November 17, 2022 • 35 mins
It's often said that money doesn't buy happiness -- and, in the tragic case of the Getty family, it seems that saying holds true. In part one of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore Getty's origin story, his infamously... let's say... 'thrifty' nature, and how he earned a reputation of one of the coldest businessmen in modern history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for
the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Okay,
use that, but b lada lads mag who's that sound cue?
(00:50):
Maybe it's facts, maybe it's Maybel. I'm ben uh No,
you know, I was thinking, I'm born with it. You're
born Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. That's why we
hang out, so I um, I was thinking about this.
We had this lovely conversation just a second ago for
us off air about how we're We're always very fortunate
and we acknowledge how grateful we are to be able
(01:13):
to do these shows with you Ridiculous Historians and NOL.
I like to think that we haven't let our jobs
change us too much. Would you agree with I would
agree with that. Yeah. I try to actively not become
a monster. That's one of my goals, and I think
the first step to doing that is self awareness, a
skill which the subject of today's episode, John Paul Getty,
(01:37):
seems to have lacked. Perhaps I don't know. We're fortunate
for sure, but we're not John Paul Getty, fortunate man.
That man was made of the kind of money that
changes people. Yeah, we're also not J. Paul Getty petty.
We're not that level of petty. Now, this guy you're
gonna see. We're not sure whether this will be a
two part episode because we sometimes our off Mike conversations
(02:01):
get to be a little bit like group therapy, like
what do we think about the world? How does it
inform ourselves? So, uh, happy birthday? What do we do
if we had all the money in the world. Don't
don't buy the violin after the first year. Rented for
the first year. Then by sorry, we were just talking
about We wrapped that into a real big metaphor about
(02:23):
the plight of humanity. Yeah, so bowling was involved. You know,
you don't buy the ball on day one? Yeah, I
have joined. I have accidentally joined a Vulcan themed bowling league,
child to our awesome graphic designer, Pam Peacock, who is
our fearless leader in that regard. But but let's not
bury the lead. John Paul Getty. You have doubtlessly heard
(02:46):
the name Getty. You may not have heard it associated
with the family because it is a legit American aristocracy.
It's a dynasty. Like there are actors who were part
of the Getty dynasty. We'll get into all of that,
but what you need to have seen some of their pictures.
You might have seen their pictures. They control huge or
a significant chunk of copyrighted images like Getty Images is
(03:10):
something that knowl you and I and probably YouTube Max
at this point had to Uh, we had to interface
with often when we're starting shows, when we're looking for
images to share. Back when I was writing a ton
of old house stuff works videos, we had to go
back and forth about which Getty images we could afford. Um,
(03:34):
I think you can even find a group shot of
some of us on Getty Images. We made it to
Getty Images. Hey, we were jerks about it. For like
four red carpet. Yeah, every red carpet in the world
is on Getty Images exactly quality or size exactly. So
this uh Getty dynasty. The reason Getty is such a
(03:54):
recognizable word in the Western world today is because by
the late nineteen six these, this guy John Paul Getty
had become known as the richest man in the world.
Now that's a tricky title because as anybody who listens
to stuff they don't want you to know it can
tell you the real most powerful people in the world.
(04:16):
They're not rated as much by bank accounts. Nobody knows
how much money Putin actually has. For instance, even when
Russia is turning into a dumpster fire. This guy, though
he got Getty got called the richest man in the
world by Fortune magazine in nineteen fifty seven. And he
(04:37):
was an oil man, right, No, he was. He was
a man of oil. Uh animal collected song by the
same name. Yeah, you know, he got it on the
ground floor. I mean, I think maybe in some ways
the character of Daniel Plainview in Um There Will Be
Blood might have been influenced or inspired by Getty just
(05:00):
kind of just spitballing on that. I don't know that
for sure, but you know, in the same way that
Paul Thomas Anderson sort of vaguely based the character played
by Phillipy Moore Hoffman and the Master on l Ron Hubbard.
It's definitely a vibe, because you know, oil is one
of those things where to truly become a titan of
the industry, you gotta kind of get in on the
(05:22):
ground floor. You gotta get in gonna drink everyone else's milkshake. Yeah,
you gotta get below the ground floor, you know, start
drilling well. Also, J Paul Getty was the inspiration for
an excellent little Saturday Night Live sketch with Adam Driver
as an oil man talking to his talking about his
(05:43):
son's career day at school. Do check it out? Do
you guys remember that one? I don't think I've seen this.
I'm gonna send it to you after this, all right,
we'll do our homework first. So he had been called
the richest man in the world for a while because
by the time he consolidated his various businesses into what
(06:06):
was called the Getty Oil Company, his personal fortune not
related to his job. His personal fortune was estimated to
be it more than two billion by like nineteen sixty seven.
But as you know, more money, more problems, hip hop
is right. His his family had a lot of personal
(06:29):
tribulations and travails such that people started asking whether the
Gettys were cursed and to learn about whether or not
this is a curse. First off, wait, we've talked about
this before on various shows on and off air. Noel Max,
do you guys believe in curses, Oh gosh, belief as
(06:50):
the hell of a drug. I don't know about that.
I mean, I feel like I believe in something resembling karma. Sure,
I feel like if you're a person of great means
and you put negative things out into the world and
you screw people over, then potentially negative things will come
back to you. But I don't know. I'm that's probably
(07:11):
the about as hippie as I get in my belief system. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's a lot of other circumstances
that can cause stuff that looks like a a curse to happen.
And I do think karma is like, you know, not
like the direct actual notion of karma, but like something
similar to that is a part of that. But just
(07:33):
I I think it's calling someone a curse is like
very good, like get a jail free card, of just
being like, all these terrible things have happened, instead of
just like, you know, being like, all these terrible things
happen and I have a hand playing these things, right,
So saying a curse, that saying something's a curses refusing
to acknowledge oneself as the only constant in the equation
(07:54):
of catastrophe. I get it. I mean, my favorite definition
of magic is weaponized psychology. G that's a shout out
to our our buddy, doctor Damian Patrick Williams. Look up
his work. So anyway, let's learn about getting before he
learned about whether or not there's a curse. This story
(08:18):
has it all. There's kidnapping, there's a high level secession
vibes if you're familiar with that show, and there's a
lot of tragedies. So no fooling by any measure. This
guy is one of the most successful tycoons of industry
in all of US history. He did make multiple billions
(08:38):
of dollars in the oil business. But he didn't you know,
he didn't start from the bottom. You know, he didn't
come out the mud, as as people often say. The Gettys,
his forebears started as Scotch Irish Presbyterian immigrants. One town
in Pennsylvania is even named after the family. That's Gettysburg,
(08:59):
pennsylvan Mania. You might recognize that from some other stories
are if you are a fan of history. His father,
George George F. Getty, got into corporate law and insurance
in Minneapolis, and then he moved the family to Oklahoma
in nineteen o four to get in, like you said,
(09:20):
Noel on the ground floor of the oil business. He
started making some pretty good scratch in just a few
years with the Minnahoma Oil Company, and around that time
he was already like before J. Paul ever gets on
the scene, his father is has already made it. He's
(09:42):
already a millionaire. Several times over correct, it's being a
correct thing. I just want to point out that I
can't find any evidence that P. T. Anderson specifically drew
influence from Getty for his character. And there will be blood.
