Painfully Rich

by John Pearson

  His grandson’s kidnap made things that much worse, and so terrified was the old man that he became scared to answer the telephone, firmly refusing to use it to discuss anything remotely connected with the kidnap just in case the Mafia got through to him. As Gail put it, ‘He seemed to think that they might come up and grab him through the telephone.’

  Perhaps he did, although his fear of the telephone probably had a simpler explanation. In Paris eight months earlier, the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, had actually used the telephone in an attempt to assassinate Mahmoud Hamshari, the PLO representative in France. A small Semtex device with an electronic sensor had been planted in Hamshari’s apartment, and when the Israelis reached him on the telephone, they were able to transmit a signal down the line to activate the bomb which nearly killed him.

  At the time the case made a stir among intelligence professionals; as one of them, Turrou would certainly have known about it, and it was just the sort of tale to have captured Paul Getty’s imagination. Certainly, throughout the period of his grandson’s kidnap, he took exceptional precautions with anyone he spoke to on the telephone, and for anything related to the kidnap would generally get Penelope to speak on his behalf.

  Not that he ever talked about the kidnap if he could help it. As he had shown when Timmy died, he couldn’t cope with unhappiness or grief, nor would he permit anyone to question his decisions. As Penelope put it, ‘With the kidnapping it was quite frightening to see how totally the shutters descended on the subject.’

  Three weeks had passed since Paul had disappeared, yet nothing had been done to further his release. Apart from the two letters there had been no further contact with the kidnappers either. The Carabinieri had drawn a total blank on their identity, Paul Getty Senior was standing absolutely firm against paying them a cent, and Paul Getty Junior was insisting there was nothing he could do.

  In Rome everything continued to devolve on Gail, who was living through a more and more appalling nightmare. Time dragged interminably, for as she says, ‘In a kidnap situation, every hour is twice as long as an ordinary hour.’ Apart from a few friends there was no one else she could turn to. The only members of the family who came near her were old Willem and Poppet Pol, who had flown to Rome from the South of France on hearing of the kidnap and had now returned to Ramatuelle with five-year-old Tara. She was sad to see him go, but she was also grateful, as it would have been hard to cope with a five-year-old while doing her best to keep Aileen and Ariadne happy.

  That wasn’t easy either, as she was feeling anything but calm herself. She was powerless and desperately anxious, yet she knew she had to keep her wits about her to deal with the kidnappers when and if they did decide to call. All she could do was go on sitting by that telephone until they rang – which finally they did when least expected, late in the evening of 30 July.

  She recognized the voice of the man who had telephoned originally, and this time he introduced himself. To identify himself in future, he would give himself a code name she could easily remember – the word Cinquanta – Fifty.

  Above: Jean Paul Getty was eighty-three and had had three face-lifts, the last of which had failed, making him look inordinately old. (Camera Press)

  Right, Getty with his mistress, Mary Teissier. ‘She was utterly obsessed with him. From the day they met until the day he died there was absolutely no one else.’ (Hulton Deutsch)

  Left; Gail Harris marries Paul II, ‘quitely’ in Woodside colifornia in 1956.

  Right; Paul II at his Roman wedding with his second wife Talitha pol, December 1966. Penelope kitson is on the left with Talitha centre, ‘looking like the sixties flower child she was’.

  Left: Getty’s eldest son and heir, George Getty II. ‘The more responsibility he gained as Paul Getty’s heir apparent, the more his fear of his father seemed to undermine him.’ (PA News)

  Right: Paul and Talitha on the roof of their flat in old Rome shortly after their wedding in 1966. It was here she died five years later. (Camera Press)

  Above: The bronze statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius ‘still rode the plinth designed for him by Michelangelo’ at the wedding of Gail Getty and her second husband, Larry Jeffries, in Rome in 1966.

  Left: Gail Getty shortly after her marriage to Paul II.

