Perhaps Gordon, interviewed for the book, provides a clue: How did this dynasty turn things around, how have they managed to show resilience through adversity, and what are the lessons for the rest of us?
Yet the Getty dynasty has not only preserved its wealth, but has also seemingly thrived, for the most part, as a family.
There are so many well-known stories of vast fortunes made and lost within two or three generations. Nats founded a successful fashion line, mischievously named Strike Oil. Then there’s Ariadne Getty Williams, Mark and Aileen’s younger sister, who has become a powerful supporter of LGBTQ rights in California: in 2019, her eldest child, Nats (who was born Natalia but later transitioned), married a beautiful transgender woman known as Gigi Gorgeous in a quirky, glamorous wedding in Malibu, cheered on by Hollywood elite and many of Nats’s relatives. Mark’s sister Aileen survived (possibly post-partum) depression and an HIV diagnosis that led to a battle with cocaine addiction, to become a staunch AIDS activist with her mother-in-law (from her first marriage) Elizabeth Taylor, and later a tireless advocate for the homeless and environmental causes. Getty turned down the offer, questioning its credibility.) (In April 2023, Activist investor Trillium Capital made an unsolicited bid to acquire the company for $4 billion. ‘So, at first, I always felt misery and guilt, and I didn’t know what to do with it.’”Īnne Getty Earhart, daughter of George (Paul’s first born, the one who overdosed in 1973), has quietly won countless awards including the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, for her work in environmental conservation. ‘In exchange for the love I didn’t receive in my life, I got money,’ she said. One of Gordon’s daughters, a beneficiary of the Pleiades Trust, laments that her abrupt transformation into an heir gave her little preparation for managing a fortune. After his death, the family feud was played out in public view in the courthouse, leading to a forced sale of Getty Oil to Texaco. Old Paul had five divorces and five sons, whose weddings he didn’t even attend. “Dysfunction in the Getty family abounds. Estate planning attorney Marvin Blum reflected on the situation in a post about the tax-avoidance strategies of the ultra rich: Predictably, some of the more scintillating stories from the past were rehashed, including the existence of Gordon Getty’s secret second family (three daughters by a mistress he acknowledged in 1999).
And now it’s all back in the public eye: last summer, a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn alleged that several members of the family had engaged in tax evasion to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, by fraudulently claiming domicile in Nevada rather than California.
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