Growing up getty, p.28
Growing Up Getty, page 28
She also expressed pride in being “the only consistent woman in my father’s life.” He never married, perhaps because she was “a complete bitch” to all of his girlfriends. “I was scared if he found someone else he would stop being a father to me,” Ivy recounted. He “lived and breathed music” and “understood fashion like no other. He used to keep a whole walk-in closet of vintage Pucci women’s clothing just because he liked it.”
In her post, Kendalle reflected on her late sibling, and her own situation: “Two days ago, for the second time in my life, one of my brothers died. John, we were never close but I find myself very affected by this loss anyway. You were hard on me. I guess you felt that it was your duty. It’s been scary being the bastard daughter of our father and his mistress in a family that is so notorious. I hid my truth, but never because I hated you guys. I’m sorry. I promise to take care of your daughter from here on out.…”
The next day, she changed her name on her IG bio. She was now Kendalle Getty.
* * *
Under the brilliant sunshine of Labor Day 2021, as the pandemic appeared to be finally in retreat, Kendalle kicked off a season of new beginnings and closure for the Gordon Gettys. On vacation in Greece with her boyfriend Johnny Latu, she climbed to the Acropolis, where on bended knee, he proposed.
The following week, the grandees of San Francisco emerged from isolation and assembled at the Conservatory of Music to memorialize Ann on the first anniversary of her death. It was what was left of San Francisco society, anyway. “Old, old,” said one attendee of the crowd. But there was one bright face among them. On the day that only weeks earlier some prognosticators predicted might be his political funeral—the California gubernatorial recall election—Gavin Newsom was beaming. At 11 a.m. that morning, as the service began, he was clearly confident of the resounding victory he would have that night, which renewed talk of a presidential run, and an old rivalry (“Are Newsom and Harris on a Collision Course?” asked a Los Angeles Times headline).
That fall, other momentous events unfolded. Capping three days of celebrations that began with a ball at the Palace of Fine Arts, where Earth, Wind & Fire performed, Ivy Love Getty and Tobias Alexander Engel were joined in holy matrimony under the stately dome of San Francisco City Hall. When the ceremony began at 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 6, Nancy Pelosi, the officiant, was resplendent in a gold Giorgio Armani pantsuit. Just before midnight the previous evening, the Speaker of the House, under the rotunda of the US Capitol, had signed the historic $1.8 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. “I hightailed it out of there for Ivy, who I’ve known since she was a baby,” Pelosi told the crowd. Ivy’s spectacular gown, rumored to have cost $500,000, featured four layers—the outermost one resembling fragments of a mirror—behind which trailed a sixteen-foot embroidered veil. It was the handiwork of one of her grandmother’s favorite designers, John Galliano, who also dressed the bridal party, including maid of honor Anya Taylor-Joy, the bright new star. At the gala dinner that followed at the Getty mansion, Pelosi stayed past midnight, mixing with hundreds of Ivy’s and Tobias’s young friends and relatives. (The Los Angeles contingent included August, Nats, Gigi, and Kendalle, as well as Balthazar, with his daughter Violet and her girlfriend.) “It was all so inclusive—you could let your freak flag fly,” commented one guest. The baton had officially been passed to the new generation.
But the senior most member of the dynasty wasn’t done. Days later, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Gordon Getty’s fourth opera, received its world premiere. While Covid had indeed derailed plans for the fully staged live performances that had been scheduled for Festival Napa Valley, the eighty-seven-year-old composer took the opportunity to reimagine his opera for film. Over the course of the pandemic, a large cast, orchestra, and chorus were recorded separately, then filmed on sets in San Francisco and New York. As critic A.A. Cristi observed in BroadwayWorld, the new medium allowed for “seamless storytelling,” giving Gordon the opportunity to more fluidly present his musical adaptation of the beloved 1934 novella of the same name, the tale of an emotionally repressed and disheveled English schoolmaster who blossoms over the course of his long career, in the face of some profound losses along the way.
If Gordon Getty were ever to write an opera based on his own family, it would be loaded with extraordinary characters, and require many acts.
