And that someone is me was it custom to say

But what happens then to the Getty villa in Malibu, California Recently reopened after years of work, this schedule to the renowned Getty Museum which houses of lavish collections of ancient art is, since a few months, the interest of Italian justice. Villa house in stolen parts including a few Greek statues worth priceless knowingly acquired by its former Director, now charged with conspiracy and concealment of works archaeological association! Bad publicity which have certainly been leap the creator of the villa and the Getty Museum: Jean-Paul Getty.

Oil, money, art and women: such were the passions of this founding atypical capitalist in the 1950s, an oil empire today property of the Russian group Lukoil. His passion for art, Jean-Paul Getty had him as early as the 1930s, time that he began to buy paintings of masters, manuscripts, decorative objects, photographs and antique works everywhere in Europe. To acquire these documents, the man backed away to nothing. In 1938, it goes in Austria to examine the private collections of baron Louis de Rothschild, arrested by the nazis in the aftermath of the Anschluss. Delighted by what he saw, he went to Berlin and negotiates with the SS the redemption of the most beautiful pieces! It was however only in 1974, two years before his death, he created in California, the villa and the Getty Museum and a centre renowned for research in art history.

Legendary stinginess

Collector of works of art, Jean-Paul Getty was also a large consumer of women before the Lord. In the 1910s, while he was already on his pension, he spent every night with a different woman. Later, it had up to three or four mistresses at the same time. In Paris, where he often went and where the grooms of the Ritz knew him well, he was called "Sir Paul" in order to satisfy his sexual appetites in peace. Indeed, he feared that in the United States his antics do eventually make chat... It must be said that his five successive marriages, all followed by a divorce, provided the social pages of American newspapers.

As money, Jean-Paul Getty had a unique talent for to raise. "In a city there still the best hotel, the best room and someone to occupy." "And that someone is me", was it custom to say. Industrial open even a rich "Becoming" work to explain to the public how to make a fortune. The opus was published by the editions of the magazine "Playboy"! At his death, his fortune was approaching $ 4 billion. Was good at making money, Jean-Paul Getty reluctant, however, to expend. Property of Los Angeles was with phones in parts, guests were asked to use when needed. He does never paid his note at the Claridge Hotel in London, where he had a follow-up to the year, and mit a point of honour to himself washing clothes, located too high rates of dyers.

Even worse: when his grandson Jean-Paul Getty III was kidnapped in 1973, he resolved to pay the ransom of $ 2 million when the kidnappers sent him a piece of the right ear of the boy. The case of 175758 reputation already distorted by other episodes. In the 1930s, the FBI had suspected him of pronazies sympathies. He said while the Pierre Hotel, which he had purchased in New York, was a nest of spies German and Italian. Later, he lived in a bunker for fear of the Japanese bombing before afford a magnificent yacht for fleeing Soviet invasion! His fascination with dictatorships, its legendary stinginess, his dissolute life, its quirks as this mania that he chewed thirty-three times a bite before swallowing earned him little pine comments of the American media. What prevented him in everything and for everything to his elder bequeath the sum of... $ 500.

Rather than its offspring, Jean-Paul Getty had preferred to lock its oil group, Getty Oil capital, inmate mainly by its different foundations. We know what it happened: a promise of sale to the Texas oilman Pennzoil signed by Gordon Getty in 1983, a Flash of Texaco conducted offensive the following year to take control of Getty Oil, followed by a resounding legal battle at the end of which Texaco had to pay to Pennzoil, as compensation, the bagatelle of $ 3 billion. With this money, Pennzoil was later to buy rival Chevron. Come oil empires and thus go.

A break of four years

In the heart of this surprising existence, there is oil. "To save money, he must get up early, work hard and find oil", said Jean-Paul Getty who wanted to hear. Black gold had already formed the basis of the paternal fortune. Lawyer for Minnesota insurance company, George Franklin Getty had seen his life switch the day where he had been in Oklahoma to retrieve unpaid debt, late 19th century. The oil boom that was then the region had pushed him to invest all his savings in the sector and to create his own company, Minnehoma Oil. When Jean-Paul Getty was born in 1892, his father is already rich. Future Tycoon grabs early oil virus. At the age of fifteen, he spent all his leisure to work alongside his father, gaining valuable practical experience.

After technical studies at the University of Berkeley and a diploma in economics in Oxford, England, Jean-Paul Getty decides to steal his own wings. At the age of twenty-two, he mounted with the help of his father his own exploration and oil trading company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In a world that works much with the instinct, the young entrepreneur innovates radically resorting systematically

geological data. With success! As early as 1916, Jean-Paul Getty has raised its first $ 1 million. Both and so he decided to leave the business and lead to Los Angeles the life of a play-boy. This interlude lasted four years, during which he has female conquests and spends the money he earned.

