J. Paul Getty, the tycoon Canadians keep playing on screen
CBC Archives | Posted: June 21, 2018 4:33 PM | Last Updated: June 21, 2018
In interviews with CBC, the richest man in his time said he didn't even know how rich he was
The life of American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty has twice been told on screens lately — both times, with Canadians playing the richest man of his era.
But long before he was being portrayed by Canadian actors, the real Getty was appearing on Canadian TV screens and answering questions from CBC journalists.
In his late 60s, Getty sat for an interview with CBC's Close-Up — one that host J. Frank Willis billed as being his first-ever on television when it aired in the spring of 1960. (You can watch the full version of that interview by following this link.)
"He is the world's richest man, or at least has accumulated the greatest personal fortune of our time," said Willis. "He leads a strange, lonely and curiously thrifty life."
Sitting down with Close-Up, Getty claimed he had not tried to figure out how much money he actually had — a figure that interviewer Douglas Leiterman told him he'd seen estimated at $400 million to $900 million at that time.
Getty corrected Leiterman to say the estimate he'd seen in Fortune magazine was that his own fortune was estimated at $700 million to $1 billion.
"I've never made an estimate because I didn't see how it would help me in my business," said Getty.
A few years later, Getty would again appear on CBC when, as a noted art collector, told the biography series Telescope about a painting he purchased and then forgot about for 25 years.
Near the end of his life, a high-profile kidnapping involving Getty's namesake grandson — J. Paul Getty III — made news around the world.
His grandson, then a teenager, spent months in captivity and lost a portion of his ear when his captors sliced it off and mailed it to a newspaper. He was eventually released after a ransom — a small fraction of the original demand of $17 million — was paid.
The violent ordeal involving Getty's grandson is at the centre of the plot of last year's All the Money in the World, a movie in which Canada's Christopher Plummer played the billionaire.
Earlier this year, fellow Canadian actor Donald Sutherland played the oilman in the TV series Trust, which also featured a depiction of his grandson's kidnapping.
Getty died at the age of 83 in June 1976. A large trust that carries his name has lived on long after him; his art collection is on display at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.