November 22, 2022 • 33 mins
For members of the mob, the plot to kidnap J. Paul Getty's grandson was a home run -- after all, what's a few million to a literal billionaire? Yet, as it turns out... the mob didn't know who they were messing with. In the second part of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore a series of terrifying events that led to one of most ridiculous examples of miserliness in human history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you all so
much as always for tuning in. Jay Paul Getty, John
Paul Getty jpg so cartoonishly jpeg, incredibly incredibly cheap jpeg.
Was he's a miser, He's a skin flint. He never
met a penny he didn't think should be his. Where
(00:50):
is the origin of skin flint? It makes me, I mean,
I know we're a family show, but it makes me
think of skin flute. You can, you can, you can
put together what you all with that one. But that's
what I always think of when I hear skin flint.
What is the origin? I must know it comes from
the fact that flint, as like flint, is such a
(01:11):
brittle and hard material that you can't remove the skin
of a flint without shattering it. So people who try
to do that are so cheap that they just won't
buy more flint. This was back when flint was a
much more active part of most people's lives. For fire Man,
you know whatever music yeah jpeg, Oh man, I can't
(01:36):
believe we went through a whole episode without making that connection.
I have another there's another coworker of hours that I
call Jpeg. I used to call Casey Pegram see peg
and he didn't like don't like that, didn't like it,
didn't like it. He's a very particular dude. That's fair.
That's fair. Lovely dude. I got to see uh Casey
Pegram in in Corporeal a week or so ago, right, yeah,
(01:59):
I like it, did a training session at the at
the new office and there he was the same as
he ever was. It's been almost it's been over a
year since we've seen each othern person. It was really lovely.
Oh that's super producer Max. Yeah, and you're an OL
and I'm Ben no Bro. You can call me no Bro.
(02:20):
And I want to point out that I'll let you
guys call me a million different nicknames. Yeah, yeah, I
I think um, y'all should just remember that. Okay. Well,
when it comes time to to deed our states to someone, yes,
you'll you'll ruin this this mbio. Well, first we have
to make it an empire. And what better way than
(02:42):
starting with part two of this two part series on
the saga of the Getty Family. With thanks our research
associate Dr Zach We saved this because we thought it
was a natural break in the story. I don't know
what kind of sound cues this results in, but we
need to all right, we'll we previously left you without
a dope beat the step two we were talking about
(03:07):
the beginning of this kidnapping the golden Hippie of Rome,
John Paul Getty the third had been kidnapped. A ransom
note had been sent. The mob was after some of
that sweet, sweet Getty money. Now, kidnapping rich folks is
an age old enterprise. It continues here today. Be careful,
(03:29):
but or even just like kidnapping Americans of of of
moderate means, because the currency is often so much more valuable. Right,
but we have uh, we've introduced some of our characters here.
We talked about Gail, We talked about the leader of
the at the time, sin Quanta. But as smart as
(03:51):
the mafio, so were they, Bush would say, they miss
underestimated how Getty Senior looked at the world. The old man, Uh,
the old Man did not take kindly to threats, and
he certainly didn't like anybody touching money. That what like
(04:12):
money in general. The thing about billionaires, you know, there's
there's a good case to be made. This might be
a hot take. There's a good case to be made that, uh,
being a billionaire might qualify you for certain mental conditions,
like I have nomania right right right? Well like the
(04:33):
ideas um oh, I think it was John Kleee for
money Python. He had this great example about it. He said,
let's think of chocolate. A lot of people like chocolate.
If you come to my house and you open the fridge,
you might see a bit of chocolate, and you think, oh,
he's a nice guy. He's like me. He likes chocolate.
But if you walked into my house and it was
filled to the ceiling with chocolate, and I asked if
(04:54):
you had any chocolate in your pocket, and you did,
and I got angry at you, then that is what
being a billionaires like. You're angry that other people have
a thing, right, and uh you know jpeg John Paul
Ghetti the main he was incredibly thrifty because he did
(05:16):
not get his thrills from spending money. He got his
thrills from making money, from amassing money from stacking that chocolate.
And that is is usually oftentimes the case for folks
that come from this kind of generational well, especially if
something you did, lad to it ballooning, you know, which
(05:37):
we know that the John Paulghetti he did have some
business acumen, and he did. He was a good steward
of that more modest family fortune that that that that
came before him, and then he turned it into an
outright empire. And you don't build empires by giving handouts, right, yeah,
at least not not a getty style of fortune. So
(05:59):
this guy was so cheap folks, so very like beyond thrifty. Okay,
I'm an eagle scout. I get it. Thrifty, brave, clean
and reverend. Those are all good things. But he took
it too far, you could say. And you could also say,
had to be this, have to have this sort of
mindset to reach his financial position. But he was known
(06:21):
as a skin flint domizer in his day. He was
always looking for a loophole at tax deduction. He was
the kind of he was the type of dude who
if he ever went into a civilian grocery store, you
can be dang sure he was looking for manager specials.
He got coupons. He might have been the type of
guy to poke a hole in something and demand a
(06:42):
discount because he quote unquote found it that way. That's
how cheap this guy is, crazy town. Yeah, manipulatively cheap.
I like that. Yeah. The Time magazine article on the
history of the Getty kidnapping by Olivia B. Waxman summed
up beautifully his penny pinching had become legend. He eats simply,
dress as well, but inexpensively spends about two eight hours
(07:05):
a week for personal needs. He once took a party
of friends to a dog show in London. The admission
fuse five shillings about seventy cents American, but a sign
over the entrance at half price after five pm. It
was then twelve minutes to five, said billionaire Getty. Let
us take a walk around the block for a few minutes,
like like it was just planning it all along a
(07:26):
lovely stroll. The Time magazine article goes on yees long quotes.
We're gonna split it up. So. On another occasion, he
was persuaded by British born author and actress ethel Leven
to send some silk ties to famed art critic Bernard Berenson,
whom she and Getty had just visited while preparing for
their book Collector's Choice, which is a well reviewed narrative
(07:49):
of their hunt for Our Treasures. Getty caught Levan writing
from Paul and Ethel on the accompanying card. He immediately
demanded she paid half the cost of the ties on
the ground that she was getting half the credit for
the gift. That's unnecessarily aggressive. It's rough. Yeah, there's there's
(08:11):
there are other stories the stuff is like, is honestly
legend um? Like he I think it's something to do
with the phone book. Yeah, yeah, he was so. The
way this story goes, he was getting a renovation done
on a British estate and he installed a pay phone
(08:32):
during the construction, and so if you were his guest
and you came over, you had to pay for your
own phone calls. Later after, after construction was complete, he
did apparently remove it, but during that time he was like,
if that call is important, that's on you. You know.
