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In 1973, the Getty name meant money. A staggering amount of it. J. Paul Getty had built an oil empire and earned a reputation as one of the richest men in the world. However, wealth had not brought peace to the Getty family. Behind the mansions and millions was a complicated dynasty marked by broken relationships, addiction, tragedy, and loss. Then, one summer night in Rome, Getty’s sixteen-year-old grandson disappeared. What followed became one of the strangest and most notorious kidnapping cases of the twentieth century. In Episodes 110 and 111, we explore the Getty family, the rebellious teenager known as the “Golden Hippie,” and the crime that forever changed his life.
The Kidnapping
On July 10, 1973, sixteen-year-old John Paul Getty III disappeared while walking through Rome in the early morning hours. Soon, his family received word that he had been kidnapped. His captors wanted an enormous ransom. However, the case quickly became complicated. Paul had a rebellious reputation, and some people questioned whether the kidnapping was even real. Meanwhile, the Getty name guaranteed international attention. Newspapers followed every development as the weeks stretched into months and negotiations grew increasingly tense.
Five Months Later
Paul’s ordeal lasted more than five months. When he finally emerged in December 1973, photographers and reporters surrounded the teenager whose disappearance had become international news. The photographs taken after his release show someone very different from the carefree “Golden Hippie” who once raced motorcycles through Rome. Paul was alive, but his captivity had changed him. What happened during those five months—and what finally convinced his family that the danger was very real—forms the heart of Episode 111.
The Richest Man in the World
Jean Paul Getty knew how to make money. Born in 1892, he entered the oil business as a young man and turned an already substantial family fortune into an international petroleum empire. By the 1950s, the press regularly described him as one of the richest men in the world. Yet Getty became almost as famous for his frugality as his wealth. At Sutton Place, his sprawling English estate, he even installed a payphone for guests rather than pay for their calls.
However, Getty’s personal life proved far less successful. He married and divorced five times and had five sons. His relationships with his children and grandchildren were often complicated and distant. John Paul Getty III later estimated that he had met his famous grandfather only six or seven times. Still, the Getty name followed him everywhere. And in 1973, that name suddenly made sixteen-year-old Paul extremely valuable to people he had never met.
The Other Family: The ’Ndrangheta
While the Getty family built its fortune in oil, another powerful network was growing in southern Italy. The ’Ndrangheta emerged in Calabria, the rugged region at the toe of the Italian boot. Unlike a single centralized criminal organization, it developed around tightly connected local clans. Blood relationships, marriages, and family loyalty helped make those clans especially difficult for authorities to penetrate.
By the 1970s, kidnapping for ransom had become an important business for some ’Ndrangheta groups. Wealthy businessmen and their relatives made attractive targets, while Calabria’s mountainous terrain offered remote places to hide captives. The money from successful kidnappings also helped fuel the organization’s expansion into other criminal enterprises.
Then, in 1973, those two very different worlds collided. A Calabrian kidnapping network looked north toward Rome and found a teenager carrying one of the most valuable surnames imaginable: Getty.
Life After the Kidnapping
Paul Getty survived his five-month ordeal, but coming home did not mean simply returning to his old life. Still, he tried to move forward. In 1974, he married Gisela Schmidt, and the couple later welcomed a son, Balthazar Getty, who would grow up to become a successful actor. For a time, Paul had a young family of his own and a chance to build a life beyond the headlines that had made him famous.
However, Paul continued to struggle with drugs and alcohol. In 1981, at only twenty-four years old, a drug overdose led to a catastrophic medical crisis and stroke. He survived, but he was left severely disabled. Once again, money became a source of conflict within the Getty family as questions arose over who would pay for Paul’s extensive care.
The Long Aftermath
Paul lived for another three decades. His health remained fragile, and he required assistance for much of the rest of his life. Yet his kidnapping continued to overshadow nearly every account of him. Even decades later, newspapers still introduced him as the Getty grandson who had been abducted in Rome.
John Paul Getty III died in England in 2011 at the age of 54. His son Balthazar later remembered him not simply for his disabilities or the crime that made him famous, but for the way he continued living despite them.
It is one of the sadder parts of Paul’s story. He survived the event that most people know him for. Then he had to spend the rest of his life living with everything that came after it.
The Getty Curse?
For generations, extraordinary wealth has existed alongside extraordinary tragedy in the Getty family. J. Paul Getty’s youngest son, Timothy, died at only twelve in 1958 after years of illness. Then, in 1973, Getty’s eldest son, George Franklin Getty II, died at 48 in circumstances ruled a suicide. Just weeks later, John Paul Getty III was kidnapped in Rome.
The tragedies did not end with that generation. Addiction, illness, premature deaths, and complicated family relationships continued to follow Getty descendants. In 2015, Andrew Getty, a grandson of J. Paul Getty, died at 47 after years of health and substance-abuse problems.
Not surprisingly, newspapers began writing about a “Getty curse.” Of course, there was no literal curse. Still, the phrase captured a striking contradiction at the center of the dynasty. The Getty fortune could provide almost anything money could buy. Yet it could not protect the family from illness, addiction, fractured relationships, or loss.
Hear the Full Story
There is much more to this story than we could fit here. From the rise of the Getty fortune and the family tragedies that followed to Paul’s life in Rome, his terrifying five months in captivity, and the complicated years that came afterward, it is a story filled with unbelievable twists. Episodes 110 and 111 are out now, wherever you listen to podcasts. Join us for both parts as we explore the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III—and the extraordinary family behind one of the most infamous crimes of the 1970s.
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