It's based on the book Oil by Upton Sinclair. But
it's just such a rare eyed position that there there
(10:02):
are certainly similarities, you know, in terms of the kind
of riches that that that sort of discovery and that's
sort of you know, career path and how like. You know,
there can only be a few, right like actual bona
fide oil magnates. So I think I was sparking up
the red Tree in theory. But I just can't find
any direct quotes from Anderson citing Getty as an inspiration
(10:25):
Oil by Upton Sinclair, though I read that book. It
is based on the life of another tycoon named Edward L.
Tony Dohany or something like that. That's right, it's Hainy
or something. Yeah, with a weird age placement. Yeah, but
but still, like you said, rarefied air, and this rarefied
air of financial success is what J. Paul is born into.
(10:49):
He gets out of college in in pretty young. He's
twenty one years old. He graduates college and over the
summer he is working in the family business. He's working
at the oil fields, and his dad wasn't really given
him money. His dad was lending him money and said, here,
go make your own way. John Paul invest in oil
(11:12):
wells all thine own. I don't know he was doing
these and owls. That's more of a Quaker thing. Yeah,
I take it. I think it suits him. Um, but yeah,
it's it's true. He takes that whatever seed money and
he does invest it smartly and pretty quickly makes his
first million dollars, which in those days was significant, significant scratch.
(11:35):
And he's quoted as saying, in building a large fortune,
it pays to be born at the right time. I
was born at a very favorable time. If I had
been born earlier or later, I would have missed the
great business opportunities that existed in World War One and later.
I suppose it takes a long time, and it takes
(11:56):
extraordinary circumstances to be born at the time and to
have cash money available at the right time. I was
fortunate to due to my father's foresight and my good luck.
Mr Wayne, So i'd kind of a kind of a
bane voice there. I don't know where that came from,
but I'm rolling with it. Yeah, timing is everything. Getting
(12:18):
in on the ground floor of an industry is everything,
and only a few people can do it. Yeah, I
want to jump in here because we we set the top.
That this guy kind of lacks some self awareness, which
is one true, but this is one of the lines
where I'm like, he at least somewhat seems aware that
it's not like I did all of this. I am
so great, I am just amazing. He at least realized
(12:41):
It's like, well, I I had some money that I
got from my dad, and I got into this business
at the exact right time. Well, he's also you can
tell that his his father, the patriarch of the Getties,
was one of the few people that he actually looked
up to and respected, so maybe that's that's a fun
auction of it, and I think it probably really uh
(13:03):
inbedded in him, this idea of you know, no handouts,
you know, like I mean, yeah, you'll you'll, you'll get
your inheritance when I'm dead. Until then, Uh, you're not
getting a red cent unless it's something that I'm gonna,
you know, used to invest in you and you show
me that you've got the chops otherwise, you know. He
(13:24):
he didn't he wouldn't suffer any shiftless lay abouts. Let's
just say he wouldn't suffer anyone that was just trying
to coast on the family fortune because clearly his father
instilled that in him. Well sort of. There was definitely
a process because the year after he makes his first million,
he does become one of those shiftless lay abouts, just
(13:45):
like a Heroes journey Joseph Campbell thing. He spent some
time in the wilderness of Vice. Uh. He he spen
two years in Los Angeles as what would have been
called a playboy. He's just blowing money in the club's
making it rain, chasing chicks and this is from nineteen Uh, dude.
(14:07):
He gets back in the oil business in nineteen nineteen
so nineteen seventeen eighteen, those are his lost years. Once
he gets back in the oil business. He also has
a tumultuous love life. He's married and divorced three times
in the twenties, and his father, George F who was
still very much in the mix, is like, Hey, I
think you're good at business, but son, you've got to
(14:30):
button up your love life, buddy. You know, the imagine
conversation is where what if you get into the realm
of politics, morality or the appearance of such is important.
That's a great quote that I just made up. But
to be clear, that's not an actual quote. That's just
the conversation I think they had. And so he said, like,
as George was dying, he uh, he starts warning his
(14:54):
son and telling his associates because I wouldn't call him
friends at that level of health. He says, Look, my
son's gonna destroy the family business. He can't have the
whole pie. So George F. Getty dies with a fortune
and nick excess of ten million dollars. He leaves his
son j Paul about five grand and he leaves the
(15:17):
business to his wife. See, he gotta wonder, though, I
mean everything you just said, you know, it is absolutely accurate,
but like you gotta wonder did he do this as
almost like a test, like so he had to pull
himself up by his bootstraps kind of like when he
just gave him that the loan early on and then
he invested right, and now he's sort of like in
this wandering in this wilderness advice as you say, and
(15:38):
he's almost like, you know what the worst thing I
could do for my son, It will just keep him
in this like limbo, uh is leave him all of
this money, you know, unchecked uh and leave him this company,
which at this point in his life he may well
drive into the ground. So I think, honestly, whether he
was he did this consciously or not, this is probably
the best thing that could have happened to Paul Getty,
(16:01):
getting that, you know, I mean, by most mortal standards,
five thousand dollars isn't a pittance, but compared to the
big old bye that that that was on the table,
it really was. But it really did force Getty to
flex some of the knowledge that he had that George
maybe didn't even know he had, because he really had
been doing his homework and studying and he was very
(16:23):
familiar with things like petroleum geology. If you know anything
about the art world, you know that Getty is huge
in that realm, in terms of grants, in terms of
museums and all that stuff. That all started with this guy.
With this guy, Jean Paul Getty, he uh was all
with the art world, and he was a very worldly man.
(16:45):
He could speak French and German and Italian. He also
could conversationally get along in Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Greek,
as well as being able to read Greek and Latin.
So he was an incredible the intelligent person and a
very skilled businessman despite his kind of you know, dalliances
(17:07):
in his twenties. Well, this is okay, So this is
a question. Yeah, the word I just said polyglot is
just the fancy word for speaking multiple language as well.
