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To understand the Paul Getty kidnapping, you need to know a little bit about Getty family history. Paul, also known as John Paul Getty III, was the grandson of J. Paul Getty, the man who began making money from oil leases in the 1910s and became extremely wealthy. Despite his vast wealth, however, he was a very frugal man. He had all the money in the world but was very particular about how it was distributed among his children and grandchildren.
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Today, the Getty family is most closely associated
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with their massive collections of fine art, especially if you live in Los Angeles
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where the Getty Center Museum looms over the west side like a modern Mount Olympus
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But before their name became synonymous with the arts, the Gettys were best known as the wealthy family
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that refused to pay the ransom when one of their own was kidnapped
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The story inspired both the recent Ridley Scott film, All the Money in the World, and the FX miniseries, Trust
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But those are the Hollywood versions of the story. The real life ordeal was even more outrageous and tragic
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Today, we're taking a look at the timeline of the infamous kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III
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OK, time to getty rich or die trying. Before we talk about what happened to J. Paul Getty III, you need to know a little bit about
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the Getty family, specifically J. Paul Getty I and his son, J. Paul Getty Jr., also known as J. Paul Getty Returns
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The first Getty, an infamously frugal man, made his vast fortune from oil leases in the 1910s
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Even before his grandson's kidnapping made him one of history's most iconic misers
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there were already stories about his penny-pinching ways. One long-standing tale indicates that he had installed
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a payphone in his home in London for guests to use, rather than allow them to make calls on his home line
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That's stone cold. I wonder if he had all the refrigerators replaced with vending machines
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That's a good idea. Getty's fifth wife, Teddy Getty Gaston, claims that he forced her to pay their young son's medical bills out of her own pocket
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even after the boy was diagnosed with a brain tumor. In 1958, the boy, Timmy Getty, passed away at age 12
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without his father even attending his funeral. A horrified and grief-stricken Teddy Gaston divorced her husband that same year
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Sounds like a good choice, Teddy. Although, hopefully, she kept the last name, Teddy Getty Gaston
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That just works. That could be the name of a successful casual dining chain
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But the point is, J. Paul Getty Sr. was an established ogre
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He was the kind of miserable they invent new swear words to describe. Getty's son, John Paul Getty Jr., had four children of his own with his wife, Gail Harris
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After the couple divorced, Junior relocated to Rome to run the family's Italian business
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the cleverly named Getty Oil Italiana, and got remarried to the Dutch actor Talitha Pohl
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The pair struggled with addiction for years, and Talitha died of an overdose in 1972
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Italian police apparently investigated Junior for his possible involvement in her death but he was never charged Which brings us to his son J Paul Getty III or just Paul for short He was born in 1956 and at age 16 was expelled from private school and moved to Rome
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to be closer to his father. Once there, he scored some work as an extra on film sets and began
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selling jewelry and paintings. Paul also got very involved in the club and party scene
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as anybody would do if they were rich and 16 and living in Rome in the 70s. I mean
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how long can you look at statues? During this period, Paul also started getting more interested
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in politics and activism. This brings us to the night of July 10, 1973. Paul was hanging out in
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Rome's Piazza Navona with a Belgian go-go dancer he'd met recently. Remember, he's here to party
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and admire antiquity. Suddenly, he was grabbed by members of the Italian mafia, placed into the back
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of a van, and taken 300 miles south to the city of Calabria. A note was sent to Paul's mother
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Gail, reading, Dear Mother, I have fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don't let me be killed
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Make sure that the police do not interfere. Despite the notes pleased to not attract additional
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publicity, it was published in Time Magazine on July 30th of that year. Kidnappings were somewhat
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common in Italy at this time, and the young heir to a throne of considerable wealth is just about
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the most attractive target imaginable for criminals looking to score big on a ransom
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But nonetheless, Paul's friends and family were initially skeptical that he was actually being
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held against his will at all. Apparently, the perpetually broke Paul frequently joked about
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orchestrating his own kidnapping as a lucrative financial scheme. And look, jokes are fun
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But if you happen to be one of the richest teenagers in modern history, you should probably
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avoid making that particular joke, except on special occasions, or when it's really
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really funny. I mean, you got to go for it. After receiving some scary phone calls from the kidnappers, who threatened to cut off
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one of Paul's fingers and mail it to his mother, classic kidnappers, the reality of the situation
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sunk in for all parties involved. The ransom was set at $17 million, which is less money than Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid to play
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a blue astronaut in a Batman movie. If I must suffer, humanity will suffer with me. Nonetheless
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Paul's infamously stingy grandfather, J. Paul Getty Sr., refused to pay. He explained that a
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ready willingness to pay off kidnappers would set a dangerous precedent, telling the media