  Above: Getty’s second son Ronald, left, with his sister-in-law Gail, his half-brother, Paul II, and the family patriarch, J. Paul Getty himself.

  Right: On the hippie trail. Paul II and his wife Talitha beneath a Viet Cong flag at a peace demonstration in Rome in 1969. (Hulton Deutsch)

  Above: Paul II and his wife Talitha go Arab on the roof of their house, Le Palais da Zahir (the Pleasure Palace) in Marrakesh. (Patrick Lichfield/Camera Press)

  Opposite page: Talitha Getty and Nureyev. Her obsession with the dancer led her to meet Paul II – and after her marriage she was said to have been the only woman Nureyev was physically in love with. (PA News)

  Left. The red MG which played an important part in the life of Paul II. This was the car which he enjoyed during his time in Rome and later sold to his half-sister Donna.

  Right: Paul and Gail’s three children in Rome in the sixties – Aileen (left), Mark and Paul III.

  Left: Gail Getty meets the Italian press after the disappearance of her son Paul Getty III to announce his kidnap by the Calabrian Mafia. (Hulton Deutsch)

  Paul III shortly after his kidnap in 1973. His lost right ear was later rebuilt with cartilage taken from one of his ribs. (Camera Press)

  Eighteen-year-old Paul III on honeymoon shortly after his release, and marriage to Martine Zacher. (Camera Press)

  Paul II with Bianca Jagger (left) and Penelope Kitson (right) at the London memorial service to his father in 1976. This was to be his last appearance in public for nearly ten years. (Hulton Deutsch)

  Aileen Getty with her first husband, Elizabeth Taylor’s son Christopher Wilding. ‘Marriage to Christopher, far from sorting out her problems, tended to make them worse.’ (PA News)

  Paul II receives an honorary knighthood from the Queen. ‘The Cabinet wishes to express its warm appreciation of, and profound gratitude for, your magnificent generosity.’ (Hulton Deutsch)

  The family peacemaker. Paul and Gordon’s boyhood friend, Judge William Newsom.

  Composer’s triumph. Gordon Getty rehearsing with the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow before a performance of his work in 1994.

  The Gettys are united with the Italian nobility. Paul II’s son Mark marries Domitilla Lante della Rovere Harding, a descendant of the family of Pope Julius II, in Rome.

  Gordon’s wife Ann. ‘I think it is possible to be very rich and happy and I suppose very poor and happy. But it’s easier to be very rich and happy.’

  California boys. Ann and Gordon’s four sons (from left to right), Peter, Bill, Andrew and John. (Thomas J. Gibbons)

  Next generation. Paul and Talitha’s son Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramaphone Getty, Paul Ill’s stepdaughter, Anna, and Ronald Getty’s daughter, Cecily.

  Wormsley. ‘The creation of a billionaire’s Shangri-La in the Chilterns might all too easily have ended as a nightmare or a joke.’ (Mark Fiennes)

  Victoria Holdsworth and Paul II, shortly before their marriage in London in 1994, greeting Gordon Getty.

  Gettys in Moscow. Gordon and Ann en route to the concert of Gordon’s music by the Russian National Orchestra in 1994.

  Christopher Gibbs, art dealer extraordinary and close friend of Paul Getty II, who saw how his friend’s enormous fortune could be used to restore his self-respect and then achieve his remarkable salvation. (Mrs Paul Getty)

  Right: ‘Entering the family at last’. Ronald Getty leads the guests at the sixtieth birthday party for his brother Paul at Wormsley, September 1993. Judge William Newsom is on his left.

  Left: Paul II watches cricket at Wormsley. ‘On his left sat a self-confessed “cricket fanatic” (the Prime Minister, John Major), and on his right and enjoying every minute of the game was Queen Elizabe
th the Queen Mother.’ (Brian Smith)

  As before, he sounded oddly respectful, using the third person singular and calling her ‘signora’; but when she broke the news that no money was forthcoming for the ransom, he exploded – first with anger then with disbelief. He could not believe that anyone as rich as Paul Getty utterly refused to pay, and accused her of a trick. She tried explaining the old man’s reasons – naturally without success. As an Italian, Cinquanta simply couldn’t comprehend anyone behaving like that.