There was I can't remember who it was. It might
have been Iced Tea who had a vending machine installed
(08:56):
in his mansion and when his friends came over and
wanted to snap X, he just told them to go
to the vending machine. Wow, it's not very aspitable, is
it iced Tea. I can't remember specifically him, but yeah,
that's that's brand for iced Tea. Seems pretty generous. Hope
that's not true. I hope so too. I hope I'm
(09:17):
I'm remembering a different person. But there's definitely a person
who's done that. So this is what the Mafia was
not aware of. They weren't aware of the mindset of
this guy of John Paul Getty. And he also seemed
to be very cold to people who were family members,
(09:39):
even if they weren't useful to the business enterprise. He
might be at best indifferent to them, but he also
would as sad as is to say, he seemed to
consider some of them irrelevant, including his youngest son, Timothy
where Getty. Timothy had a lot of health problem from
(10:00):
very young age. He had a brain to her that
caused him to go blind at age six, and he
passed away when he was twelve years old, and his
father did not go to the funeral. Can you imagine. Yeah,
apparently has an aversion to weddings and funerals, and I
don't know, maybe maybe just an aversion to life. To
other people, you know, it seems like one of those
(10:21):
guys that would just prefer to again swimming his see
of coins. Do you think he talks to money like
is his best friend his first dollar bill or something? Yeah,
I just you know, it just strikes me then, like
people like this they can't have very happy lives. You know,
they've got all the money in the world. Throw that
catchphrase around again because it's appropriate here. But what kind
(10:44):
of fulfillment you know, five wives, seemingly you know, no
meaningful relationship with family. What's the point of it all?
You know, if if not to to have a happy life,
you know, I mean, I it's about legacy again, back
to succession. It does seem like legacy and this idea
(11:05):
of being larger than life and having your you know,
your name carry on, you know, well passed your death.
And obviously we know any think about Baghetti foundation, all
of the things associated with Getty. He certainly did. That
certainly did happen. So if that's what he was, you know,
banking on, then I guess good on you. But he
just didn't seem to be a particularly jolly fellow. Yeah, agreed,
(11:28):
And this is you know, it can be tough to
understand the inner workings of another person's mind. It's always
a little bit of a black box. But we can
measure people by their actions, right, and his actions seem
to consistently prize growth of his financial empire over the
well being of his social relationships and his family. He
(11:51):
even this from a great Rolling Stone article by Amelia
McDonald Perry. Apparently, during the time his fifth saw was
going through all these medical problems, J Paul Getty told
his wife that she was spending too much money on
his son's medical care. Like that's also again, that's arctic
(12:13):
level cold. So we were we know that the mob
was not aware really of the guy they were messing with.
They didn't know the nature the bear they were poking,
and they were thinking, all right, we'll set this ransom
(12:33):
at seventy million dollars to us, that is an ungodly
amount of money for most people. But John Paul Getty
is a billionaire, and so it's not going to hurt
him at all, especially if we're saying, you do this
to save your grandson. But what they didn't know is J.
(12:55):
Paul Getty liked his grandson's mom. He liked Gail, he
thought she was cool, but he didn't like this grandson
he considered him effectless. And then we're talking about this
off air. Uh. One of the things that stayed with
this guy who held onto grudges as tightly as he
held on the money. By the way, he was still
(13:18):
mad at his grandson because one one time his grandson
showed up wearing trainers sneakers basically to visit him at
this two door manor house, Sutton place. Oh the goal exactly,
that's unwashed with a snapper welp turning up to the
manda and and trainers. I know, effectless means irresponsible, lacking
(13:45):
strength of character. Yeah yeah, shiftless lab exactly. But he
did he committed a worst offense. He was a hippie
and the golden hippie of golden hippie and uh jpg
old jpeg. Also, you know, didn't like the fact that
(14:06):
he seemed to be following in his father's footsteps. Um,
you know, who had moved to Rome and and and
got on the horse and all that stuff and uh
and and made a bit of a you know, dragged
the family name through the mud a little bit in
his eyes. So he said he wanted nothing to do
with either of them until they quote changed their ways.
(14:28):
So he was definitely passing down some moral authority kind
of judgment from on high. So he alleges a conspiracy
and he says, my grand Saunders staged this crisis because
he's after money. And then later when he realizes, no,
he didn't stage the crisis. The Golden Hippie that's his
(14:48):
most famous nickname, had in fact been kidnapped by the mob,
he doubled down. He still blamed his grandson, the Golden Hippie,
for quote getting kidnapped in the first place, and thereby
involved him and his grandfather with the dreaded mafia. This
is all according to a guy named John Pearson, the
author of a great book called Painfully Rich, The Outrageous
(15:09):
Fortune and Misfortune of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. Yeah,
talk about victim blaming right right. And the truth seems
to be that the old man has been well aware
of the possibility of kidnapping and extortion well before the grandson,
the Golden Hippie disappeared, And because John Paul Jr. Had
(15:33):
kind of fallen out of contact with his dad, it
felt a gale to go to the old man Getty
Senior herself, and he initially said now I have fourteen
other grandchildren. If I pay one penny now, then I
will have fourteen kidnapped grandchildren. We do not negotiate with terrorists.
