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 In the fifties of the 20th
century dollar a billionaire named Jean Paul Getty was rated as the richest man
on the planet, and he was proudly bearing this title until his last days. The
words to characterize him are selfish, hard, thirsty for pleasures to enjoy
only and he believed that in his body there lives the spirit of the Roman Emperor
Hadrian. With such a thought he might have some adherence to the mightiest of
the world. Yet, the great Roman image inspired Getty with the art craze. In the
adulthood, the billionaire founded a museum and named it after himself, the
only loved one.
Jean Paul
Getty’s ability to earn money was fascinating. Whether it is his individual
peculiarity he develops on his own, or heritage from the successful father, who
unexpectedly turned out to be the owner of the oil field to earn his first
million dollars, it is unknown. However, Getty was skilled in counting money
and increase the number of paper fortune with a peremptory tendency of the
trade machine. Despite the fact that the childhood of the future financial
genius was spent in the well-being, he was at an early age imparted by his parents’
traditional Protestant virtues - diligence and self-restraint. Apparently, the
boy did not like the rules of the game, and not having time to grow up, he
began to invent his own principles to live. Jean Paul was not even fifteen when
he started a wild life. He wanted to break the record of the emperor Hadrian,
who had four hundred mistresses according to the legends.
The Parents
who sent Jean-Paul to Oxford
University did not expect
that he would pay at least a spit of his at study, but in spite of their anticipations
he turned out to succeed in study to become progressive student. Upon graduation
from the prestigious school a young man went to work with his father when he
borrowed some money from him to purchase a separate oil well for his business.
In the short time he could only to repay the debt, but also proudly to have his
own million. After his father's death in 1916 he put high hopes to inherit hid
fortune though all the assets went to his wife, and Jean Paul had to built and
develop his own business, relying only on himself.
Aspiring to
prove his commercial skills, Getty make a fuss of the most adventurous
transactions, often accompanied with incredible success. He purchased shares of
the Pacific Zes Turn and developed ambitious plans towards his competitor - the
Tidewater Associated Oil Company. The mother, shocked by the force of her son’s
business insight, in the end, gave him the reins of the family business, the
Getty Oil Brand.. Subsequently, Getty still could achieve a merger of his
father's legacy with the corporation Tidewater Associated Oil. And here,
perhaps, he commercially won when the oil producing giant made him richer for
half a million dollars annually. Since then, Jean-Paul did not deny to play
occasionally in the game of merging and acquiring little companies to his
empire totaling in over two hundred corporations.
As for his
personal life, Getty was not happy. He was surrounded by women and even
collected them as antique things. His special proud was his affair with an
aristocrat Marie Tessier, claiming of her kinship with the Romanov house. Getty
married five times, but none of the marriages was successful. His wives escaped
from a billionaire to complain on him being greed, brutal and heartless.
He believed
that deserves all the best, and surrounded himself with luxury things. During
post-World War II he bought a mansion in the British city of Surrey, built around with massive walls, what
could boast except that the medieval fortress, and hired an army of security
service for personal protection. Pretending to be like Emperor Hadrian, Jean
Paul Getty acquired live lions and allowed them to roam freely along luxury
apartments. At the same time, he had feelings of incredible covetousness. Thus,
in his residences he installed paid phones for guests and servants.
In 1973 the
intruders stole his grandson and demanded a redeem of three million dollars from
the rich grandfather. Getty flatly refused to pay saying, «If I give the money,
my grandchildren will be kidnapped one after another». Five months later, the
criminals sent to him a boy's ear cut off with a video featuring that
heartbreaking process. Only after that Getty decided to make indulgence. But the
police found the boy before his grandfather let his millions go away from him.
Jean Paul
Getty died at the age of eighty-three years in 1976 from prostate cancer as diagnosed
by doctors. Reporting that event, the BBS host added, «He was the richest, the most
selfish and most lonely man in the world».
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