Timmy passed away in 1958, his father did not attend the funeral.
Unsurprisingly, Getty refused to pay the ransom for Paul following his abduction. But does this mean that money was more important to him than the call of blood?
Paul's father was a drug addict and his stepmother died of a heroin overdose
John Paul "Eugene" Getty Jr. and wife Gail Harris had four sons. Their son Paul was born in 1956, and his parents divorced when he was eight years old. Eugene moved to Rome and married Dutch actress Talita Paul. Both were addicted to drugs, and in 1972 Talita died of a heroin overdose. According to police, John Paul Getty Jr. was partly to blame for his wife's death, but no charges were brought against him.
Paul Jr. was dropped from school and lived a free life in Rome
Sixteen-year-old Paul lived in Rome near his father, who ran the Italian subsidiary of the family business, Getty Oil Italiana. After being kicked out of private school, Paul lived on his own and enjoyed a carefree teenage life with no commitment. Paul attended clubs and participated in political demonstrations. He made money by acting as extras and selling jewelry and paintings.
He was kidnapped at 16 and his captors demanded a multimillion ransom
It was reported that on the night of the abduction of July 10, 1973, Paul was walking around Piazza Navona with a Belgian dancer. Italian mafiosi kidnapped Paul, dragging him into the back of a van, after which they took him 500 kilometers from the capital, to mountain Calabria. The kidnappers contacted Paul's family and demanded a ransom of $ 17 million.
Paul's family thought he had invented the kidnapping story himself to get the money.
Despite the fact that kidnapping was not at all unusual in Italy at that time, at first there were really doubts that Paul had been kidnapped. People believed that he did it himself in order to get money from his grandfather, who broke up with his son. It was known that Paul even made jokes about his abduction.
As a result, both the police and Paul's friends did not take the kidnapping report seriously. But Paul wrote a letter to his mother, begging her for help. It was published in TIME on July 30, 1973:
“Dear mother, I fell into the hands of kidnappers. Don't let them kill me! Make sure the police don't get involved. You absolutely must not take this as a joke ... Do not publicize my abduction. "
His grandfather refused to pay the ransom because he didn't want to set a precedent.
It is common knowledge that Paul's grandfather was very careful with his money. Despite the fact that he was the richest man in the world, he did not like to waste his fortune. He was so "thrifty" that it was said that in his London house, guests had to use a payphone specially installed for this purpose. His grandfather stopped supporting his son J. Paul Getty Jr. and daughter-in-law Gail Harris, so Paul's parents could not pay the ransom. They begged the head of the family for help, but he did not want to pay the kidnappers, because he was afraid to create a precedent, after which all other family members could be in danger. He told the newspapermen: "If I pay just one cent now, I will have 14 kidnapped grandchildren."
The kidnappers cut off Paul's ear, after which the family finally paid the ransom for him
Gail, Paul's mother, was so outraged by her ex-father-in-law that she publicly dishonored him to make him pay. After about four months, Paul's kidnappers began to show concern. In November 1973, they sent a package to a Roman newspaper with the gruesome contents — a bloody clump of hair and a severed ear. The kidnappers wrote:
“This is Paul's first ear. If within 10 days the family still thinks this is a joke, we will send a second ear. In other words, we will send it to you in small chunks. "
The kidnappers demanded $ 3.2 million, the patriarch of the family brought the price down to $ 2.89 million. J. Paul Getty paid $ 2.2 million, and this amount was exempt from taxes, the remaining amount was to be paid by his son. He borrowed this money from his father - at 4% per annum.
Exhausted and exhausted Paul was freed from captivity
On December 15, 1973, five months after his abduction, Paul was finally released. He stood in the rain on the Italian freeway for several hours before being picked up by a truck driver. Paul explained that he had been kidnapped and that he needed to call his mother. When the police arrived, Paul identified himself and said that the kidnappers had blindfolded him and transported him from place to place several times over the months in different parts of Calabria. It is clear that he was exhausted and hungry. Although he was generally unharmed (with the exception of the missing ear), Paul experienced a deep emotional and mental shock.