(15:59):
I added that last part. But that's I mean, it's
very much a like, well I have He doesn't come
out and say it. It's like I have thirteen other
ones I can lose one. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know,
you see that Scotch Irish background come into play. But
also also there's this, uh, there's this implication that he's
(16:20):
doing the math and he's saying it's not seventeen million once,
it's at minimum seventeen million times thirteen, knowing that the
price might get higher each time. He's doing a risk assessment. Yeah,
with with human capital family, you know, I mean even
the mom is confused. Even they didn't realize they've inserted
(16:44):
themselves in the middle of the most dysfunctional family. Uh ever,
and they're just like wait what uh and man, it
gets weirder, worser better. I don't know how to even
say it. Yeah, it's Czarre. It's so surreal. It's like, um,
you know, this is not a funny situation, but you
could make a dark comedy out of the conversations they're
(17:06):
having because our guys sin Quanta from the Italian mob there,
he is the point person to be on the phone
with Gail, and he just doesn't get it. He's like,
this guy is that rich and he's not gonna save
his own grandson. And he goes, who is this so
called grandfather? You know, how can he leave his own
flesh and blood and the plight that your poor son
(17:28):
is in. Here is the richest man in America and
you tell me he refuses to find just ten milliardi
for his grandson's safety, Senora, you take me for a fool. Yeah,
And that's the thing he's he's literally by refusing to
pay or to even help or even entertain the idea
of this could be real. He's putting his his family
(17:49):
in worse in a worse situation where now they're potentially
at risk because the mob thinks that they're jerking them around.
Oh yeah, they don't believe it because family is so
important to them. Job right, this does not compute. And
uh yeah, so we might be we might be bloodthirsty criminals,
but damn it if we miss family dinner, right, we
(18:10):
like our kids what is wrong with you Americans? Uh
So he ends up pleading with her. You know, it's
almost like a negot It is a negotiating help me,
help you exactly exactly he's saying, you know, because he
doesn't see himself as a bad guy. He sees himself
as doing his job. And so he says, look, please
find some way to get the money. We're too far
(18:33):
down this road, and I have to tell you the
people who are holding your son are going to harm
him if we don't get this cash, this ransom. And
then Gail does the next natural thing and says, prove
to me that my son is alive. He says, okay,
tell me questions only the golden hippie would know the
(18:54):
answers to. I'll get those answers and I'll call you back,
and he does so he roofs that this kid's alive.
And this kidnapping goes on for months and months. Paul
gets very sick. Uh set Quanta even calls Gail when
when the boy falls ill and says, hey, your son
(19:15):
start doing well, what do I do to keep him healthy?
And it's not like a threat, He's like asking, how
do I meet the kid? Doesn't die. Yeah, this person,
this go between is a pretty sympathetic character in this
uh weird in some weirdly right she you know, she says,
keep keeping warm. He's always a bit of a sickly child.
So again, like you said, when this goes on for
(19:37):
months and months, so some of the kidnappers involved in
this lose the interests or they're just kind of like,
I'm ready to get paid. Um, so they actually sell
out their stakes in the whole deal, even though that
was possible. It's like it's like betting on futures, you
know something. Yeah, you're selling their positions, right, And this
is a problem because it seems as though maybe some
(20:01):
of these folks were more loosely connected to the mafia,
uh and a little less hardcore, and they were kind
of trying to play it out without doing any serious
harm to the boy. But at this point they sell
their positions to folks that are a little more connected
to the mob and also little less friendly. Let's just say. Yeah,
(20:23):
it's it's like, um, with debts, a lot of times
you'll see this happen where it's like, you know, especially
if someone goes in bankruptcy, they'll sell that the person's
dead off and the other people will get like, you know,
fifteen cents off the dollar. But that's what I'm seeing
here and said, wow, that's a I didn't know that happened.
It's kind of morbid to think about. Morbid. Yeah, they
imagine a few of the original guys were saying, hey, look,
(20:47):
this has taken a while. We sell loose cigarettes to
get around taxes. That's our level of crime, guys. And usually,
you know, our street hustles are done like that week
or that month. This has been a journey. All the best,
good luck. The new team, as you mentioned, are much
more brutal, and they say, okay, we're gonna make good
(21:07):
on these threats. They must the Getti's must be bluffing
because they don't know we're serious. So Paul is still
tied up, he's still being held hostage. It is a
chilly October morning. They wake him up, they give him
a ton of brandy, I think it was. They get
him day drunk, They give him a haircut, and he
(21:28):
doesn't know what's happening. I imagine he's bonded a little
with some of these guys, and maybe even the original
kidnappers left because we're getting too close. But Paul gets
a bad vibe even though he's drunk, when people start
rubbing alcohol behind his right ear, and they gave him
a towel to bite on and with a razor, no
an aesthetic, they cut off his ear. Staunch the wound
(21:51):
and mail the ear to a newspaper. Some reservoir dogs
stuff right there. Yeah, mail mail the ear to the newspaper.
Maybe that'll get him to finally pay, because again that's
that's these these more roughneck uh folks that are that
(22:15):
have entered the chat and they're now slicing off ears. Yeah,
and the family didn't learn about this for quite a
while because the Italian post service was on strike, so
the ear didn't get to him for quite some time.
When it did arrive, Getty Senior, the old man himself
(22:36):
calls a family counsel and he strikes a unique deal
one uh he strikes to deal with the kidnappers, but
then also with his own a strange son, Junior. They haggle.
They negotiate the ransom down to three million from seventeen million.
The old man says, I'll pay two million, and his
(22:56):
lawyers told him that number because it was the maximum
amount he was allowed to write off on his taxes.
She's like, not a pennymore deeper and deeper this guy.
That's not the worst part. No, it's not the worst part.
And then he makes his son uh JP three's father
(23:18):
pay the remaining a million, which he doesn't have because
reasons that we've discussed, but in his benevolence, JPG decides
he'll loan it to his son at a very reasonable
four percent interest rate. He's turning this into a an
(23:40):
opportunity to get a little juice out of his son
really quick. But if I may ask, it's a trope
you know, in in in crime fiction drama, to send
a toe or an ear or whatever, you know, and
like in uh, um, what is it the big Lebowski?
You know you want to toe? I can get you
a toe. How do you know it's his ear? How
(24:03):
are they like? How is that such a such an
important proof of life? Well maybe it would have been
combined with a picture of the Severn. It's just I
don't know. It's a weird flex. I get that it's
an intimidation method, but you know, yeah, it's not an
especially unique ear, you could say, right, other than skin
color and maybe age of the skin unless there were
(24:26):
some notable disfigurations or abnormalities. But maybe it was an
honor among thieves situation. We do know that the plan
was a success. The Golden Hippies five months captivity ended
in the pre dawn hours of December ninety three. A
truck driver found him and he was just by the
side of the road, waving his arms in the universal
(24:49):
distress sign, and he said, I need to get to
a telephone to call my mom. I'm Paul Getty. Can
I have a cigarette? Pouring rain by the way. Very dramatic.
