Unravelling Getty's billions

Unravelling Getty's billions

Sir Paul was a legendary philanthropist

Asked once about the key to becoming rich, John Paul Getty replied: "Rise early every morning. Work hard all day. Find oil."

The legendary oil man, whose son Sir John Paul Getty II died on Thursday in a London hospital, was the driving force behind the Getty empire.

He was an instinctive entrepreneur who made his first million by the age of 24.

Before his death in 1976, Getty's name had become synonymous with vast wealth - and the playboy lifestyle that goes with it.

Philanthropic streak

But Paul, the third of five sons who was knighted in 1998 after taking British citizenship, was a very different character.

He shunned the spotlight and seemed more interested in giving his family's riches away than adding to them.

Over the years, he donated more than £140m to various causes, from the National Gallery to the Conservative Party.

But his philanthropic streak barely dented the family fortune.

In fact Sir Paul, like most of the Getty clan, could not get his hands on the capital.

It has been held in various trusts since the sale of the Getty oil assets to Texaco in 1984.

Modest wealth?

He was left only a nominal sum by his father, from whom he was estranged.

Most of Sir Paul's wealth - estimated at up to $2bn - was tied up in the family's trusts and he merely lived on the income.

His personal fortune, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, was a relatively modest £180m.

His son Mark has also built an independent fortune as the owner of Getty Images, one of the world's biggest picture libraries, which is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange.

The combined wealth of the pair was estimated at £317m, putting them at 103 in the Sunday Times list.

Saudi Arabia

The Getty dynasty was founded by Sir Paul's grandfather George Franklin Getty, a Minneapolis lawyer, who moved his family to Oklahoma and then to Los Angeles to seek his fortune in the oil business.

John Paul Getty set up his first oil venture shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, with a loan from his father.

The two continued as business partners - and occasionally feuding rivals - until George's death in 1929.

John Paul, nicknamed Oklahoma Crude, continued to expand his Standard Oil empire and began exploration in Saudi Arabia.

Getty legend

In 1949, Getty he signed the deal with the Saudi government that catapulted him into the super-rich league.

Getty's Western Pacific Oil Corporation was given access to the Saudi half of the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

After just three years, and a $30m investment, the oil deposits discovered there made Getty a billionaire.

He managed to remain out of the spotlight until 1957, when he was named him the world's wealthiest men by Fortune magazine.

The idea of the maverick oil man taking on America's giant "seven sister" oil firms captured the public's imagination - and the Getty legend was born.

His colourful private life and five marriages ensured he was rarely out of the headlines in the decades that followed.

Meanwhile, Sir Paul had been groomed by his father to enter the family business.

After attending the University of San Francisco and doing a brief stint in the army, he took charge of Getty Oil enterprises in Rome.

But he resigned within six years, telling his father "it doesn't take anything to be a businessman".

He dropped out to pursue a freewheeling, hippy lifestyle that eventually found him living as a virtual recluse in London.

When his father died in 1976, he left the bulk of his fortune to the Getty Trust, for the preservation of great works of art.

This kept the Getty wealth out of the clutches of the taxman, but stunned Wall Street, not to mention Getty's heirs.