The police ended up on the trail of the kidnappers.
To catch Paul's kidnappers, former American intelligence agent Fletcher Chase was instructed to hand over the bags of lyres. Chase and a police officer were driving along a road in the vicinity of Naples when the kidnappers' car caught up with them. The detectives handed them the ransom on the move, but managed to get a good look and remember the gang members. Upon returning to Rome, they were able to identify the criminals, and a month later they were detained. Paul returned to Italy to conduct an identification. A total of nine suspects were arrested, but only two were convicted.
After his release, Paul became addicted to drugs and alcohol.
About a year after his release, 18-year-old Paul married 24-year-old Gisele Sacher, who was a photographer from Germany. Paul tried to improve his life and studied at Pepperdine University for one semester. He had two children, daughter Anna and son Balthazar, who became a famous actor. But the consequences of the abduction made themselves felt. After a while, Paul moved with his family to New York, where he began to communicate with Andy Warhol and other artists. He soon began to actively abuse drugs and alcohol.
Paul's grandfather did not leave him a cent after his death
When his grandfather passed away in 1976, Paul received nothing (his father only received $ 500). The patriarch of the family donated most of his fortune to charitable and non-profit organizations such as the Getty Museum. Although he did not favor many members of his family, he was always generous towards women. The will was attended by 11 women, including a wife, who was given a life pension of $ 55,000 a year, a London widow and a decorator, who received a substantial stake in Getty.
Paul abused drugs and was tied to a wheelchair. He was suing his father over paying medical bills.
In 1981, after taking Valium, methadone and alcohol, Paul nearly died of an overdose. The consequences of the affect were devastating. Paul suffered a stroke and almost completely lost his speech and vision. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Paul was looked after by his mother, but that was not enough. Finding himself in dire financial straits, Paul sued his father, demanding $ 28,000 a month from him to pay for his medical expenses. He died in 2011 at the age of 54.
A 2017 film about Paul's life sparked controversy
All the Money in the World was released on Christmas Eve in late 2017. Its release was accompanied by newspaper articles that had not been interrupted for the previous several weeks. The fact is that at the last minute filmmakers decided to replace actor Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer - after Spacey was embroiled in a scandal over allegations of sexual harassment. Based on the book Painful Rich by John Pearson, the film received a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Following the film's release, Michael Mammoliti, the nephew of one of the kidnappers, spoke out against the film, claiming it was inaccurate, portraying the teenager solely as a victim. He declared:
“This guy planned his kidnapping himself. He had ambitious plans. All the participants wanted to get easy money, but everything went awry due to the fact that the grandfather did not want to pay. "
As stated in one famous television series, the rich also cry. At the same time, the most serious troubles, as a rule, happen not with the billionaires themselves, but with their offspring. Such a misfortune has not spared the family clan of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty. The grandson of a billionaire recognized as the richest man in the world, John Paul Getty III, first became addicted to drugs, and then he was kidnapped by criminals. The hostage release has turned into a gripping crime story.
John Paul Getty III was born in 1956 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But he spent most of his childhood in Italy - in Rome, where his father, also John Paul, represented the interests of the family oil corporation. In 1964, Paul's father divorced and married an obscure Dutch actress. Apparently, tired of the harsh everyday life of big business, after the divorce, John Paul Getty II hit it all hard. He completely abandoned all affairs and, together with his new wife, began to live with a hippie colony in Morocco, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes the former businessman came to rest in England, where a luxurious house was bought for this purpose.
Young Paul's father and stepmother were sent to study at the elite English school St. George in Rome. Having hardly finished it, Paul did not go to university. He remained in Italy and led a bohemian life, as the available family capital allowed it. Among his close acquaintances were hippies, rock musicians, drug addicts, prostitutes, vagabonds and other dubious personalities. Therefore, when at 3 a.m. on July 10, 1973, Paul Getty was abducted in a square in Rome and taken away in an unknown direction, no one was particularly surprised.