I'm picturing the scene from this Time magazine article describing it.
It's it's it's very cinematic. I've imagine that it's played
out in the in the in the film, we were
(25:09):
talking about all the money in the world, which I
really am now super intrigued to see. Yeah, may I
have a say? He's very polite, Sure he hasn't. His
manners have not waned in this Time and captivity. He's
supposedly this quoted as saying, may I have a cigarette? Please?
He seemed like a nice like a nice guy. All told.
He does make it to a police station and they
(25:30):
see that his right ear is missing, and he answers
some questions. It's clearly him. He survives a kidnapping, which
not everybody does. He goes on to marry a friend
of his from before his ordeal, one Martin Zaker. And
this happens two years later. So he's eighteen years old.
Remember this kid's only sixteen. He's going through a lot.
(25:52):
He spends almost half of a year locked up by
the mob. And the problem is that when he married
at eighteen, he has automatically disqualified himself from a stake
in his grandfather's trust because he married too young. He
and his wife have one son, who many of us
may know as the actor Balthazar Getty. And then when
(26:16):
the grandfather, when old Man Getty does finally pass away,
he leaves his son John, that's the junior, right, He
leaves him five bucks at his grandson, who had been kidnapped,
gets nothing, nothing, get nothing good day. So exactly, just
(26:40):
like Jane Wilder and Willy Wonka and uh, things get rough,
things get rough for the Golden hippie. Uh. He tries
to adjust to life after this trauma. He drinks too heavily.
He becomes addicted to drugs. He eventually tries to reform.
He tries to make a career for himself as an actor,
(27:01):
but he gets liver failure and he and a stroke
leaves him pretty handicapped, partially blind and quadriplegic and unable
to speak, but mentally fit as a fiddle. And that
that is a certain level of hell, is it not?
You know that locked in he's imprisoned age, being a cage.
(27:23):
You know our kid fire, So yeah, it's it's insane.
I can't imagine I would just I don't think, I
don't know if I I'm sorry, I'm just I'm gonna
loss for words. Just it's it's it's it's one of us.
I think it's one of my my deepest fears. Let's
to end up in a situation like that. Yeah, and
(27:44):
his mom cares for him until he passes away. When
he dies, his son Balthazar says, he taught us how
to live our lives and overcome obstacles and extreme adversity,
and we shall miss him dearly. It's weird too, because
we know that the old man Getty Senior was a
(28:09):
known philanderer in addition to being a miser and parsimonious. Right,
that's another word that Max next and now we're looking
ut P synonyms for cheap skate. And he had a
lot of lovers in addition to his five wives, but
business always one out. One of the quotes that really
(28:32):
stood out to me. A former wife of his next
said business was his first love. But the quote that
really stands out as he said this, a lasting relationship
with a woman is only possible if you are a
business failure. Sir, I disrespectfully disagree. No joke. Priorities. Man.
(28:52):
You know, it's like what what what are you in
this for? You know? Is is I mean, we all
have we only have one life. He's just a weird
way of getting your head twisted up and like this
idea of legacy and this idea of you know, living
on in some sort of perpetual way. It's such a
kind of pompous way of thinking, you know. I mean,
(29:13):
it's like, yeah, we we we know Getty. We know
the name. Do I think of John Paul Getty? Do
I even know what the guy looks like? You know?
All I know about him was that it was kind
of a jerk, and and was was was awful to
his family. So it's like, what what's in a name?
You know, and I don't know. I don't get him.
I'm also not a good jillionaire because I do understand
(29:35):
the concept of enough never being enough, you know, and
people that can't reconcile, that will never be happy because
all just about stacking and collecting and hoarding. And it's like,
you know, you get to a certain point where you
make a certain amount of money statistically, I think they
say it's like seventy dollars seventy like beyond that, everything's
(29:59):
just kind of extra, and then you start to create
new problems for yourself. And then you start to be like, oh,
well I need to keep up with this other person
that I'm comparing myself to, or you know, compete somehow,
um with with with whomever, you know, with this idea
of of of status and um, you know, opulence, it's
just it's a it's a slippery slope and it can
(30:20):
really wreck you. Well that's the thing too, I mean this,
this has always stood out to me. For a lot
of people, happiness is defined by external factors. There there
are studies that clearly indicate, you know, if you work
at a job and you make twelve thousand dollars a
year and all your co workers make twelve tho dollars
a year, You'll be all right. You'll think I'm doing okay,
(30:43):
I can do better. But if one of them starts
making twelve thousand, five hundred dollars a year, you'll be
incredibly unhappy. And the same thing if you work at
a place where everybody makes two hundred thousand dollars a
year and one person makes two hundred and one thousand
dollars a year, you will be incredibly unhappy unless you
You always will be unless you learn to define happiness
(31:06):
in terms of internal variables. Right, you are the main
character of your story and everybody else is the main
character of their own. But with that, unless we I'll
step off the soapbox. I just feel strongly about this.
Unless we start moralizing or over moralizing, maybe we end
it here. Money always doesn't always make people happy. There's
(31:28):
some great Ted talks about this as well. I'm also
thinking of r s A Animate the It's a great series.
Have you guys seen that. I'm gonna send it to
you along with that other Saturday Night Live sketch you
mentioned in part one. Didn't forget. I'll send that right
after we get out here. But I think this story
does tell us a lot about the dangers of success,
(31:53):
how success can be defined, and gosh, yeah, just what
a wild ride. Thanks to everybody for tuning in. Thank
to alleged Getty Descendants super producer Max Williams for letting
us tell your family story I think maybe allegedly, sure, allegedly. Yeah,
as long as we put enough alleged least in there,
we're good to go. Thanks also to Alex Williams who
(32:16):
composed this track. Thanks to research associate doctor Zach who
else no, and thanks to you, sir Oh. Thanks to
you as well, Chris Roscions here in spirit of course. Uh, clister,
did you say something about the clister? Not yet? Yeah?
There there he is? What is he coming by? We should?
We should? Uh? I don't know, burn some some sort
(32:37):
of demonic herb. Perhaps that will attract to attention, you know.