And I know some polyglots. They're usually really cool. But
this is one of my questions. So, if you were
a child of privilege, if you are a psion to
a dynasty like this, is it not true that you
(17:29):
have more opportunities to cultivate those pursuits. This guy wasn't
you know, scratching wheat out of the dirt so I
would say, if you hear these kind of accolades folks,
and you're an average person, just remember that that this
is a guy who started on third base, so we
had time to stroll to the home run of those
(17:51):
various achievements. No doubt how that baseball analogy work, Max
is Yeah, I mean, come on, I like like the
image of strolling imagery. It worth great and actual baseball
it makes no sense. Yeah, okay, you know I figured
that was. I just wanted a gut check. Alright, fair fair,
(18:13):
fair fair. So yeah, it sort of reminds me of
like how you know, oftentimes a lot of folks would
become very successful actors, not always but sometimes, or or
successful musicians or whatever. They've got a bit of a
safety net pretty often, pretty often, and they're able to
go to the finest of of of drama schools, you know,
because they were they were able to receive you know,
(18:35):
the best education against financial safety net that allowed them
to kind of just you know, go out there and
try to be an artist or an actor because they
didn't have to worry about making ends meet. Also, I
want to backtrack, you know what, Ben, I'm thinking about
it more it made a lot of sense. Baseball sense
was something and someone else hit the home run. Yeah, okay,
(18:56):
I'm gonna I'm gonna apologize, good, good, good an thanks man.
You don't have to apologize. I'm not Getty. I'm not
just weirdly mad at people. But then until ief your inheritance,
and it's like one dollar, itce like for making fun
of that baseball analogy, will ruin this state, will ruin
this company, this fictitious company. So here's another film comparison,
(19:21):
if you want to before we get to Getty's more
villainous behavior or morally objectionable behavior, it's like he's in
that he's like Robert de Niro's character in that film Casino.
He is an obsessive researcher. I love that you pointed
out his knowledge of petroleum geology. So like the scene
(19:43):
in Casino where you see Robert de Niro testing the
basketball and looking at the floor and bouncing stuff before
he makes any bets or anything like that, this is
what Getty is doing. What J. Paul is doing when
he starts making international oil deals. He's researching the land,
(20:04):
the wells, the geology. He learns Arabic or he gets um,
he gets conversational in Arabic not fluent, so that he
can directly negotiate with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to
get a sixty year concession or lease on an oil field.
He pays nine point five million dollars for it. In ninete.
(20:26):
No oil has been discovered there yet, right people are
thinking there might be some, but they're not doing the
casino level research that he did. So he pays nine
point five million dollars, a ton of money back, then
a ton of money now, and then he pays thirty
more million dollars to explore the oil field before he
(20:47):
hits the oil in nineteen fifty three, Like just like
the Beverly Hillbillies up from the ground, comes a bubble
and crude production reaches sixteen million barrels a year. That's
more more than one billion dollars at today's prices per year. Bud. Yeah. Again,
like the privilege of being able to explore those oil
(21:10):
fields and having the infrastructure in place and the knowledge,
you know, like very much, born on whichever base is appropriate,
born on, born at shortstop, is that thing that's not
really a base, that's more of a that's a person anyway.
I'm sorry, I had to try my hand at the
baseball metaphors. We rising tide, Max, I don't want to
(21:32):
hear another word from you home on when the bases
are loaded, you know what I mean. That clears the
field where it's clearly I'm not a golfer um. But yeah,
I mean, he he did, he did, He did good.
He's real good and essentially, you know, did better than
his father. He did. And part of that is because
(21:53):
the business of oil is evolving as well, you know
what I mean. He steered the business to global domination.
But again, remember the business was left to his mom,
not directly to him. But he's still like doing a
lot of the day to day stuff. And George's prediction
about his son was, you know, I know you have
(22:15):
your head on your shoulders with business, but your personal
life is going to be a problem. And that seemed
to be that seemed to have some sand to it
for a while. He would go on to have five wives.
He had five sons with four of his five wives,
and in each case it wasn't the best marriage. There
(22:38):
was tragedy, people weren't communicating. Well, that's the key to
a good relationship there were. There was also just ranking difference.
He was icing some of them. His eldest son, George
Franklin Getty the second was supposed to be the heir,
but just like that show's Succession, they didn't get on
too well. Like he bare really spoke with his son
(23:01):
who was supposed to be his heir. I didn't know
this until we started researching this with our research associate,
Doctor's act Zack. But J. Paul didn't go to his
own son's wedding. He was like, I got oil barrels
to count or something. He had gold coins to swim
(23:22):
in the giant vault. I always loved that image with
George Scrooge McDuck or he spits out the coins, but
don't do it. It's dangerous. Try that real life. You
will break bones. He will break bones at the very
least get a really bad concussion. So he's skipping out
his son's wedding. He doesn't really have any time for
his grandchildren. And that's the son that like he kind
(23:46):
of liked, I guess not liked, but like he he
had a high position in the company. Yeah, exactly, Um,
it's it's it's it's a little confusing as to get
you know, because being liked by Jehan Paul Getty basically
just and he wouldn't completely ice you out and skip
your wedding. It wasn't like he was, you know, throwing
your parties and giving you hugs or anything. I don't
(24:07):
think he gave good hugs, I would imagine. But his son,
his other son, John Paul Getty Jr. Had four sons
um with his wife Gail Harris. John Paul Getty the
third was one of these sons and really the subject
of kind of the main plot twist in today's story.
(24:36):
So we'll call him, let's just call him JP three.
JP three is the son of John Paul Jr. Who
divorces his wife JP three's mother, Gayl Harris, in nineteen
sixty four, and then JP jr. JP three's dad moves
to Rome and uh he remarries a woman named Taltha Pole,
(25:00):
but allegedly, or accorded, according to historians of the family
and reports, he became addicted to heroin. And that's very sad.
It just seems like he was sort of a little
bit adrift, you know, and didn't really have any direction
or like a set of skills and just kind of
withered a little bit um So JP three, who is
(25:21):
his son, also ends up moving to Italy as a teenager.
At first, he's at a boarding school, like you do.
But he's a bit of a troublemaker, a bit of
a problem child. He gets kicked out, he's expelled, and
even though his father had left Rome uh and moved
to England following his new wife's overdose on heroin, he
(25:47):
had to skip town. I guess JP three continued living
in Italy on is lonesome. Yes, yeah, and became a
bit of a bohemian. Yeah, he was. He was a
kid without consequences. You've probably met some in your own life,
ridiculous historians. You may have grown up as one. He
got expelled from a lot of schools. He was partying.
(26:10):
He was considered artistic, but it was just he was
a wild kid. He's like one of those kids who
uh for whom it doesn't matter if you stay in
the fancy boarding school. Your parents can just put you
in another one, or your family. He threw a Molotov
cocktail during a protest. He was he was just always partying.