  ‘Who is this so-called grandfather?’ he shouted. ‘How can he leave his own flesh and blood in the plight that your poor son is in? Here is the richest man in America, and you tell me he refuses to find just ten miliardi for his grandson’s safety. Signora, you take me for a fool. What you say is just not possible.’

  Gail could hardly say that she agreed with him, but she did her best to calm him down, saying that she needed time, and begging him to be as kind as possible to Paul. He said he would, but told her to contact the rest of the family to get the money.

  Most families draw closer in a crisis and support each other during a disaster, but not the Gettys. With his limitless money and his close connections with Italy, the old man could certainly have got the boy released quite swiftly had he wished. Gail believes that ‘had Big Paul dealt with the kidnap as he dealt with a business deal in his prime, Paul would have been free within twenty-four hours.’

  But not only was Big Paul refusing to do so: by cutting off from Gail completely and retreating into his fortress at Sutton Place, he had effectively paralysed the family as well, since none of them wanted to offend him. As he was not on speaking terms with Paul Junior, and Gordon and Ronald were both in America, one of the richest families in the world was rendered incapable of helping a grandson of sixteen who was in peril of his life.

  Nor was any support forthcoming for Gail herself at a time when she was sick with anxiety, harassed by the press, and trying desperately to keep the rest of her family afloat while she dealt with the kidnappers. By now she had started to receive countless letters of support and sympathy from unknown people round the world, but not a word from any member of the family.

  It was then that she saw the Getty family for what it was – remote, unreachable, closed off from human contact. It all went back to Big Paul himself, who had always used his money as a substitute for human feeling. She felt that being a Getty was like becoming part of a mathematical progression; as the family empire had grown more complex and remote, those within it found it impossible to maintain normal relationships with anyone outside. Like Big Paul, they too became frightened, always needing to protect themselves and their precious money from outsiders.

  It was only now that she realized how different they all were from her parents and her own supportive family, and that something human had been lost as the great financial empire had expanded. How lifeless and devoid of love it had become. And Big Paul was the most loveless and lifeless of them all.

  August started with a heat wave. Italy had gone on holiday and it was as if those responsible for finding young Paul Getty had gone on holiday as well. It was possibly the heat. But nothing at all was happening. Officially it was the task of the Carabinieri to deal with the crime and rescue Paul, but as they were having not the faintest glimmer of success they had fallen back on the easier option of claiming that the kidnap was a hoax.

  According to their theory, Paul and his so-called ‘hippie friends’ had simply staged the whole affair to extract money from the family. There was not a shred of evidence to support this; it was inconceivable that Paul would torture his mother in this way, and his subsequent sufferings totally disproved it.

  But as a theory it was a convenient way of saving face for incompetent policemen. Face, figura, is particularly important for the Carabinieri, as for most Italians, and they could claim, as claim they did, that the reason they were getting nowhere was not because of their incompetence, but because there had been no kidnap in the first place.

  The hoax idea was also attractive to the general public. Romans love rumours, particularly cynical ones about the rich, and even more about rich foreigners. So the story gathered credence in the press and was soon reported back to Britain, where it inevitably reached the patriarch of Sutton Place. Given his attitude towards the ransom – and his grandson – it clearly suited him to believe it too.

  ‘D’ you think the boy and his mother cooked this up together for the money?’ he is said to have asked his personal assistant, Norris Bramlett.

  The reaction to the story at Cheyne Walk was not dissimilar. As usual in the face of unhappiness and worry, Paul Junior had become more reclusive, resorting increasingly to drink and drugs, so that Gail was finding it more and more difficult to get through to him by telephone. Now the suggestion that his son was simply indulging in a massive practical joke ended his anxiety, and gave him and the family a perfect alibi. Not only did it excuse them for doing nothing; it also reassured them with the thought that, far from being kidnapped, that ‘rascal’ Paul was hiding somewhere with his friends in perfect safety.