I hope he hasn't been kidnapped, sane. We'll see you
next books. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(32:58):
listen to your favorite show. I was
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you all so
much as always for tuning in. Jay Paul Getty, John
Paul Getty jpg so cartoonishly jpeg, incredibly incredibly cheap jpeg.
Was he's a miser, He's a skin flint. He never
met a penny he didn't think should be his. Where
(00:50):
is the origin of skin flint? It makes me, I mean,
I know we're a family show, but it makes me
think of skin flute. You can, you can, you can
put together what you all with that one. But that's
what I always think of when I hear skin flint.
What is the origin? I must know it comes from
the fact that flint, as like flint, is such a
(01:11):
brittle and hard material that you can't remove the skin
of a flint without shattering it. So people who try
to do that are so cheap that they just won't
buy more flint. This was back when flint was a
much more active part of most people's lives. For fire Man,
you know whatever music yeah jpeg, Oh man, I can't
(01:36):
believe we went through a whole episode without making that connection.
I have another there's another coworker of hours that I
call Jpeg. I used to call Casey Pegram see peg
and he didn't like don't like that, didn't like it,
didn't like it. He's a very particular dude. That's fair.
That's fair. Lovely dude. I got to see uh Casey
Pegram in in Corporeal a week or so ago, right, yeah,
(01:59):
I like it, did a training session at the at
the new office and there he was the same as
he ever was. It's been almost it's been over a
year since we've seen each othern person. It was really lovely.
Oh that's super producer Max. Yeah, and you're an OL
and I'm Ben no Bro. You can call me no Bro.
(02:20):
And I want to point out that I'll let you
guys call me a million different nicknames. Yeah, yeah, I
I think um, y'all should just remember that. Okay. Well,
when it comes time to to deed our states to someone, yes,
you'll you'll ruin this this mbio. Well, first we have
to make it an empire. And what better way than
(02:42):
starting with part two of this two part series on
the saga of the Getty Family. With thanks our research
associate Dr Zach We saved this because we thought it
was a natural break in the story. I don't know
what kind of sound cues this results in, but we
need to all right, we'll we previously left you without
a dope beat the step two we were talking about
(03:07):
the beginning of this kidnapping the golden Hippie of Rome,
John Paul Getty the third had been kidnapped. A ransom
note had been sent. The mob was after some of
that sweet, sweet Getty money. Now, kidnapping rich folks is
an age old enterprise. It continues here today. Be careful,
(03:29):
but or even just like kidnapping Americans of of of
moderate means, because the currency is often so much more valuable. Right,
but we have uh, we've introduced some of our characters here.
We talked about Gail, We talked about the leader of
the at the time, sin Quanta. But as smart as
(03:51):
the mafio, so were they, Bush would say, they miss
underestimated how Getty Senior looked at the world. The old man, Uh,
the old Man did not take kindly to threats, and
he certainly didn't like anybody touching money. That what like
(04:12):
money in general. The thing about billionaires, you know, there's
there's a good case to be made. This might be
a hot take. There's a good case to be made that, uh,
being a billionaire might qualify you for certain mental conditions,
like I have nomania right right right? Well like the
(04:33):
ideas um oh, I think it was John Kleee for
money Python. He had this great example about it. He said,
let's think of chocolate. A lot of people like chocolate.
If you come to my house and you open the fridge,
you might see a bit of chocolate, and you think, oh,
he's a nice guy. He's like me. He likes chocolate.
But if you walked into my house and it was
filled to the ceiling with chocolate, and I asked if
(04:54):
you had any chocolate in your pocket, and you did,
and I got angry at you, then that is what
being a billionaires like. You're angry that other people have
a thing, right, and uh you know jpeg John Paul
Ghetti the main he was incredibly thrifty because he did
(05:16):
not get his thrills from spending money. He got his
thrills from making money, from amassing money from stacking that chocolate.
And that is is usually oftentimes the case for folks
that come from this kind of generational well, especially if
something you did, lad to it ballooning, you know, which
(05:37):
we know that the John Paulghetti he did have some
business acumen, and he did. He was a good steward
of that more modest family fortune that that that that
came before him, and then he turned it into an
outright empire. And you don't build empires by giving handouts, right, yeah,
at least not not a getty style of fortune. So
(05:59):
this guy was so cheap folks, so very like beyond thrifty. Okay,
I'm an eagle scout. I get it. Thrifty, brave, clean
and reverend. Those are all good things. But he took
it too far, you could say. And you could also say,
had to be this, have to have this sort of
mindset to reach his financial position. But he was known
(06:21):
as a skin flint domizer in his day. He was
always looking for a loophole at tax deduction. He was
the kind of he was the type of dude who
if he ever went into a civilian grocery store, you
can be dang sure he was looking for manager specials.
He got coupons. He might have been the type of
guy to poke a hole in something and demand a
(06:42):
discount because he quote unquote found it that way. That's
how cheap this guy is, crazy town. Yeah, manipulatively cheap.
I like that. Yeah. The Time magazine article on the
history of the Getty kidnapping by Olivia B. Waxman summed
up beautifully his penny pinching had become legend. He eats simply,
dress as well, but inexpensively spends about two eight hours
(07:05):
a week for personal needs. He once took a party
of friends to a dog show in London. The admission
fuse five shillings about seventy cents American, but a sign
over the entrance at half price after five pm. It
was then twelve minutes to five, said billionaire Getty. Let
us take a walk around the block for a few minutes,
like like it was just planning it all along a
(07:26):
lovely stroll. The Time magazine article goes on yees long quotes.
We're gonna split it up. So. On another occasion, he
was persuaded by British born author and actress ethel Leven
to send some silk ties to famed art critic Bernard Berenson,
whom she and Getty had just visited while preparing for
their book Collector's Choice, which is a well reviewed narrative
(07:49):
of their hunt for Our Treasures. Getty caught Levan writing
from Paul and Ethel on the accompanying card. He immediately
demanded she paid half the cost of the ties on
the ground that she was getting half the credit for
the gift. That's unnecessarily aggressive. It's rough. Yeah, there's there's
(08:11):
there are other stories the stuff is like, is honestly
legend um? Like he I think it's something to do
with the phone book. Yeah, yeah, he was so. The
way this story goes, he was getting a renovation done
on a British estate and he installed a pay phone
(08:32):
during the construction, and so if you were his guest
and you came over, you had to pay for your
own phone calls. Later after, after construction was complete, he
did apparently remove it, but during that time he was like,
if that call is important, that's on you. You know.