(26:31):
And because of this, because of his behavior and the
notoriety of his family. He was like a low key
local celebrity. While he was living in Rome at the
age of sixteen, and he had long, curly hair. The
press gave him a nickname that wasn't j three. They
called him the Golden Hippie. Uh And and this is
(26:55):
where things get a little bit strange. So one day
he's been out party and all night he's walking home,
maybe singing a song from a local music hall. It's
the wee hours of July. A car skirts skirts up
beside him and the driver says, excuse me, signor you
(27:18):
pulled Getty and Paul. Uh. We don't know how drunk
he was, but Paul goes you man, and then they
grab him the black bag and basically they pull him
into a car. They muzzle him with a pad soaked
and chloroform and a gag, and they drive him away.
He gets snatched. One note about chloroform. A lot of
(27:42):
times movies are lying to you. If you want there's
a reason they use the gag. It's not just to
keep him quiet. It's to keep the chloroform on his face.
Because if you chloroform someone and you remove it, they
will come to shortly thereafter. This is not a step
by step guide how to incapacitate people. It's just good
(28:03):
to know these things in case situations occur. Ben, you
got a chloroform guy? What? Yeah? I mean you know
Gandhi would have said, you gotta be the chloroform guy
you wish to see in the world, but don't do it, don't.
I actually didn't know that, Ben. I would have would
have I would have bungled my kidnapping attempt horribly. They
would have woken up then just runaway, and then I
(28:26):
would have had to give chase and I don't know.
I'm not I'm not in that kind of shape. I
would have lost the I would have lost the mark.
But they did not lose the mark. These kidnappers. They
spirited Getty away to a hideaway hideout uh in the
Italian countryside. And obviously you see where this is going.
It would appear JP three's loose lips sank his own ship. Uh.
(28:51):
You know, I wouldn't is It's not like they would
want to make a public information that this is an
air to the Getty fortune, especially in a place like
Italy where you know there are not you know, there
are criminal elements around. You know, understand to say that's
exclusively an Italian thing, but organized crime did kind of
have its roots in this part of the world. And
(29:13):
it is conjecture that when JP three would like barter
some of his paintings for rent, because again it wasn't
swimming in dough, there were some folks maybe at the
restaurant near his apartment where he would go to do this,
that overheard and maybe you know, curried a little favor
(29:33):
with a local, you know, Mafio so and uh potentially
maybe got a little bit of a pay day like
a finder's fee. Yeah. Yeah. And to this day, the
details of the of the genesis of this kidnapping plot
are still a little murky, but we do know that
a few days after the disappearance, the Golden Hippies mother
(29:55):
gets a note and says the following, Yeah, mother, I've
fallen into the hands of napos. Don't let me be killed.
Please make sure the police do not interfere. You must
absolutely not take this as a joke. Don't give publicity
to my kidnapping. Its spelled like kidnaping. But look, people
took this as a joke initially because the scuttle Butt
(30:20):
had it that the Golden Hippie had talked to friends, family,
and locals and trusted folks in his life about solving
his financial problems by arranging his own perfect kidnapping and
using that as a pretext to get a large sum
of scratch from his grandfather to pay the ransom ostensibly,
(30:41):
and then just keeping it for himself and saying, thank you, grandfather,
I've learned my lesson and should change my ways. They go,
those loose lips again, JP three, not good seeking your
own ship. The boy who cried wolf at all? That right,
nobody nobody comes to running boy cried kidnapping. Mm hmm.
This this even translates to the local police who are
(31:05):
also aware of this, and they're like, you know, he
he probably kidnapped himself. Yeah, we're not gonna we don't
have the resources to deal with this shiftless lay about
him gonna keep saying that. Yeah. Well, Also, the police,
at least some faction of them were likely part of
Indreta like part of the mafia group at the time,
(31:25):
Like they were probably compromised on the payroll. Yeah, and
everybody knew he was in debt because he kept partying,
even though he's talking about how he's out of money,
you know, bum and drinks and whatnot. His kidnappers where
this mafia group from southern Italy. They knew all about
his family. His mom, Gail, gets a call from the
(31:46):
mafia so ring leader sin Quanta, and sin Quanta says, look,
it's gonna we know who your family is. It's gonna
take a lot of money to get your son back.
And she said she told them the truth. Said look,
I know we got the name, but I don't have
any of the family money. We're cut off. And then
he said, ask for it from your father in law.
(32:08):
He has sold the money in the world, All the
Money in the World. There's a film biopic, I guess
by Ridley Scott called All the Money in the World, Um,
which I have not seen, but I very much want to.
In fact, I think after we wrap up here, I
might rent it on the old Roku and give it
a look. Um. I do like Ridley Scott doesn't appear
(32:29):
to be considered like one of his like greats, because
I certainly haven't heard a whole lot about it. But
I am fascinated to see how this was dramatized all
the money in the world, and so they do just that.
They go to to hold the dear sweet cremuctedly Grandpapa
and and can lay it out for him, you know,
thinking he would just oh my, my, my, post sweet grandson. Uh,
(32:54):
that is not what happened. No, No, they're swimming with
the shark and they think they're in the guppy pulled.
This is gonna be part one. We thought this would
be the perfect place to pause the story here. We're
gonna return at the top of next week with part
two of this story. We're gonna zoom out because you
need to learn a little bit more about old JP
(33:16):
Getty the patriarch, to learn why things went down the
way they did. But we can't wait for you to
hear it. Thank you for joining us, folks. As always,
thanks to our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Max, you're
not secretly a Getty, are you, because you've been asking
all the money in the world. You guess weird timing
with the chuckles today, I mean Maxwell James Williams Getty. Yeah,
(33:38):
I mean, there's no hyphen. They end up my last name,
you son of like the third Esquire Junior Senior. I mean,
I think the thing we've learned from this episode though,
is don't name your children Junior and third and because
if down the road some one does a podcast about you,
it just gets messy, right, Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez is
hundred years of Solitude, which is a great look like that,
(34:02):
like that House of Dragons business. Yeah, yeah, well that's
also just a matter of casting. You know, a lot
of a lot of those people look very similar, I'm thinking, yeah,
but also even the ones with different names, their names
sound similar. Yeah. You know, you've got Raineri's, You've got
Ray and Thees you've got you know, we can just
make up. You know, you'll be like Valerio and they'll say, oh,
(34:29):
I think I remember him, Yeah Valerio, right, Vali Hi. Yeah.
So so with with that name confusion aside, we are
sticking to some nicknames for these folks. But this is
an important story and we can't wait to explore it
with you. Thanks also to our own, our own Balthazar
(34:49):
Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister. Uh let's see who else.
Thanks to East Jeff Cot, Alex Williams, who composed this
slamming track. Alex Williams. Indeed, Christopher rastiotis here in spirits
the ghost of John Paul Getty Junior Senior, Maxwell Esquire
(35:11):
Tally hot to Yeah, tell you, who do you? The
kidnappers are calling me when I gotta go. Okay, okay,
We'll see you next happix. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:27):
welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for
the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Okay,
use that, but b lada lads mag who's that sound cue?