  But as he was actually still chained up like an animal in a hovel in the wilds of Calabria with a group of increasingly edgy criminals trying to extort a ransom for his life, the situation was in fact becoming dangerous. Apart from antagonizing his captors still further, the hoax rumour meant that if they were to get their money, they would need to do something to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the kidnap was genuine.

  By the fourth week of the kidnap there was still no movement, and Gail was desperate. Since her angry conversation with Cinquanta, she had heard no more from him. This endless waiting was the chief component of her misery. Throughout the day she was still waiting by the telephone for news – and when none came she began imagining all the horrors which could have befallen her son – an accident, illness, violence from his captors, anything was possible. The greatest torture was the total lack of information.

  By the second week of that stifling August, she could bear it no longer. She had to get news from Paul, and it was then that her lawyer, Giovanni Jacovoni, suggested she should make a direct appeal to the kidnappers on Italian television.

  She was wary of doing this, as her experiences with the Italian media were far from happy. In the first few days of the kidnap she had tried being helpful to reporters, but when there was nothing to report, they became hungry for fresh stories and turned on her instead, criticizing her attitude towards her son, her role as a mother, and her situation as a member of the richest family on earth.

  ‘They felt that somebody must be to blame for what had happened, and since there was no one else around, they picked on me.’

  It was bad enough being blamed for being a Getty; she was also the victim of the cultural differences between Anglo-Saxons and Italians. As an American, she was a great believer in maintaining the stiffest of stiff upper lips in public – if only out of pride and to avoid upsetting everyone in the family, especially her parents and Mark, who was still with them back in San Francisco.

  As she put it, ‘I was damned if I was going to show my grief publicly, and share it with a couple of million newspaper readers.’

  But this was not what the Italian media wanted. When disaster hits an Italian family, there has to be a sorrowing mother, mater dolorosa, with eyes turned hopelessly to heaven and body racked with anguish. When Gail failed to oblige, the media treated her with deep suspicion.

  Because of this, she insisted on making her television appeal to Paul’s kidnappers on her own, direct to camera; but the producer, anxious for some real-life drama, brought a reporter with him when he arrived for the recording. Gail objected, but the producer was insistent. Only when he promised her extremely sympathetic questions did she agree. But a few minutes into the interview and the reporter paused, stared her full in the face, then asked her in a voice of doom: ‘Signora, do you think your son is dead?’

  For the second time since Paul had disappeared sh
e fainted. She had been refusing to accept this possibility for so long that when someone actually suggested it, something snapped within her. By suppressing so much strain and worry over the last few weeks she had brought herself to breaking point, and needed several days in bed to recover.

  But the interview brought results from the kidnappers. Soon after it was broadcast, Cinquanta called again to reassure her that Paul was certainly alive – and well.

  ‘How do I know you’re telling me the truth?’ she answered.

  The kidnapper thought before replying – then told her to ask him certain questions he would put to Paul to which only he could know the answer. He would call her back with the replies, and if they were right she’d know her son had to be alive.

  So she began asking questions such as ‘What is the picture on the left of the door in Aileen’s bedroom?’ or ‘What is the name of our next-door neighbour’s cat?’ When Cinquanta called her back that afternoon with the correct answers it was virtually the first crumb of reassurance she had had since Paul’s letter.

  This was the start of more regular conversations between her and Cinquanta, and to a point she felt they came to understand each other. She had read somewhere that in kidnap situations the negotiators always try to establish a human relationship with someone among the kidnappers. She also had a vague idea of picking up some crucial piece of information from these conversations, but she never did. The most she ever learned about Cinquanta was that he had a wife and children, and on one occasion she asked him how as an Italian he could be involved in such a cruel crime against a family.