John Paul Getty Jr.

John Paul Getty Jr. was born on September 7, 1932, as Eugene Paul Getty, the third of the five sons of oil businessman J. Paul Getty; his mother was J. Paul Getty’s fourth wife, Helen “Ann” Rork, and Gordon Peter GettyGordon GettyGordon Getty is an American composer and a son of the oilman J. Paul Getty; as sole trustee of the Sarah C. Getty Trust he sold the trust’s Getty Oil stake to Texaco in 1984, and he has composed operas including Plump Jack and Usher House.Open the full entry was his full brother.⁠[1][2][3]

During the Korean War he was drafted and served in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1953. He studied English at San Francisco State University but did not graduate.⁠[2]

In 1956 he married his childhood sweetheart, Gail Harris, and they had four children: John Paul Getty IIIJohn Paul Getty IIIJohn Paul Getty III (1956–2011) was a grandson of the oil magnate J. Paul Getty who was kidnapped in Rome in 1973, had his right ear cut off and was freed after his family paid a ransom; he was paralysed by a drug-induced stroke in 1981 and died in England in 2011.Open the full entry (born 1956), Aileen (born 1957), Mark (born 1960) and Ariadne (born 1962).⁠[2][1]

He was put in charge of the Italian branch of the family oil business and in 1957 changed his name to J. Paul Getty Jr. He disliked the oil business.⁠[2]

After his divorce from Gail Harris, he married Talitha Pol in December 1966, and they had a son, Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramophone Getty. After the marriage he left his business commitments behind for London’s social scene, and by the late 1960s he and Pol were heavy drug users.⁠[2][1]

In 1971 Talitha Pol died of an accidental heroin overdose in Rome.⁠[2][1]

He moved to Britain in 1972; while living there, he took solace in heroin and rum. He became particularly interested in cricket during his years at Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London.⁠[1][4]

On July 10, 1973, his eldest son, John Paul Getty III, was kidnapped in Rome. To help pay the ransom, his father, J. Paul Getty, lent him $800,000 to be repaid at 4 percent interest; John Paul Getty III was released on December 15 that year.⁠[5]

He was estranged from his father, who on his death in 1976 left him only a nominal sum in his will.⁠[1]

Between 1984 and 1985 he bought the Wormsley estate in Buckinghamshire from the Fane family; he and his wife then restored it, renovating more than 30 buildings and adding an extension to serve as a library for his rare books and manuscripts.⁠[6][7]

He was one of the world’s greatest collectors of rare books and manuscripts; his holdings included a fragment of what is probably the earliest surviving English manuscript (AD 640), Caxton’s 1486 edition of The Canterbury Tales, the Byland Bede and Anne Boleyn’s Psalter.⁠[6]

In 1985 he gave £50 million to the National Gallery in London to establish an endowment. The fund enabled the gallery to acquire works by painters including Caravaggio, Daddi, Holbein and Poussin, and continues to support the acquisition of major paintings for the nation.⁠[8][9][10][1]

On July 31 of that year, the J Paul Getty Jr General Charitable Trust was registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (charity number 292360); the grant-making body is no longer open to applications.⁠[11]

In June 1986 the Foreign Office announced that he had been made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for his donations to British institutions and charities. Because he remained a U.S. citizen, he was styled “Mr. J. Paul Getty II, KBE” rather than “Sir.” He said: “I love this country and it has been very good to me.”⁠[12][1]

He gave more than $200 million to many causes over his lifetime. Besides the National Gallery, he gave nearly £20 million to the British Film Institute, £5 million to restore the west front of St Paul’s Cathedral and £1 million to buy Winston Churchill’s private papers for the nation, and helped Hereford Cathedral keep its 13th-century world map, the Mappa Mundi.⁠[1][8]

He also funded social projects in northern England through the Cheyne Walk Trust and supported the families of striking miners during the 1984 strike.⁠[2]

In cricket, he gave about £2 million towards redeveloping the Mound Stand at Lord’s and £50,000 to The Oval, and acquired the cricket almanack Wisden.⁠[8][4]

He engaged Harry Brind, groundsman at The Oval, to create a pitch at Wormsley, with his friend Brian Johnston of Test Match Special advising on cricket matters. On May 10, 1992, the first game on the new ground was played between Ibstone and Fingest, two villages bordering the estate; on May 24 the ground was officially opened with the Sir Paul Getty XI hosting the MCC, watched by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and then Prime Minister John Major.⁠[4]

That year the Wormsley Foundation, whose aims include the preservation of historic and rare books and manuscripts, was registered with the Charity Commission.⁠[6]

In 1994 he married Victoria Holdsworth, his longtime British girlfriend, who had helped him overcome his drug addiction.⁠[1][2]

In the late 1990s he renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a British citizen (sources date the change to 1997 or 1998), and was invested with full honours in 1998, after which he could use the title “Sir.”⁠[1][10][8][2]

In 2001 he gave £5 million to the British Conservative Party.⁠[2]

He died at the London Clinic on April 17, 2003, aged 70, after being treated for a chest infection, survived by his third wife, Victoria, and three sons and two daughters. He made his final acquisition only a month before his death; he had wanted his collection kept together with scholarly access, and the library was expected to pass to a charitable foundation.⁠[8][1][6]

A further donation from the Getty family improved access to the National Gallery, and a new ground-floor entrance named in his honour opened to the public in 2004.⁠[10]

Wormsley: Official website: https://wormsley.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[7]