Jean Paul Getty biography
Getty Oil founder and oil tycoon

Jean Paul Getty, founder of the Getty Oil Company, was born December 12, 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father was George Franklin Getty, a lawyer, and his mother was Sarah Risher Getty. He attended various educational institutions from Polytechnic High School, University of Southern California, University of California at Berkeley and Oxford University. He received a degree in economics and political science from Oxford in 1914.

He started his business ventures as an oil producer in Oklahoma in 1914. By the fall of 1916 he made his first million and retired to the wild life in Los Angeles. After two years of the playboy life, he returned to the business in 1919.

He became more active in California and at the time of his father's death in 1930 became president of the George Getty Oil Company. He started some manoeuvres to obtain controlling interests in various oil companies that would later form the basis for the Getty Oil Company.

When America joined the Second World War Getty offered his services to the Navy. Though rejected for sea duty, he was asked to oversee the management of Spartan Aircraft Company, one of his subsidiaries.

After the war he took a gamble on oil rights on a barren stretch of land between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. His gamble paid off when the, heretofore no-oil, land proved to have some of the richest oil deposits in the world. This helped to push him into the billion-dollar league.

In 1957 Fortune magazine published a list of the richest men in America. At the top of this list was one Jean Paul Getty of Getty Oil. Suddenly he became a very public figure and he often complained about the fame and requests for money.

Though successful in business, he was not as successful in his personal life. He had married five times and had five failed marriages. One of his grandchildren, J. Paul Getty III was kidnapped in 1973. He refused to pay any ransom and part of his grandson's ear was cut off. Finally the kid's father paid $2.8 million in ransom money. He said that if he paid the ransom on one grandchild he would soon have to pay ransoms on his 14 other grandchildren.

At his death in 1976, his net worth was between $2 and $4 billion. Through his topping of the Fortune list, he started the world's fascination with the super rich and much can be attributed to him. I will remember this Jean Paul Getty quote: "Formula for success: Rise early, work hard, strike oil."