The story of the Gettys, one of America's oldest dynasties, is braided with two conflicting threads: fabulous wealth and chronic misfortune.
Tuesday's death of 47-year old Andrew Getty, grandson of Depression-era oil baron J. Paul Getty, now adds another sad chapter.
The circumstances of his death remain unclear. But the news has given fresh attention on the Getty family's turbulent history.
"It's terrible to see the Getty family experience another nightmarish tragedy," said Rober Lenzner, who wrote a 1986 biography of J. Paul Getty.
FILE - This 1975 file photo shows oil billionaire, Jean Paul Getty, America's richest expatriate, at his home at Guildford, Surrey, England. A man has been found dead at the Hollywood Hills home of Andrew Getty, grandson of the late J. Paul Getty and heir to the Getty oil fortune - but they haven’t confirmed that it is Getty. Los Angeles police Officer Jack Richter says officers went to the home shortly after 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, 2015, after a woman called to say someone in the house had died. (AP Photo/David Caulkin, File)
Andrew Getty's death "warrants more deep analysis than the cliché that all the money in the world can't buy happiness," Lenzner said. It is a reminder, he said, that frailty often hits at both ends of America's extreme income gap. "Great wealth doesn't protect against tragedy in a family," Lenzner said.
Calamity has visited the family repeatedly since the early days of J. Paul Getty, who made his fortune during the Great Depression and became the world's first billionaire. He married and divorced five times, kept a number of lovers, and developed a reputation as an irredeemable miser. One of his sons died of a brain tumor at 12. Another died in an apparent drug-induced suicide.
In 1973, one of Getty's teen-aged grandchildren, J. Paul Getty III, was kidnapped by a band of criminals and mobsters while living a bohemian life in Rome. During the ransom negotiations, the kidnappers cut off one of his ears. They demanded $17 million, which the patriarch refusedto pay, saying it would prompt copycat snatchings of his other grandchildren. In the end, the old man loaned his family $2.2 million, at 4 percent interest, to get the boy back.
FILE - In this Dec. 15, 1973 file photo, former actress Gail Harris arrives in a police car with her son John Paul Getty III at police headquarters in Rome. Getty, the troubled grandson of a U.S. multibillionaire oil magnate who once lost an ear in a grisly kidnapping, has died at age 54. His son, actor Balthazar Getty, confirmed Tuesday Feb. 8, 2011 that his father died Saturday Feb. 5, 2011 surrounded by his family at his English mansion in Buckinghamshire, northwest of London. The cause of death was not disclosed. (AP Photo/Giuseppe Anastasi, File)
J. Paul Getty died in 1976 at 83. An obsessive art collector, he left the vast majority of his fortune to the Los Angeles art museum that bears his name. Years prior, the family had already set up a trust with large shares in Getty Oil that would bankroll his descendants.
After being freed, J. Paul Getty III — father of actor Balthazar Getty — became a drug addict, falling victim to an overdose that left him confined to a wheelchair until his 2011 death.
Another of J. Paul Getty's sons, Gordon Getty, made headlines in the late 1990s when he acknowledged leading a secret double life that included a mistress and three daughters.
Gordon Getty was given access to the Getty trust in the 1980s, and engineered a sale of Getty Oil to Texaco for $10 billion. The trust was then split apart, with large chunks going to his family and those of the three other surviving sons.
Largely because of the sale of the company, the Getty family remains one of America's richest, with a fortune valued by Forbes at about $5 billion. Gordon Getty is the wealthiest of the clan, worth 2.1 billion, according to Forbes.
FILE - In this June 10, 1976 file photo, Gordon Getty with his son Andrew leaves the Wilshire United Methodist church after memorial services for J. Paul Getty, in Los Angeles. A man has been found dead at the Hollywood Hills home of Andrew Getty, grandson of the late J. Paul Getty and heir to the Getty oil fortune - but they haven’t confirmed that it is Getty. Los Angeles police Officer Jack Richter says officers went to the home shortly after 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, March 31, 2015, after a woman called to say someone in the house had died. (AP Photo/File)
Among Gordon Getty's children was Andrew Getty, whose body was found Tuesday in his Hollywood Hills home, reportedly amid a lot of blood. He'd apparently been ill for a while.
"He had a whole plethora of medical issues," LAPD Capt. William Hayes told the Los Angeles Times. "We believe it is a natural-caused death.
Andrew Getty's parents, Gordon and Ann Getty, did not say much in the immediate aftermath of their son's death. In a statement, they asked for privacy "during this extremely difficult time."
First published April 1 2015, 12:20 PM
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