(00:50):
Maybe it's facts, maybe it's Maybel. I'm ben uh No,
you know, I was thinking, I'm born with it. You're
born Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. That's why we
hang out, so I um, I was thinking about this.
We had this lovely conversation just a second ago for
us off air about how we're We're always very fortunate
and we acknowledge how grateful we are to be able
(01:13):
to do these shows with you Ridiculous Historians and NOL.
I like to think that we haven't let our jobs
change us too much. Would you agree with I would
agree with that. Yeah. I try to actively not become
a monster. That's one of my goals, and I think
the first step to doing that is self awareness, a
skill which the subject of today's episode, John Paul Getty,
(01:37):
seems to have lacked. Perhaps I don't know. We're fortunate
for sure, but we're not John Paul Getty, fortunate man.
That man was made of the kind of money that
changes people. Yeah, we're also not J. Paul Getty petty.
We're not that level of petty. Now, this guy you're
gonna see. We're not sure whether this will be a
two part episode because we sometimes our off Mike conversations
(02:01):
get to be a little bit like group therapy, like
what do we think about the world? How does it
inform ourselves? So, uh, happy birthday? What do we do
if we had all the money in the world. Don't
don't buy the violin after the first year. Rented for
the first year. Then by sorry, we were just talking
about We wrapped that into a real big metaphor about
(02:23):
the plight of humanity. Yeah, so bowling was involved. You know,
you don't buy the ball on day one? Yeah, I
have joined. I have accidentally joined a Vulcan themed bowling league,
child to our awesome graphic designer, Pam Peacock, who is
our fearless leader in that regard. But but let's not
bury the lead. John Paul Getty. You have doubtlessly heard
(02:46):
the name Getty. You may not have heard it associated
with the family because it is a legit American aristocracy.
It's a dynasty. Like there are actors who were part
of the Getty dynasty. We'll get into all of that,
but what you need to have seen some of their pictures.
You might have seen their pictures. They control huge or
a significant chunk of copyrighted images like Getty Images is
(03:10):
something that knowl you and I and probably YouTube Max
at this point had to Uh, we had to interface
with often when we're starting shows, when we're looking for
images to share. Back when I was writing a ton
of old house stuff works videos, we had to go
back and forth about which Getty images we could afford. Um,
(03:34):
I think you can even find a group shot of
some of us on Getty Images. We made it to
Getty Images. Hey, we were jerks about it. For like
four red carpet. Yeah, every red carpet in the world
is on Getty Images exactly quality or size exactly. So
this uh Getty dynasty. The reason Getty is such a
(03:54):
recognizable word in the Western world today is because by
the late nineteen six these, this guy John Paul Getty
had become known as the richest man in the world.
Now that's a tricky title because as anybody who listens
to stuff they don't want you to know it can
tell you the real most powerful people in the world.
(04:16):
They're not rated as much by bank accounts. Nobody knows
how much money Putin actually has. For instance, even when
Russia is turning into a dumpster fire. This guy, though
he got Getty got called the richest man in the
world by Fortune magazine in nineteen fifty seven. And he
(04:37):
was an oil man, right, No, he was. He was
a man of oil. Uh animal collected song by the
same name. Yeah, you know, he got it on the
ground floor. I mean, I think maybe in some ways
the character of Daniel Plainview in Um There Will Be
Blood might have been influenced or inspired by Getty just
(05:00):
kind of just spitballing on that. I don't know that
for sure, but you know, in the same way that
Paul Thomas Anderson sort of vaguely based the character played
by Phillipy Moore Hoffman and the Master on l Ron Hubbard.
It's definitely a vibe, because you know, oil is one
of those things where to truly become a titan of
the industry, you gotta kind of get in on the
(05:22):
ground floor. You gotta get in gonna drink everyone else's milkshake. Yeah,
you gotta get below the ground floor, you know, start
drilling well. Also, J Paul Getty was the inspiration for
an excellent little Saturday Night Live sketch with Adam Driver
as an oil man talking to his talking about his
(05:43):
son's career day at school. Do check it out? Do
you guys remember that one? I don't think I've seen this.
I'm gonna send it to you after this, all right,
we'll do our homework first. So he had been called
the richest man in the world for a while because
by the time he consolidated his various businesses into what
(06:06):
was called the Getty Oil Company, his personal fortune not
related to his job. His personal fortune was estimated to
be it more than two billion by like nineteen sixty seven.
But as you know, more money, more problems, hip hop
is right. His his family had a lot of personal
(06:29):
tribulations and travails such that people started asking whether the
Gettys were cursed and to learn about whether or not
this is a curse. First off, wait, we've talked about
this before on various shows on and off air. Noel Max,
do you guys believe in curses, Oh gosh, belief as
(06:50):
the hell of a drug. I don't know about that.
I mean, I feel like I believe in something resembling karma. Sure,
I feel like if you're a person of great means
and you put negative things out into the world and
you screw people over, then potentially negative things will come
back to you. But I don't know. I'm that's probably
(07:11):
the about as hippie as I get in my belief system. Yeah,
I mean, I think there's a lot of other circumstances
that can cause stuff that looks like a a curse to happen.
And I do think karma is like, you know, not
like the direct actual notion of karma, but like something
similar to that is a part of that. But just
(07:33):
I I think it's calling someone a curse is like
very good, like get a jail free card, of just
being like, all these terrible things have happened, instead of
just like, you know, being like, all these terrible things
happen and I have a hand playing these things, right,
So saying a curse, that saying something's a curses refusing
to acknowledge oneself as the only constant in the equation
(07:54):
of catastrophe. I get it. I mean, my favorite definition
of magic is weaponized psychology. G that's a shout out
to our our buddy, doctor Damian Patrick Williams. Look up
his work. So anyway, let's learn about getting before he
learned about whether or not there's a curse. This story
(08:18):
has it all. There's kidnapping, there's a high level secession
vibes if you're familiar with that show, and there's a
lot of tragedies. So no fooling by any measure. This
guy is one of the most successful tycoons of industry
in all of US history. He did make multiple billions
(08:38):
of dollars in the oil business. But he didn't you know,
he didn't start from the bottom. You know, he didn't
come out the mud, as as people often say. The Gettys,
his forebears started as Scotch Irish Presbyterian immigrants. One town
in Pennsylvania is even named after the family. That's Gettysburg,
(08:59):
pennsylvan Mania. You might recognize that from some other stories
are if you are a fan of history. His father,
George George F. Getty, got into corporate law and insurance
in Minneapolis, and then he moved the family to Oklahoma
in nineteen o four to get in, like you said,
(09:20):
Noel on the ground floor of the oil business. He
started making some pretty good scratch in just a few
years with the Minnahoma Oil Company, and around that time
he was already like before J. Paul ever gets on
the scene, his father is has already made it. He's
(09:42):
already a millionaire. Several times over correct, it's being a
correct thing. I just want to point out that I
can't find any evidence that P. T. Anderson specifically drew
influence from Getty for his character. And there will be blood.