Only the motives for the kidnapping of the billionaire's grandson remained a mystery. At first, many believed that all this was a talented staging, organized by Paul himself, in order to extract more money from his tight-fisted relatives. Then the police put forward a version that terrorists from the famous "red brigades" were involved in the kidnapping. However, no political statements by the "brigadiers" followed, and this version had to be abandoned.
Some journalists argued that rivals of the family clan orchestrated the kidnapping to force Paul Getty's grandfather to make secret concessions in the oil business. After all, he was successfully engaged in the development of oil fields in Saudi Arabia and back in 1957 he was declared the richest man on Earth.
The kidnapping of the rich man's grandson
Soon, the kidnappers sent a note to Paul Getty's father and grandfather demanding a ransom of $ 17 million. Only in this case would they guarantee the safe return of the hostage. The father of the kidnapped did not have that kind of money. And the head of the clan, Jean Paul Getty, who lived in England, responded with a categorical refusal to the proposal of unknown bandits.
Speaking to reporters, Getty Sr. said that he has fourteen more grandchildren. If he pays the criminals the required amount, his grandchildren will be kidnapped one by one, and he will be completely ruined.
A week later, an envelope arrived in the office of a provincial Italian newspaper. It contained a lock of hair and a severed human ear. In a cover letter, unknown criminals threatened to brutally kill the kidnapped teenager if they did not receive $ 3.2 million within ten days. Only after that, Getty Sr. agreed to pay the ransom, but not in full, but in installments.
First, the bandits were transferred $ 2.2 million, and then the rest of the amount. In the end, through skillful bargaining, Getty Sr. reduced the ransom to $ 2.9 million. It is also curious that he lent all the money necessary to save his grandson to his own son at four percent per annum. Having received the money, the bandits released young Paul. He was discovered in southern Italy, in an abandoned house, on December 15, 1973.
When the joyful Paul III began to call his grandfather in England to thank him for his release, he refused to answer. And then he refused to meet with his grandson altogether. As the saying goes, the rich have their quirks.
District mafia
While the Getty family clan bargained with the kidnappers and sought the release of the hostage, the Italian police wasted no time either. Using operational channels, Italian detectives managed to figure out and then arrest the gang that carried out the audacious kidnapping of the billionaire's grandson. Much to the dismay of the press, it was announced that the "kidnapping of the century" was organized by a small criminal group from the province of Calabria, located in southern Italy.
The police detained nine criminals, including one chauffeur, one carpenter, one orderly of a municipal hospital and one olive oil seller from Calabria. The gang was led by two district mafiosi, some Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti. During the court hearings, all the circumstances of the audacious abduction were clarified. A drug addict who was hanging out with Paul Getty in Rome gave the Calabrian bandits a clue to a promising "client". The rest was a matter of technique.
John Paul Getty III - Paralyzed and Blind
A group of criminals arrived in Rome by car. Paul was tracked down, grabbed right on the street, injected with a horse dose of sleeping pills and taken to a mountain village in Calabria, where he was kept in an abandoned house. Contact with the relatives of the abducted person and the receipt of the ransom was carried out through dummies. However, at the trial it was possible to prove the guilt of only two criminals. The rest had to be released for lack of evidence.
By the way, the police never found most of the money received as a ransom. The two million dollars disappeared without a trace, and, as some skeptics have argued, were used as fees for lawyers and as a bribe to the court. As for Paul Getty III himself, after being freed from the hands of the bandits, he was treated for a long time, underwent plastic surgery to restore the ear, which was cut off by the kidnappers. Then Paul got married, his son was born, but the psychological trauma associated with the abduction did not let the "billionaire granddaughter" go. He continued to abuse alcohol and drugs, already in 1981, this led to a stroke, which left the 25-year-old boy paralyzed, deaf and almost blind disabled. Died Getty III at the age of 54.