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If I pay one penny now I have 14 kidnapped grandchildren Getty Sr may have been a documented ghoul but his logic is difficult to argue and is also the standing policy of the United States government
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Never negotiate with terrorists. And nobody wants to risk 14 kidnapped grandchildren
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That is an unreasonable number. However, the downside of this position is that you're letting the kidnappers know they have no reason
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to keep their hostage alive. Gail, enraged that the Getty's would not pay to save one of their own
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attempted to shame her father-in-law in the press, but he would not relent. After all
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he did have 13 other grandchildren. Maybe he felt he could afford to lose one. The situation continued like this for several months until November of 1973
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when a Roman newspaper received a package containing a lock of Paul's red hair and a
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severed ear. There was also a note attached, reading, This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive
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In other words, he will arrive in little bits. But the kidnappers were willing to play ball
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They reduced their ransom demands to $3.2 million. And J. Paul Getty Sr. finally agreed to pay, sort of
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Getty Sr. agreed to pay a portion of the ransom, $2.2 million
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and ensured that his portion of the ransom payment was tax deductible
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Where do you deduct that? Charitable donations, I guess. Getty Sr. left his son, Getty Jr., on the hook for the rest of the amount
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However, Getty Jr. didn't have the cash. so he had to borrow it
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It's tough to get a bank loan for ransom. They consider that a risky investment
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So Junior borrowed the money from his father, Getty Sr., at a 4% interest rate
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Yeah, J. Paul Getty Sr. charged his son interest on the ransom they paid for his teenage grandson
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I mean, he is a shrewd negotiator. Why do you think so many buildings are named after him
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After a five-month ordeal, Paul was finally released by his captors on December 15, 1973, who dropped him by the side
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of the road during a rainstorm. Paul spent hours trying to flag down a ride in the pouring rain
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until he was picked up by a truck driver named Antonio Tedesco. He said to Tedesco
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I am a kidnapping captive. I need to get to a telephone to call my mother in Rome
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Also, the kidnappers had not been bluffing. Paul's right ear was, in fact, missing
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Paul later told investigators that during his five months of captivity, he'd been moved around
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the region several times. He was kept blindfolded each time to keep him disoriented about his
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location and prevent him from escaping and finding his way back on his own
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Other than the missing ear, some fatigue, and general malnutrition, Paul was physically unharmed
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though the incident left him with years of mental and emotional trauma. The money was delivered by a former U intelligence officer named Fletcher Chase The millions in Italian lira he turned over to the kidnappers had been microfilmed and recorded by police who also arranged to pass by the area of handoff dressed as tourists
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to capture photographs of the criminal gang. Once authorities had identified the gang, they followed them covertly, collecting evidence
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for a month before making arrests. Wow, you can tell kidnappers for a month
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Either they were very good or the kidnappers were very bad. Nine collaborators in total were arrested, but there was only enough hard evidence to
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ultimately convict two of them. For a time, Paul seemed to emerge from his horrifying ordeal with
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a new lease on life. At age 18, he married a German photographer named Gisele Zaha, and together
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they had a son. He even enrolled for a semester at Pepperdine University in the United States
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Sadly, he was unable to completely escape his demons and fell back into abusing drugs and alcohol
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after a move to New York City. Original recipe J. Paul Getty died in 1976
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leaving nothing to his grandson Paul in his will and just $500 to Paul's dad, J. Paul Getty Jr
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Most of the original Getty fortune went to charities and nonprofit organizations
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like that lovely Getty Center in Los Angeles. However, a dozen women also received significant funds
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from Getty's will, including an ex-wife who received $55,000 a year for life. Additionally
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an art dealer, a London widow, and a decorator all got hefty shares of Getty's stock. In 1981
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Paul overdosed on a combination of methadone, valium, and alcohol and suffered a stroke
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The stroke left him completely paralyzed, rendered him unable to speak, and severely impacted his
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eyesight. Paul and his mother struggled to support themselves in their later lives and at one point
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sued his father, J. Paul Getty Jr., for help with medical necessities. Paul died at age 54 in 2011
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The film All the Money in the World, relating the story of Paul's kidnapping and his grandfather's
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unexpected response, was released in December of 2017. The film was based on John Pearson's
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1995 book about the case, Painfully Rich, the Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs
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of J. Paul Getty. After the film's release, a nephew of one of the kidnappers, a man named
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Michael Mammoliti told Variety that everyone had the story wrong, and Paul was actually in on the whole thing from the very start
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Mammoliti claimed the kidnapping plot started off with great intentions and only turned into a mess because of the grandpa not wanting to pay
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Beyond the questionable credibility of Mammoliti's statements, what exactly were those great intentions
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Ripping Grandpa Getty off of $17 million? Actually, that does sound kind of great
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It's a shame Grandpa had to screw it all up