It's based on the book Oil by Upton Sinclair. But
it's just such a rare eyed position that there there
(10:02):
are certainly similarities, you know, in terms of the kind
of riches that that that sort of discovery and that's
sort of you know, career path and how like. You know,
there can only be a few, right like actual bona
fide oil magnates. So I think I was sparking up
the red Tree in theory. But I just can't find
any direct quotes from Anderson citing Getty as an inspiration
(10:25):
Oil by Upton Sinclair, though I read that book. It
is based on the life of another tycoon named Edward L.
Tony Dohany or something like that. That's right, it's Hainy
or something. Yeah, with a weird age placement. Yeah, but
but still, like you said, rarefied air, and this rarefied
air of financial success is what J. Paul is born into.
(10:49):
He gets out of college in in pretty young. He's
twenty one years old. He graduates college and over the
summer he is working in the family business. He's working
at the oil fields, and his dad wasn't really given
him money. His dad was lending him money and said, here,
go make your own way. John Paul invest in oil
(11:12):
wells all thine own. I don't know he was doing
these and owls. That's more of a Quaker thing. Yeah,
I take it. I think it suits him. Um, but yeah,
it's it's true. He takes that whatever seed money and
he does invest it smartly and pretty quickly makes his
first million dollars, which in those days was significant, significant scratch.
(11:35):
And he's quoted as saying, in building a large fortune,
it pays to be born at the right time. I
was born at a very favorable time. If I had
been born earlier or later, I would have missed the
great business opportunities that existed in World War One and later.
I suppose it takes a long time, and it takes
(11:56):
extraordinary circumstances to be born at the time and to
have cash money available at the right time. I was
fortunate to due to my father's foresight and my good luck.
Mr Wayne, So i'd kind of a kind of a
bane voice there. I don't know where that came from,
but I'm rolling with it. Yeah, timing is everything. Getting
(12:18):
in on the ground floor of an industry is everything,
and only a few people can do it. Yeah, I
want to jump in here because we we set the top.
That this guy kind of lacks some self awareness, which
is one true, but this is one of the lines
where I'm like, he at least somewhat seems aware that
it's not like I did all of this. I am
so great, I am just amazing. He at least realized
(12:41):
It's like, well, I I had some money that I
got from my dad, and I got into this business
at the exact right time. Well, he's also you can
tell that his his father, the patriarch of the Getties,
was one of the few people that he actually looked
up to and respected, so maybe that's that's a fun
auction of it, and I think it probably really uh
(13:03):
inbedded in him, this idea of you know, no handouts,
you know, like I mean, yeah, you'll you'll, you'll get
your inheritance when I'm dead. Until then, Uh, you're not
getting a red cent unless it's something that I'm gonna,
you know, used to invest in you and you show
me that you've got the chops otherwise, you know. He
(13:24):
he didn't he wouldn't suffer any shiftless lay abouts. Let's
just say he wouldn't suffer anyone that was just trying
to coast on the family fortune because clearly his father
instilled that in him. Well sort of. There was definitely
a process because the year after he makes his first million,
he does become one of those shiftless lay abouts, just
(13:45):
like a Heroes journey Joseph Campbell thing. He spent some
time in the wilderness of Vice. Uh. He he spen
two years in Los Angeles as what would have been
called a playboy. He's just blowing money in the club's
making it rain, chasing chicks and this is from nineteen Uh, dude.
(14:07):
He gets back in the oil business in nineteen nineteen
so nineteen seventeen eighteen, those are his lost years. Once
he gets back in the oil business. He also has
a tumultuous love life. He's married and divorced three times
in the twenties, and his father, George F who was
still very much in the mix, is like, Hey, I
think you're good at business, but son, you've got to
(14:30):
button up your love life, buddy. You know, the imagine
conversation is where what if you get into the realm
of politics, morality or the appearance of such is important.
That's a great quote that I just made up. But
to be clear, that's not an actual quote. That's just
the conversation I think they had. And so he said, like,
as George was dying, he uh, he starts warning his
(14:54):
son and telling his associates because I wouldn't call him
friends at that level of health. He says, Look, my
son's gonna destroy the family business. He can't have the
whole pie. So George F. Getty dies with a fortune
and nick excess of ten million dollars. He leaves his
son j Paul about five grand and he leaves the
(15:17):
business to his wife. See, he gotta wonder, though, I
mean everything you just said, you know, it is absolutely accurate,
but like you gotta wonder did he do this as
almost like a test, like so he had to pull
himself up by his bootstraps kind of like when he
just gave him that the loan early on and then
he invested right, and now he's sort of like in
this wandering in this wilderness advice as you say, and
(15:38):
he's almost like, you know what the worst thing I
could do for my son, It will just keep him
in this like limbo, uh is leave him all of
this money, you know, unchecked uh and leave him this company,
which at this point in his life he may well
drive into the ground. So I think, honestly, whether he
was he did this consciously or not, this is probably
the best thing that could have happened to Paul Getty,
(16:01):
getting that, you know, I mean, by most mortal standards,
five thousand dollars isn't a pittance, but compared to the
big old bye that that that was on the table,
it really was. But it really did force Getty to
flex some of the knowledge that he had that George
maybe didn't even know he had, because he really had
been doing his homework and studying and he was very
(16:23):
familiar with things like petroleum geology. If you know anything
about the art world, you know that Getty is huge
in that realm, in terms of grants, in terms of
museums and all that stuff. That all started with this guy.
With this guy, Jean Paul Getty, he uh was all
with the art world, and he was a very worldly man.
(16:45):
He could speak French and German and Italian. He also
could conversationally get along in Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Greek,
as well as being able to read Greek and Latin.
So he was an incredible the intelligent person and a
very skilled businessman despite his kind of you know, dalliances
(17:07):
in his twenties. Well, this is okay, So this is
a question. Yeah, the word I just said polyglot is
just the fancy word for speaking multiple language as well.
