The 'Patty Hearst story' was one that gripped the world from her father's appeals to the appearance of footage of her taking an active role in robbing a bank.
He was the last surviving son of the legendary William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate caricatured by Orson Welles in the film "Citizen Kane".
Randolph Hearst was editor of the San Francisco Examiner in the 1970s when his daughter was kidnapped. She became a radical in her own right renouncing her family and her riches.
The 'Patty Hearst story' was one that gripped the world from her father's appeals to the appearance of footage of her taking an active role in robbing a bank.
Throughout the ordeal, Randolph Hearst was a patient and calm figure as he faced television cameras and pleaded for his daughter's return.
When the kidnappers demanded that he donate millions of dollars in free food to help California's poor, he launched the People in Need programme, giving away 90,000 cartons of food.
Bank robbery
After his daughter was shown to have taken part in the San Francisco bank robbery she was captured by police.
She was tried, convicted and sentenced to 21 months in prison.
After her arrest, she denounced her captors and eventually married Bernard Shaw, a former San Francisco police officer who had become her bodyguard.
She now has two children, lives in Connecticut and is seeking a presidential pardon for her bank robbery conviction.
Randolph Hearst, whose publishing riches were built on top of a gold, silver and copper fortune, was recently listed by Forbes magazine as 150 of the 400 richest people in the country.