There was I can't remember who it was. It might
have been Iced Tea who had a vending machine installed
(08:56):
in his mansion and when his friends came over and
wanted to snap X, he just told them to go
to the vending machine. Wow, it's not very aspitable, is
it iced Tea. I can't remember specifically him, but yeah,
that's that's brand for iced Tea. Seems pretty generous. Hope
that's not true. I hope so too. I hope I'm
(09:17):
I'm remembering a different person. But there's definitely a person
who's done that. So this is what the Mafia was
not aware of. They weren't aware of the mindset of
this guy of John Paul Getty. And he also seemed
to be very cold to people who were family members,
(09:39):
even if they weren't useful to the business enterprise. He
might be at best indifferent to them, but he also
would as sad as is to say, he seemed to
consider some of them irrelevant, including his youngest son, Timothy
where Getty. Timothy had a lot of health problem from
(10:00):
very young age. He had a brain to her that
caused him to go blind at age six, and he
passed away when he was twelve years old, and his
father did not go to the funeral. Can you imagine. Yeah,
apparently has an aversion to weddings and funerals, and I
don't know, maybe maybe just an aversion to life. To
other people, you know, it seems like one of those
(10:21):
guys that would just prefer to again swimming his see
of coins. Do you think he talks to money like
is his best friend his first dollar bill or something? Yeah,
I just you know, it just strikes me then, like
people like this they can't have very happy lives. You know,
they've got all the money in the world. Throw that
catchphrase around again because it's appropriate here. But what kind
(10:44):
of fulfillment you know, five wives, seemingly you know, no
meaningful relationship with family. What's the point of it all?
You know, if if not to to have a happy life,
you know, I mean, I it's about legacy again, back
to succession. It does seem like legacy and this idea
(11:05):
of being larger than life and having your you know,
your name carry on, you know, well passed your death.
And obviously we know any think about Baghetti foundation, all
of the things associated with Getty. He certainly did. That
certainly did happen. So if that's what he was, you know,
banking on, then I guess good on you. But he
just didn't seem to be a particularly jolly fellow. Yeah, agreed,
(11:28):
And this is you know, it can be tough to
understand the inner workings of another person's mind. It's always
a little bit of a black box. But we can
measure people by their actions, right, and his actions seem
to consistently prize growth of his financial empire over the
well being of his social relationships and his family. He
(11:51):
even this from a great Rolling Stone article by Amelia
McDonald Perry. Apparently, during the time his fifth saw was
going through all these medical problems, J Paul Getty told
his wife that she was spending too much money on
his son's medical care. Like that's also again, that's arctic
(12:13):
level cold. So we were we know that the mob
was not aware really of the guy they were messing with.
They didn't know the nature the bear they were poking,
and they were thinking, all right, we'll set this ransom
(12:33):
at seventy million dollars to us, that is an ungodly
amount of money for most people. But John Paul Getty
is a billionaire, and so it's not going to hurt
him at all, especially if we're saying, you do this
to save your grandson. But what they didn't know is J.
(12:55):
Paul Getty liked his grandson's mom. He liked Gail, he
thought she was cool, but he didn't like this grandson
he considered him effectless. And then we're talking about this
off air. Uh. One of the things that stayed with
this guy who held onto grudges as tightly as he
held on the money. By the way, he was still
(13:18):
mad at his grandson because one one time his grandson
showed up wearing trainers sneakers basically to visit him at
this two door manor house, Sutton place. Oh the goal exactly,
that's unwashed with a snapper welp turning up to the
manda and and trainers. I know, effectless means irresponsible, lacking
(13:45):
strength of character. Yeah yeah, shiftless lab exactly. But he
did he committed a worst offense. He was a hippie
and the golden hippie of golden hippie and uh jpg
old jpeg. Also, you know, didn't like the fact that
(14:06):
he seemed to be following in his father's footsteps. Um,
you know, who had moved to Rome and and and
got on the horse and all that stuff and uh
and and made a bit of a you know, dragged
the family name through the mud a little bit in
his eyes. So he said he wanted nothing to do
with either of them until they quote changed their ways.
(14:28):
So he was definitely passing down some moral authority kind
of judgment from on high. So he alleges a conspiracy
and he says, my grand Saunders staged this crisis because
he's after money. And then later when he realizes, no,
he didn't stage the crisis. The Golden Hippie that's his
(14:48):
most famous nickname, had in fact been kidnapped by the mob,
he doubled down. He still blamed his grandson, the Golden Hippie,
for quote getting kidnapped in the first place, and thereby
involved him and his grandfather with the dreaded mafia. This
is all according to a guy named John Pearson, the
author of a great book called Painfully Rich, The Outrageous
(15:09):
Fortune and Misfortune of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. Yeah,
talk about victim blaming right right. And the truth seems
to be that the old man has been well aware
of the possibility of kidnapping and extortion well before the grandson,
the Golden Hippie disappeared, And because John Paul Jr. Had
(15:33):
kind of fallen out of contact with his dad, it
felt a gale to go to the old man Getty
Senior herself, and he initially said now I have fourteen
other grandchildren. If I pay one penny now, then I
will have fourteen kidnapped grandchildren. We do not negotiate with terrorists.