And I know some polyglots. They're usually really cool. But
this is one of my questions. So, if you were
a child of privilege, if you are a psion to
a dynasty like this, is it not true that you
(17:29):
have more opportunities to cultivate those pursuits. This guy wasn't
you know, scratching wheat out of the dirt so I
would say, if you hear these kind of accolades folks,
and you're an average person, just remember that that this
is a guy who started on third base, so we
had time to stroll to the home run of those
(17:51):
various achievements. No doubt how that baseball analogy work, Max
is Yeah, I mean, come on, I like like the
image of strolling imagery. It worth great and actual baseball
it makes no sense. Yeah, okay, you know I figured
that was. I just wanted a gut check. Alright, fair fair,
(18:13):
fair fair. So yeah, it sort of reminds me of
like how you know, oftentimes a lot of folks would
become very successful actors, not always but sometimes, or or
successful musicians or whatever. They've got a bit of a
safety net pretty often, pretty often, and they're able to
go to the finest of of of drama schools, you know,
because they were they were able to receive you know,
(18:35):
the best education against financial safety net that allowed them
to kind of just you know, go out there and
try to be an artist or an actor because they
didn't have to worry about making ends meet. Also, I
want to backtrack, you know what, Ben, I'm thinking about
it more it made a lot of sense. Baseball sense
was something and someone else hit the home run. Yeah, okay,
(18:56):
I'm gonna I'm gonna apologize, good, good, good an thanks man.
You don't have to apologize. I'm not Getty. I'm not
just weirdly mad at people. But then until ief your inheritance,
and it's like one dollar, itce like for making fun
of that baseball analogy, will ruin this state, will ruin
this company, this fictitious company. So here's another film comparison,
(19:21):
if you want to before we get to Getty's more
villainous behavior or morally objectionable behavior, it's like he's in
that he's like Robert de Niro's character in that film Casino.
He is an obsessive researcher. I love that you pointed
out his knowledge of petroleum geology. So like the scene
(19:43):
in Casino where you see Robert de Niro testing the
basketball and looking at the floor and bouncing stuff before
he makes any bets or anything like that, this is
what Getty is doing. What J. Paul is doing when
he starts making international oil deals. He's researching the land,
(20:04):
the wells, the geology. He learns Arabic or he gets um,
he gets conversational in Arabic not fluent, so that he
can directly negotiate with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to
get a sixty year concession or lease on an oil field.
He pays nine point five million dollars for it. In ninete.
(20:26):
No oil has been discovered there yet, right people are
thinking there might be some, but they're not doing the
casino level research that he did. So he pays nine
point five million dollars, a ton of money back, then
a ton of money now, and then he pays thirty
more million dollars to explore the oil field before he
(20:47):
hits the oil in nineteen fifty three, Like just like
the Beverly Hillbillies up from the ground, comes a bubble
and crude production reaches sixteen million barrels a year. That's
more more than one billion dollars at today's prices per year. Bud. Yeah. Again,
like the privilege of being able to explore those oil
(21:10):
fields and having the infrastructure in place and the knowledge,
you know, like very much, born on whichever base is appropriate,
born on, born at shortstop, is that thing that's not
really a base, that's more of a that's a person anyway.
I'm sorry, I had to try my hand at the
baseball metaphors. We rising tide, Max, I don't want to
(21:32):
hear another word from you home on when the bases
are loaded, you know what I mean. That clears the
field where it's clearly I'm not a golfer um. But yeah,
I mean, he he did, he did, He did good.
He's real good and essentially, you know, did better than
his father. He did. And part of that is because
(21:53):
the business of oil is evolving as well, you know
what I mean. He steered the business to global domination.
But again, remember the business was left to his mom,
not directly to him. But he's still like doing a
lot of the day to day stuff. And George's prediction
about his son was, you know, I know you have
(22:15):
your head on your shoulders with business, but your personal
life is going to be a problem. And that seemed
to be that seemed to have some sand to it
for a while. He would go on to have five wives.
He had five sons with four of his five wives,
and in each case it wasn't the best marriage. There
(22:38):
was tragedy, people weren't communicating. Well, that's the key to
a good relationship there were. There was also just ranking difference.
He was icing some of them. His eldest son, George
Franklin Getty the second was supposed to be the heir,
but just like that show's Succession, they didn't get on
too well. Like he bare really spoke with his son
(23:01):
who was supposed to be his heir. I didn't know
this until we started researching this with our research associate,
Doctor's act Zack. But J. Paul didn't go to his
own son's wedding. He was like, I got oil barrels
to count or something. He had gold coins to swim
(23:22):
in the giant vault. I always loved that image with
George Scrooge McDuck or he spits out the coins, but
don't do it. It's dangerous. Try that real life. You
will break bones. He will break bones at the very
least get a really bad concussion. So he's skipping out
his son's wedding. He doesn't really have any time for
his grandchildren. And that's the son that like he kind
(23:46):
of liked, I guess not liked, but like he he
had a high position in the company. Yeah, exactly, Um,
it's it's it's it's a little confusing as to get
you know, because being liked by Jehan Paul Getty basically
just and he wouldn't completely ice you out and skip
your wedding. It wasn't like he was, you know, throwing
your parties and giving you hugs or anything. I don't
(24:07):
think he gave good hugs, I would imagine. But his son,
his other son, John Paul Getty Jr. Had four sons
um with his wife Gail Harris. John Paul Getty the
third was one of these sons and really the subject
of kind of the main plot twist in today's story.
(24:36):
So we'll call him, let's just call him JP three.
JP three is the son of John Paul Jr. Who
divorces his wife JP three's mother, Gayl Harris, in nineteen
sixty four, and then JP jr. JP three's dad moves
to Rome and uh he remarries a woman named Taltha Pole,
(25:00):
but allegedly, or accorded, according to historians of the family
and reports, he became addicted to heroin. And that's very sad.
It just seems like he was sort of a little
bit adrift, you know, and didn't really have any direction
or like a set of skills and just kind of
withered a little bit um So JP three, who is
(25:21):
his son, also ends up moving to Italy as a teenager.
At first, he's at a boarding school, like you do.
But he's a bit of a troublemaker, a bit of
a problem child. He gets kicked out, he's expelled, and
even though his father had left Rome uh and moved
to England following his new wife's overdose on heroin, he
(25:47):
had to skip town. I guess JP three continued living
in Italy on is lonesome. Yes, yeah, and became a
bit of a bohemian. Yeah, he was. He was a
kid without consequences. You've probably met some in your own life,
ridiculous historians. You may have grown up as one. He
got expelled from a lot of schools. He was partying.
(26:10):
He was considered artistic, but it was just he was
a wild kid. He's like one of those kids who
uh for whom it doesn't matter if you stay in
the fancy boarding school. Your parents can just put you
in another one, or your family. He threw a Molotov
cocktail during a protest. He was he was just always partying.