In 1919, weary of nothing make and likely to run out of money, he returned to the business. Again with the help of his father, he began in the purchase and resale of rights of exploitation of the oil fields of Oklahoma will soon constitute a new fortune. The death of his father, in 1930, it inherits from the George Getty Oil Company former Minnehoma Oil and takes control of several oil companies, including the Pacific Western Oil Company. All of these companies will be later grouped in the Getty Oil Company.

At the end of the 1930s, Jean-Paul Getty became wealthy. The image of a Frank Phillips or a Harry Sinclair, it is in the middle of the independent oil major which were able to prosper after the dismantling of the Standard Oil. Unlike the leaders of the major oil groups which have forged links with industry, the Bank and the political world, these men lead their only business and investing in sectors sometimes very distant oil, with their passions, or opportunities. Jean-Paul Getty thus invests in the aviation industry, works of art and the stone the Pierre Hotel in New York is bought for 2.5 million in 1938. After the war, he launches a mobile homes manufacturing activity that he very quickly aggregator to focus on the development of its oil business in the Middle East.

The Middle East, precisely... At the end of the 1940s, the Getty Oil is prosperous, but limited in the United States. For some time, Jean-Paul Getty seeks to revive his group an and get a share of the cake on the oil fields of the Middle East. Area attracts his attention: the Arabian peninsula. At this time, the opportunities are more numerous. Since the end of the 1930s, the Aramco, indeed, took an option on the deposits of Saudi Arabia; nearby, the American Gulf and the English Anglo Persian associated to exploit the deposits of the Kuwait. Still a place: the "neutral zone", the area between Saudi Arabia and the Kuwait and the two countries share sovereignty. Since the end of the war, the US administration pushes the independent tankers to settle, to diversify the country oil supply sources and to avoid that the large majors do totally control the price of black gold. In 1947, the Petroleum Administration for War and has worked in the creation of the American Oil Company Aminoil. This consortium of independent companies received the grant of the rights of the Kuwait in the neutral zone. The question now is to assign rights of Saudi Arabia. Of rights which are pumped up first place the imagination of Jean-Paul Getty...

A master-stroke

Determined to win the piece, the industrial surrounds of a quality team whose essential device is Paul Walton, a geologist of great talent who came from the Pacific Western Oil. It was he that Jean-Paul Getty sends, in 1948, negotiate with Abdullah Suleiman, the Minister of Finance of King Saud, that same one who flew with the efficient help of the very anglophobe Harry Jack Philby, the allocation of rights to future Aramco. Panicked at the idea of be doubled by a competitor, Jean-Paul Getty gave strict instructions Walton, prohibiting him from revealing the reasons for its presence in Saudi and communicate by telegram. He was also allowed to negotiate up to a maximum of $ 10 million, a very large sum for a concession Treaty. Very skilfully, Suleiman will attempt to make auctions, pushing other independent interested to bid on the offers of Walton. All will report package, frightened by the astronomical price. At the end of 1949, Walton eventually carries the contract for $ 9.5 million. Jean-Paul Getty was also allowed to "release" 55 cents of royalties on each barrel, against 35 cents on average in the other producing countries.

So here is Getty Oil rights owner over a huge area acquired Gold Award although it has never been explored and that no one knows if it contains truly of the oil. For four years, associated with the Aminoil, Getty Oil consumes huge sums in prospecting, plunging Jean-Paul Getty in anguish. Calm down, the industrial engages in true debauchery of expenditures, surveying Europe to purchase works of art and paintings by masters. Up to this day of 1953 where, at the end of a sixth drill, a very large oil deposit is updated the. A real cash for Jean-Paul Getty, which allows him to later take control of the Tidewater Oil Company, founded in 1875, and which operates a large network of service stations in the United States.

In the mid-1950s, Jean-Paul Getty comes to succeed a master-stroke and to establish a foothold in one of the most productive petroleum areas in the world. In 1959, fort now a heritage of the order of $ 4 billion, he left the United States and settled in England, in a sumptuous 16th-century manor. It is from there that he follow his many Affairs, continuing to lead the Getty Oil while working for the enrichment of its collections until his death in 1976. His example will quickly make school: of the Italian Enrico Mattei at the Japanese Yamashita which gets in the years 1950 an offshore concession in the neutral zone many independent make their entry into the oil fields of the Middle East, hesitating to every time to negotiate advantageous treaties for the producing countries. Slowly and surely, for the largest of these countries, determined them also to benefit from oil revenues, the absolute power of the large majors cracks...