(15:59):
I added that last part. But that's I mean, it's
very much a like, well I have He doesn't come
out and say it. It's like I have thirteen other
ones I can lose one. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know,
you see that Scotch Irish background come into play. But
also also there's this, uh, there's this implication that he's
(16:20):
doing the math and he's saying it's not seventeen million once,
it's at minimum seventeen million times thirteen, knowing that the
price might get higher each time. He's doing a risk assessment. Yeah,
with with human capital family, you know, I mean even
the mom is confused. Even they didn't realize they've inserted
(16:44):
themselves in the middle of the most dysfunctional family. Uh ever,
and they're just like wait what uh and man, it
gets weirder, worser better. I don't know how to even
say it. Yeah, it's Czarre. It's so surreal. It's like, um,
you know, this is not a funny situation, but you
could make a dark comedy out of the conversations they're
(17:06):
having because our guys sin Quanta from the Italian mob there,
he is the point person to be on the phone
with Gail, and he just doesn't get it. He's like,
this guy is that rich and he's not gonna save
his own grandson. And he goes, who is this so
called grandfather? You know, how can he leave his own
flesh and blood and the plight that your poor son
(17:28):
is in. Here is the richest man in America and
you tell me he refuses to find just ten milliardi
for his grandson's safety, Senora, you take me for a fool. Yeah,
And that's the thing he's he's literally by refusing to
pay or to even help or even entertain the idea
of this could be real. He's putting his his family
(17:49):
in worse in a worse situation where now they're potentially
at risk because the mob thinks that they're jerking them around.
Oh yeah, they don't believe it because family is so
important to them. Job right, this does not compute. And
uh yeah, so we might be we might be bloodthirsty criminals,
but damn it if we miss family dinner, right, we
(18:10):
like our kids what is wrong with you Americans? Uh
So he ends up pleading with her. You know, it's
almost like a negot It is a negotiating help me,
help you exactly exactly he's saying, you know, because he
doesn't see himself as a bad guy. He sees himself
as doing his job. And so he says, look, please
find some way to get the money. We're too far
(18:33):
down this road, and I have to tell you the
people who are holding your son are going to harm
him if we don't get this cash, this ransom. And
then Gail does the next natural thing and says, prove
to me that my son is alive. He says, okay,
tell me questions only the golden hippie would know the
(18:54):
answers to. I'll get those answers and I'll call you back,
and he does so he roofs that this kid's alive.
And this kidnapping goes on for months and months. Paul
gets very sick. Uh set Quanta even calls Gail when
when the boy falls ill and says, hey, your son
(19:15):
start doing well, what do I do to keep him healthy?
And it's not like a threat, He's like asking, how
do I meet the kid? Doesn't die. Yeah, this person,
this go between is a pretty sympathetic character in this
uh weird in some weirdly right she you know, she says,
keep keeping warm. He's always a bit of a sickly child.
So again, like you said, when this goes on for
(19:37):
months and months, so some of the kidnappers involved in
this lose the interests or they're just kind of like,
I'm ready to get paid. Um, so they actually sell
out their stakes in the whole deal, even though that
was possible. It's like it's like betting on futures, you
know something. Yeah, you're selling their positions, right, And this
is a problem because it seems as though maybe some
(20:01):
of these folks were more loosely connected to the mafia,
uh and a little less hardcore, and they were kind
of trying to play it out without doing any serious
harm to the boy. But at this point they sell
their positions to folks that are a little more connected
to the mob and also little less friendly. Let's just say. Yeah,
(20:23):
it's it's like, um, with debts, a lot of times
you'll see this happen where it's like, you know, especially
if someone goes in bankruptcy, they'll sell that the person's
dead off and the other people will get like, you know,
fifteen cents off the dollar. But that's what I'm seeing
here and said, wow, that's a I didn't know that happened.
It's kind of morbid to think about. Morbid. Yeah, they
imagine a few of the original guys were saying, hey, look,
(20:47):
this has taken a while. We sell loose cigarettes to
get around taxes. That's our level of crime, guys. And usually,
you know, our street hustles are done like that week
or that month. This has been a journey. All the best,
good luck. The new team, as you mentioned, are much
more brutal, and they say, okay, we're gonna make good
(21:07):
on these threats. They must the Getti's must be bluffing
because they don't know we're serious. So Paul is still
tied up, he's still being held hostage. It is a
chilly October morning. They wake him up, they give him
a ton of brandy, I think it was. They get
him day drunk, They give him a haircut, and he
(21:28):
doesn't know what's happening. I imagine he's bonded a little
with some of these guys, and maybe even the original
kidnappers left because we're getting too close. But Paul gets
a bad vibe even though he's drunk, when people start
rubbing alcohol behind his right ear, and they gave him
a towel to bite on and with a razor, no
an aesthetic, they cut off his ear. Staunch the wound
(21:51):
and mail the ear to a newspaper. Some reservoir dogs
stuff right there. Yeah, mail mail the ear to the newspaper.
Maybe that'll get him to finally pay, because again that's
that's these these more roughneck uh folks that are that
(22:15):
have entered the chat and they're now slicing off ears. Yeah,
and the family didn't learn about this for quite a
while because the Italian post service was on strike, so
the ear didn't get to him for quite some time.
When it did arrive, Getty Senior, the old man himself
(22:36):
calls a family counsel and he strikes a unique deal
one uh he strikes to deal with the kidnappers, but
then also with his own a strange son, Junior. They haggle.
They negotiate the ransom down to three million from seventeen million.
The old man says, I'll pay two million, and his
(22:56):
lawyers told him that number because it was the maximum
amount he was allowed to write off on his taxes.
She's like, not a pennymore deeper and deeper this guy.
That's not the worst part. No, it's not the worst part.
And then he makes his son uh JP three's father
(23:18):
pay the remaining a million, which he doesn't have because
reasons that we've discussed, but in his benevolence, JPG decides
he'll loan it to his son at a very reasonable
four percent interest rate. He's turning this into a an
(23:40):
opportunity to get a little juice out of his son
really quick. But if I may ask, it's a trope
you know, in in in crime fiction drama, to send
a toe or an ear or whatever, you know, and
like in uh, um, what is it the big Lebowski?
You know you want to toe? I can get you
a toe. How do you know it's his ear? How
(24:03):
are they like? How is that such a such an
important proof of life? Well maybe it would have been
combined with a picture of the Severn. It's just I
don't know. It's a weird flex. I get that it's
an intimidation method, but you know, yeah, it's not an
especially unique ear, you could say, right, other than skin
color and maybe age of the skin unless there were
(24:26):
some notable disfigurations or abnormalities. But maybe it was an
honor among thieves situation. We do know that the plan
was a success. The Golden Hippies five months captivity ended
in the pre dawn hours of December ninety three. A
truck driver found him and he was just by the
side of the road, waving his arms in the universal
(24:49):
distress sign, and he said, I need to get to
a telephone to call my mom. I'm Paul Getty. Can
I have a cigarette? Pouring rain by the way. Very dramatic.