(26:31):
And because of this, because of his behavior and the
notoriety of his family. He was like a low key
local celebrity. While he was living in Rome at the
age of sixteen, and he had long, curly hair. The
press gave him a nickname that wasn't j three. They
called him the Golden Hippie. Uh And and this is
(26:55):
where things get a little bit strange. So one day
he's been out party and all night he's walking home,
maybe singing a song from a local music hall. It's
the wee hours of July. A car skirts skirts up
beside him and the driver says, excuse me, signor you
(27:18):
pulled Getty and Paul. Uh. We don't know how drunk
he was, but Paul goes you man, and then they
grab him the black bag and basically they pull him
into a car. They muzzle him with a pad soaked
and chloroform and a gag, and they drive him away.
He gets snatched. One note about chloroform. A lot of
(27:42):
times movies are lying to you. If you want there's
a reason they use the gag. It's not just to
keep him quiet. It's to keep the chloroform on his face.
Because if you chloroform someone and you remove it, they
will come to shortly thereafter. This is not a step
by step guide how to incapacitate people. It's just good
(28:03):
to know these things in case situations occur. Ben, you
got a chloroform guy? What? Yeah? I mean you know
Gandhi would have said, you gotta be the chloroform guy
you wish to see in the world, but don't do it, don't.
I actually didn't know that, Ben. I would have would
have I would have bungled my kidnapping attempt horribly. They
would have woken up then just runaway, and then I
(28:26):
would have had to give chase and I don't know.
I'm not I'm not in that kind of shape. I
would have lost the I would have lost the mark.
But they did not lose the mark. These kidnappers. They
spirited Getty away to a hideaway hideout uh in the
Italian countryside. And obviously you see where this is going.
It would appear JP three's loose lips sank his own ship. Uh.
(28:51):
You know, I wouldn't is It's not like they would
want to make a public information that this is an
air to the Getty fortune, especially in a place like
Italy where you know there are not you know, there
are criminal elements around. You know, understand to say that's
exclusively an Italian thing, but organized crime did kind of
have its roots in this part of the world. And
(29:13):
it is conjecture that when JP three would like barter
some of his paintings for rent, because again it wasn't
swimming in dough, there were some folks maybe at the
restaurant near his apartment where he would go to do this,
that overheard and maybe you know, curried a little favor
(29:33):
with a local, you know, Mafio so and uh potentially
maybe got a little bit of a pay day like
a finder's fee. Yeah. Yeah. And to this day, the
details of the of the genesis of this kidnapping plot
are still a little murky, but we do know that
a few days after the disappearance, the Golden Hippies mother
(29:55):
gets a note and says the following, Yeah, mother, I've
fallen into the hands of napos. Don't let me be killed.
Please make sure the police do not interfere. You must
absolutely not take this as a joke. Don't give publicity
to my kidnapping. Its spelled like kidnaping. But look, people
took this as a joke initially because the scuttle Butt
(30:20):
had it that the Golden Hippie had talked to friends, family,
and locals and trusted folks in his life about solving
his financial problems by arranging his own perfect kidnapping and
using that as a pretext to get a large sum
of scratch from his grandfather to pay the ransom ostensibly,
(30:41):
and then just keeping it for himself and saying, thank you, grandfather,
I've learned my lesson and should change my ways. They go,
those loose lips again, JP three, not good seeking your
own ship. The boy who cried wolf at all? That right,
nobody nobody comes to running boy cried kidnapping. Mm hmm.
This this even translates to the local police who are
(31:05):
also aware of this, and they're like, you know, he
he probably kidnapped himself. Yeah, we're not gonna we don't
have the resources to deal with this shiftless lay about
him gonna keep saying that. Yeah. Well, Also, the police,
at least some faction of them were likely part of
Indreta like part of the mafia group at the time,
(31:25):
Like they were probably compromised on the payroll. Yeah, and
everybody knew he was in debt because he kept partying,
even though he's talking about how he's out of money,
you know, bum and drinks and whatnot. His kidnappers where
this mafia group from southern Italy. They knew all about
his family. His mom, Gail, gets a call from the
(31:46):
mafia so ring leader sin Quanta, and sin Quanta says, look,
it's gonna we know who your family is. It's gonna
take a lot of money to get your son back.
And she said she told them the truth. Said look,
I know we got the name, but I don't have
any of the family money. We're cut off. And then
he said, ask for it from your father in law.
(32:08):
He has sold the money in the world, All the
Money in the World. There's a film biopic, I guess
by Ridley Scott called All the Money in the World, Um,
which I have not seen, but I very much want to.
In fact, I think after we wrap up here, I
might rent it on the old Roku and give it
a look. Um. I do like Ridley Scott doesn't appear
(32:29):
to be considered like one of his like greats, because
I certainly haven't heard a whole lot about it. But
I am fascinated to see how this was dramatized all
the money in the world, and so they do just that.
They go to to hold the dear sweet cremuctedly Grandpapa
and and can lay it out for him, you know,
thinking he would just oh my, my, my, post sweet grandson. Uh,
(32:54):
that is not what happened. No, No, they're swimming with
the shark and they think they're in the guppy pulled.
This is gonna be part one. We thought this would
be the perfect place to pause the story here. We're
gonna return at the top of next week with part
two of this story. We're gonna zoom out because you
need to learn a little bit more about old JP
(33:16):
Getty the patriarch, to learn why things went down the
way they did. But we can't wait for you to
hear it. Thank you for joining us, folks. As always,
thanks to our super producer, Mr Max Williams. Max, you're
not secretly a Getty, are you, because you've been asking
all the money in the world. You guess weird timing
with the chuckles today, I mean Maxwell James Williams Getty. Yeah,
(33:38):
I mean, there's no hyphen. They end up my last name,
you son of like the third Esquire Junior Senior. I mean,
I think the thing we've learned from this episode though,
is don't name your children Junior and third and because
if down the road some one does a podcast about you,
it just gets messy, right, Like Gabriel Garcia Marquez is
hundred years of Solitude, which is a great look like that,
(34:02):
like that House of Dragons business. Yeah, yeah, well that's
also just a matter of casting. You know, a lot
of a lot of those people look very similar, I'm thinking, yeah,
but also even the ones with different names, their names
sound similar. Yeah. You know, you've got Raineri's, You've got
Ray and Thees you've got you know, we can just
make up. You know, you'll be like Valerio and they'll say, oh,
(34:29):
I think I remember him, Yeah Valerio, right, Vali Hi. Yeah.
So so with with that name confusion aside, we are
sticking to some nicknames for these folks. But this is
an important story and we can't wait to explore it
with you. Thanks also to our own, our own Balthazar
(34:49):
Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister. Uh let's see who else.
Thanks to East Jeff Cot, Alex Williams, who composed this
slamming track. Alex Williams. Indeed, Christopher rastiotis here in spirits
the ghost of John Paul Getty Junior Senior, Maxwell Esquire
(35:11):
Tally hot to Yeah, tell you, who do you? The
kidnappers are calling me when I gotta go. Okay, okay,
We'll see you next happix. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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