(1956-11-04 )
Biography
Getty spent most of his childhood in Rome, where his father headed the Italian branch of an oil company. Getty Oil- the business of the Getty family. His parents, John Paul Getty Jr. and Abigail Harris, divorced in 1964 when the boy was 8 years old. In 1966, his father remarried - to model and actress Talita Paul. Carried away by the hippie movement, they spent a lot of time in the UK and Morocco in the 1960s, and little Paul lived with his mother Gail in Rome and studied at the British International School of St. George. In early 1972, he was expelled from the school, after a two-meter insulting inscription written by Paul appeared on the wall of the corridor against its director. In the same year, his stepmother died of a drug overdose in Rome, and his father returned to the United Kingdom. Paul, while staying in Italy, led a bohemian lifestyle: he attended nightclubs, took part in left-wing demonstrations, and was also fond of creativity, earning a living making jewelry, selling paintings and working as extras.
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Abduction
At 3 a.m. on July 10, 1973, Paul, then 16 years old, was kidnapped from Piazza Farnese in Rome. The boy was put a bag over his head and taken to an underground shelter in the mountains of Calabria in southern Italy. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of $ 17 million in exchange for the boy's safe return. However, family members suspected that the kidnapping was staged by the young Getty in order to extort money from his billionaire grandfather. Paul Getty refused to pay the ransom, claiming that he had 14 grandchildren, and if he paid even a cent, he would have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.
On November 10, 1973, the Italian daily Il Messaggero received a parcel with a lock of red hair cut off by a human ear and a note threatening Paul to be further injured unless $ 3.2 million was paid. The letter said: “This is Paul's first ear. If within ten days the family still believes that this is a rally organized by them, then you will receive a second ear. In other words, he will come back to you piece by piece. " Realizing that the kidnapping was not a hoax, Getty Sr. reluctantly forked out for a ransom in the amount of $ 3 million. But he allocated only $ 2.2 million, he lent another 800 thousand to his son at 4 percent per annum.
On December 15, 1973, shortly after the ransom was paid, Paul was found alive at a gas station in Lauria commune (Potenza province). The young man's mother, Gail, remembered that Getty Sr.turned eighty-one that day and suggested that Paul call his grandfather to thank him for saving him and wish him happiness and good health... However, Getty refused to answer the phone.
Nine of the kidnappers were detained, including a carpenter, a hospital attendant, a former prisoner and olive oil trader from Calabria, as well as senior members of the Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) Girolamo Pyromalli and Saverio Mammoliti. Two criminals were convicted and given prison sentences; the rest, including the Ndrangheta bosses, were acquitted for lack of evidence. Most of the ransom paid by the Getty family has never been found. In 1977, Paul Getty underwent plastic surgery to restore an ear that had been cut off by the kidnappers.
Personal life
In 1974, Getty married a German citizen Martine Sacher (née Schmidt), who was five months pregnant. He had a close acquaintance with Martina and her twin sister, Jutta, even before the kidnapping. Getty was 18 years old when his son Balthazar was born on January 22, 1975. The couple divorced in 1993.
After his release from captivity, Getty, trying to cope with the experience, became addicted to drugs and alcohol. In 1981, he drank a large dose of alcohol mixed with Valium and Methadone. Overdose led to liver failure and stroke. Paul was completely paralyzed, partially blind and unable to speak. All the care of him was taken over by his mother Gail. Paul was suing his father trying to get him to pay back medical expenses in the amount of US $ 28,000 a month. Disabled for the rest of his life, he never fully recovered. By 1987, he was able to regain only partial mobility: he was able to attend concerts and cinemas again and even ski while being tied to a metal frame.
In 1999, Paul and six other members of his family became citizens of Ireland, where their ancestors were from. Citizenship was granted in exchange for the purchase of real estate and a £ 1 million investment in job creation (from each investor).
Death
Getty died on February 5, 2011 at the age of 54 at Wormsley Castle, Buckinghamshire, England.
see also
Notes (edit)
- Obituary: John Paul Getty III, grandson of oil tycoon, who had ear cut off in kidnapping (unspecified) . The scotsman(8 February 2011). Retrieved April 11, 2018.
- Sanchez, Tony. Up and Down with the Rolling Stones: The Inside Story. - Da Capo Press, 1996. - P. 242. - ISBN 0-306-80711-4.
- J. Paul Getty III, 54, Dies; Had Ear Cut Off by Captors (unspecified) .
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