I'm picturing the scene from this Time magazine article describing it.
It's it's it's very cinematic. I've imagine that it's played
out in the in the in the film, we were
(25:09):
talking about all the money in the world, which I
really am now super intrigued to see. Yeah, may I
have a say? He's very polite, Sure he hasn't. His
manners have not waned in this Time and captivity. He's
supposedly this quoted as saying, may I have a cigarette? Please?
He seemed like a nice like a nice guy. All told.
He does make it to a police station and they
(25:30):
see that his right ear is missing, and he answers
some questions. It's clearly him. He survives a kidnapping, which
not everybody does. He goes on to marry a friend
of his from before his ordeal, one Martin Zaker. And
this happens two years later. So he's eighteen years old.
Remember this kid's only sixteen. He's going through a lot.
(25:52):
He spends almost half of a year locked up by
the mob. And the problem is that when he married
at eighteen, he has automatically disqualified himself from a stake
in his grandfather's trust because he married too young. He
and his wife have one son, who many of us
may know as the actor Balthazar Getty. And then when
(26:16):
the grandfather, when old Man Getty does finally pass away,
he leaves his son John, that's the junior, right, He
leaves him five bucks at his grandson, who had been kidnapped,
gets nothing, nothing, get nothing good day. So exactly, just
(26:40):
like Jane Wilder and Willy Wonka and uh, things get rough,
things get rough for the Golden hippie. Uh. He tries
to adjust to life after this trauma. He drinks too heavily.
He becomes addicted to drugs. He eventually tries to reform.
He tries to make a career for himself as an actor,
(27:01):
but he gets liver failure and he and a stroke
leaves him pretty handicapped, partially blind and quadriplegic and unable
to speak, but mentally fit as a fiddle. And that
that is a certain level of hell, is it not?
You know that locked in he's imprisoned age, being a cage.
(27:23):
You know our kid fire, So yeah, it's it's insane.
I can't imagine I would just I don't think, I
don't know if I I'm sorry, I'm just I'm gonna
loss for words. Just it's it's it's it's one of us.
I think it's one of my my deepest fears. Let's
to end up in a situation like that. Yeah, and
(27:44):
his mom cares for him until he passes away. When
he dies, his son Balthazar says, he taught us how
to live our lives and overcome obstacles and extreme adversity,
and we shall miss him dearly. It's weird too, because
we know that the old man Getty Senior was a
(28:09):
known philanderer in addition to being a miser and parsimonious. Right,
that's another word that Max next and now we're looking
ut P synonyms for cheap skate. And he had a
lot of lovers in addition to his five wives, but
business always one out. One of the quotes that really
(28:32):
stood out to me. A former wife of his next
said business was his first love. But the quote that
really stands out as he said this, a lasting relationship
with a woman is only possible if you are a
business failure. Sir, I disrespectfully disagree. No joke. Priorities. Man.
(28:52):
You know, it's like what what what are you in
this for? You know? Is is I mean, we all
have we only have one life. He's just a weird
way of getting your head twisted up and like this
idea of legacy and this idea of you know, living
on in some sort of perpetual way. It's such a
kind of pompous way of thinking, you know. I mean,
(29:13):
it's like, yeah, we we we know Getty. We know
the name. Do I think of John Paul Getty? Do
I even know what the guy looks like? You know?
All I know about him was that it was kind
of a jerk, and and was was was awful to
his family. So it's like, what what's in a name?
You know, and I don't know. I don't get him.
I'm also not a good jillionaire because I do understand
(29:35):
the concept of enough never being enough, you know, and
people that can't reconcile, that will never be happy because
all just about stacking and collecting and hoarding. And it's like,
you know, you get to a certain point where you
make a certain amount of money statistically, I think they
say it's like seventy dollars seventy like beyond that, everything's
(29:59):
just kind of extra, and then you start to create
new problems for yourself. And then you start to be like, oh,
well I need to keep up with this other person
that I'm comparing myself to, or you know, compete somehow,
um with with with whomever, you know, with this idea
of of of status and um, you know, opulence, it's
just it's a it's a slippery slope and it can
(30:20):
really wreck you. Well that's the thing too, I mean this,
this has always stood out to me. For a lot
of people, happiness is defined by external factors. There there
are studies that clearly indicate, you know, if you work
at a job and you make twelve thousand dollars a
year and all your co workers make twelve tho dollars
a year, You'll be all right. You'll think I'm doing okay,
(30:43):
I can do better. But if one of them starts
making twelve thousand, five hundred dollars a year, you'll be
incredibly unhappy. And the same thing if you work at
a place where everybody makes two hundred thousand dollars a
year and one person makes two hundred and one thousand
dollars a year, you will be incredibly unhappy unless you
You always will be unless you learn to define happiness
(31:06):
in terms of internal variables. Right, you are the main
character of your story and everybody else is the main
character of their own. But with that, unless we I'll
step off the soapbox. I just feel strongly about this.
Unless we start moralizing or over moralizing, maybe we end
it here. Money always doesn't always make people happy. There's
(31:28):
some great Ted talks about this as well. I'm also
thinking of r s A Animate the It's a great series.
Have you guys seen that. I'm gonna send it to
you along with that other Saturday Night Live sketch you
mentioned in part one. Didn't forget. I'll send that right
after we get out here. But I think this story
does tell us a lot about the dangers of success,
(31:53):
how success can be defined, and gosh, yeah, just what
a wild ride. Thanks to everybody for tuning in. Thank
to alleged Getty Descendants super producer Max Williams for letting
us tell your family story I think maybe allegedly, sure, allegedly. Yeah,
as long as we put enough alleged least in there,
we're good to go. Thanks also to Alex Williams who
(32:16):
composed this track. Thanks to research associate doctor Zach who
else no, and thanks to you, sir Oh. Thanks to
you as well, Chris Roscions here in spirit of course. Uh, clister,
did you say something about the clister? Not yet? Yeah?
There there he is? What is he coming by? We should?
We should? Uh? I don't know, burn some some sort
(32:37):
of demonic herb. Perhaps that will attract to attention, you know.
I hope he hasn't been kidnapped, sane. We'll see you
next books. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(32:58):
listen to your favorite show. I was
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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