Jean Paul Getty 1892 -1976

Sarah Catherine McPhersonwas his mother Reared as a Methodist by his teetotal parents. His schoolboy nickname "Dictionary Getty" Flagged up his love of reading. Six foot tall, and lean, he swam, walked, lifted weights He boxed and womanised. Called Death ‘Joining the great majority' Was fluent in French, Italian, German Conversed in Spanish, Arabic and Russian. Read the classics in Ancient Greek and Latin Enrolled at the University of Oxford Was tutored at Magdalen College. Became a millionaire aged 21 A Caesar amongst Caesars of the oil world When he was ten, the Wright Brothers rickety plane took flight Over eight decades of change, he saw men walk on the moon, The sky grow thick with aircraft He lived a time with his parents in Indian territory In Kansas City, he watched ten great chiefs dining Wrapped in blankets, fierce in feathered headdress Chief Two Keys sporting gold rings in his earlobes At fifteen, Getty became a roustabout Learning his trade in his father's oil business Three dollars for a twelve hour day of drudgery Bunk house living, grub shack eating Drinking bootleg whiskey with the boys Nicknamed Red, his blisters formed callouses His Methodist frugal parents, were teetotal Faithful like swans until death parted them Whilst Paul had five divorces and five wives Five sons and fifteen wives. One grandson Paul III, ‘The Golden Hippy of Rome' Was kidnapped, his severed ear, sent by the Mafia To put screws on for a handsomeransom payout Paul's shoemaker was Lobb His tailor: Kilgour, French & Stanbury He owned a Cadilac to drive around Kept a menagerie in his Malibu home Took his lioness walking on a leash He made up set replies to unwanted mail One for personal pleas, another from organizations 1,000 letters per day poured through his letterbox A team of secretaries batted them back to sender Fund hunters, favour seekers, beggars for loans or contributions Marriage proposals…all these he styled ‘barracudas'… The constant snappers at the rich man's heels In Britain, he bought Sutton Place to live in Edward the Confessor hunted here This Tudor mansion, in the Domesday Book Henry VIII met Anne Boleyn therein Its Red Room haunted by the dead girl's ghost Mr Getty held a party for 2,000 guests Ambassadors, performers, MPs, minor royalty Winning a spread in Tatler magazine Caviar, consommé, roast veal, strawberries, A milk bar and a real life wandering cow Champagne, lobsters, other delicacies Celebrities dining, dancing, chatting… Three orchestras played on till three am At Xmas for the Woking Orphanage, He opened his home to host a xmas party This officer in the Legion d'Honneur His Getty Museum was based on an ancient villa Villadei Papyrie in Herculaneum His drive for collecting Art He called the gorilla sitting on his back Amassing drawings, manuscripts, antiquities… Rembrandt, Fragonard, Holbein Manet, Cezanne, Goya, Rubensand Steen Van Gogh, Turner, David, Da Vinci and Monet Raphael, Degas and Durer, reeling them in like fish Tight fisted, frugal in his personal ways But open handed, shared his artistic treasures Free to posterity for any and all to savour.