Deep down, some of us can be pretty shallow when it comes to people of great wealth.
If we`re honest enough to admit it, some of us aren`t completely thrilled about their good fortune. If life were fair, it would be us, not them, with all that dough.
That`s why we`re never exactly depressed when we learn that despite his money, every day wasn`t a holiday for the late Marvin Megabucks, world-famous mogul.
It doesn`t have to be anything worse than a succession of hateful wives and costly divorces, a brood of lazy, ungrateful kids or even a leaky mansion roof. Little things can mean a lot. And if we learn that Megabucks was a miserable human being to boot, well, it gives us a warm feeling all over. The ultimate satisfaction is to find out that ol` Marv was unhappy.
For those who share such deplorable resentments, there`s good news and bad news to be gleaned from a best-selling biography about J. Paul Getty, who, as we all know, was as disgustingly wealthy as they come, leaving a legacy that`s now valued at more than $5 billion.
Gratifyingly enough, he was disgusting in other ways, too. Even though he amassed a fortune of epic proportions, when you add up his positive character traits, Getty turns out to have been bankrupt.
The evidence is presented in ”The Great Getty: The Life and Loves of J. Paul Getty–Richest Man in the World” (Crown, $18.95). It`s a book that can be read on several levels–as a detailed study of high finance, an inside look at the oil industry, a psychological profile, the sexual exploits of a well-endowed capitalist, the soap-opera saga of a fractious family or an allegory about greed, power, fear and trust funds.
Above all, it`s a portrait of a legendary American figure whose flaws were as extraordinary as his assets, a guy that everyone this side of the Marcos family can feel morally superior to.
When, in a recent interview, author Robert Lenzner was asked if he had discovered any particularly heartwarming gesture by Getty, some act of thoughtfulness or compassion that might make him more sympathetic, he thought for a moment before saying, ”He never helped anybody.” But don`t expect to see that epitaph on Getty`s gravestone.
In some ways, the biography is an indictment. In the first paragraph of the first chapter, Lenzner describes his subject as ”a liar, a cheat, a miser, a bigamist, a wife beater” and ”a suspected Nazi sympathizer.”
It`s hard not to be impressed with his rottenness. The downside is that apparently Getty was happy as a clam.
In the book, Getty`s friend, John Brealy, an art expert, is quoted as saying: ”He was the happiest man I ever met. He was so proud of what he achieved. People like to pity the rich, but in this case it was not true.”
Lenzner agreed with Brealy: ”I think he was happy. I think he loved being mean.”
Although he could be charming, gracious and amusing, Getty was more comfortable being cold, insensitive and petty with just about everyone–his parents, his five sons, his five wives, his many mistresses, his employees, the people he did business with.
The exceptions were those he believed could aid his social-climbing compulsions. A former aide named Claus von Bulow, who later would gain a celebrity status of his own, was especially helpful in this regard.
Getty also achieves a high ranking for all-around strangeness, especially in the categories of self-protection, vanity and laundry. He avoided travel by both planes and ships, availed himself of facelifts that progressively distorted his features, tinted his graying hair a sickly reddish-orange and washed his own undershorts each night.
If he had a redeeming virtue, it was that he could be, on occasion, a pleasing lover. Needless to say, however, he was never faithful.
Obviously, his failings did not include the inability to make money. In his mastery of the petroleum business and his drive to defeat his competitors and build a big bankroll, he had few, if any, peers. Such competency, in the eyes of others, tends to excuse a lot of personal quirks.
When he died in 1976 at the age of 83, his name had become a household word, synonymous with vast wealth, but his appearance on the public stage had come late in life.
Most people heard about Getty for the first time in 1957, when Fortune magazine declared him the richest American. Getty was then 65 and living a randy, nomadic life in Europe, acquiring additional properties for his huge oil empire and bedding a bevy of beautiful women.
Delighted by his belated recognition, Getty sought to establish a glowing image, but his profound stinginess soon overpowered his plans. The disclosure that Getty had installed a pay telephone for guests at his huge estate outside London would indelibly brand the old fellow as a skinflint.
His selfishness was sincere. It was also serious enough to provoke a visit from David Rockefeller. Concerned that Getty would give Big Money a bad name, Rockefeller spoke of the obligation of the wealthy to use a fair portion of their treasure in philanthropic pursuits.
Getty, terminally tight-fisted, declined to play by these rules. Through his will, he disbursed relatively small sums to several former lovers and employees, but three of the four ex-wives for whom he had been providing some support were omitted entirely.
If he could have, it`s likely he also would have stiffed his three surviving sons, two of whom had the luck to have been taken care of by Getty`s properly suspicious mother, Sarah. She knew her son well enough to protect his heirs by establishing a trust fund with the accumulations of Getty`s father, a mere millionaire. Today, the Sarah Getty Trust has a value of $3 billion.
The bulk of the estate over which Getty had control went solely to the J. Paul Getty Art Museum in Malibu, Cal. The enormous endowment, now worth more than $2 billion, means the museum can dominate the art world if it chooses, something its board says it does not wish to do.
Lenzner takes a dim view of Getty`s decision to put most of his nest egg in one basket. ”It was obscene and ridiculous what he`s done with his money,” he said in an interview.
Lenzner met the old billioniare in 1965 when he was a young investment banker dispatched to London by his employer, the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs, to promote a business deal. Nothing came of it, and it`s doubtful that Lenzner made more than a fleeting impression. But their paths would cross again, figuratively and with a more memorable result because of a dramatic change in Lenzner`s life.
In 1968, he decided to leave Wall Street for journalism. ”I was not driven to make a lot of money,” Lenzner said. ”I thought I would be happier and more fulfilled as a journalist.” We can imagine what Getty would think of such nonsense. Surely enough, Lenzner`s spirits went up–and his income down
–when he joined the Boston Globe, where he is presently the paper`s correspondent in New York City, his home town.
Lenzner was born and grew up there, the son of a prosperous dentist, in an atmosphere that nourished a sense of idealism. He attended the right schools, prepping at Exeter, getting an undergraduate degree at Harvard and an MBA at Columbia.
Predictably, his business and educational background served him well as he traced the complicated, sometimes deceptive moves that made Getty Oil.
Getty`s autobiographies had only whetted Lenzner`s curiosity; he was certain there was more to the story than what had been written. So Lenzner, granted a leave of absence by the Globe, began his search for the information he was convinced had not yet been found.
The material he uncovered included tax returns that showed, among other things, that Getty had paid no taxes at all during years when his income surpassed $1 million. ”But the key,” Lenzner said, ”was the correspondence between Paul and his parents.”
Among the previously unseen trove of letters, one in particular was revealing. ”My Rosebud,” Lenzner said, referring to the clue that`s at the center of the movie ”Citizen Kane.” The letter was from Paul, almost 21 years of age, to his father; it was, in effect, a declaration of hostilities. Angry over the amount of money his father was giving him, Getty described his letter as being more like one from ”a lawyer to a Jew money-lender” than from a son to a father. He concluded: ”Your express attitude leaves me no choice. No choice but to deal with the matter as though I were dealing with an opponent.”
”He had an extremely peculiar relationship with his parents,” Lenzner said. ”One of the most striking things I learned from the book was how personality traits can be passed on from generation to generation.”
Something else that was brought home to him, Lenzner said, were the reactions to extreme wealth. They were far more intense than he had suspected. ”When you become super rich, everyone wants something from you,” he said,
”and beyond the normal envy, there`s also a great deal of anger, hostility and hatred. People are eager to see you pulled down. It`s very hard to be loved and admired when you are so very, very wealthy.”