Conclusion
From Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baja California, and Kodiak Island to London, Rome, Cape Town, and Bangkok, Gettys have left their marks on fields including art, music, marine and wildlife conservation, climate change, media, intellectual property, politics, LGBTQ rights, gender transitioning, fashion, interior design, high society, film, wine, books, yachting, horse racing, holistic living, and finance.
Yet in the public imagination, they are often still thought of as “the tragic dynasty.”
While misfortune has continued to befall some Gettys—sometimes in cinematic fashion—the family has proven remarkably durable. Of the seventy-six individuals who appeared in Fortune’s inaugural 1957 rich list, direct descendants of just three of them made it onto the 2020 Forbes 400: Ray Lee Hunt, youngest son of Texas wildcatter H. L. Hunt; Bennett Dorrance and Mary Alice Dorrance Malone, grandchildren of John T. Dorrance, inventor of the Campbell Soup formula; and Gordon Getty.
Other than suggesting that oil and soup have been the most lucrative commodities over the last six decades, this statistic serves as evidence that fortunes are fleeting. And it demonstrates that, while some people born to privilege compound their good fortune, others squander their assets.
In addition to mere wealth, a dynasty has to be judged by what the founder and his heirs have contributed to society. The cohesiveness of the family—or lack thereof—is also a yardstick. Compared to their peers, the Gettys stack up well. H. L. Hunt used his fortune to support and fuse together far-right political extremism and Christian evangelism—begetting movements that spawned the Tea Party, Trumpism, and other toxins—while his descendants have not made particularly significant charitable or cultural contributions. John T. Dorrance’s progeny—who, in contrast to the Gettys, never sold their company—lead decorous but dull lives of leisure. “You would never describe any of them as cosmopolitan,” said one of their Philadelphia neighbors.
In an interview conducted shortly before her death in 2020, an heiress to the Anglo-Irish Guinness brewing fortune offered her opinion that the public doesn’t want to know about a dynastic family’s positive contributions—which is why such families remain press-shy. “If you are a member of any of these families, you really don’t want to talk—because the press always uses the wrong bit… they are not interested in the goody-goody bits. Because the public is not interested in the goody-goody bits. That’s the problem, always,” said Lindy, the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava—a daughter of Loel Guinness and a niece of Lady Ursula d’Abo, J. Paul Getty’s last mistress.
“What the public wants to read about is the dramas… the money.…,” she scoffed. “When you talk about these things, you’re compounding the sadnesses of the families. That’s the snag.”
Americans, on the whole, venerate wealth, and are voracious viewers of ostentatious displays of it; but picturing a person who is rich and happy is less appealing. “The idea that people who are reputedly wealthy must be miserable seems to gladden countless hearts,” J. Paul Getty himself observed in his final memoir. “After a time, a person who is wealthy grows a tough impervious skin. It is a protective carapace essential for survival.”
As his son Gordon noted, some Gettys have been “clobbered.” Given the unlimited opportunities for indulgence that their fortune afforded them, it’s perhaps surprising that more of them didn’t meet a tragic fate. (“I am shocked that any of them have survived,” as one of their friends said.)
Why did some founder and some flourish?
In the interviews William Newsom gave in 2008 and 2009 to the Regional Oral History Office at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, he made these observations:
“I have learned that simply giving a person a lot of money and saying, ‘Here, have a good time,’ is a mistake.
“The only people I’ve ever seen who are satisfied with life are people who achieve something beyond mere wealth.
“Paul’s children are doing well, but it wasn’t money that made them do well. It was something else they had inside them. Aileen has become a very passionate worker in the AIDS field. Tara, the youngest, is in Africa now running a business. Mark Getty has done remarkably well with Getty Images.”
In addition to being unconventional, the Gettys have been, and continue to be, curious and progressive people—in their thinking, in their politics, even in their consideration of gender.
“Pretty much since we came out of the womb, we’ve been who we are,” as Nats Getty explained. “And no one was going to tell us otherwise.”
J. Paul Getty with Teresa, one of his pet lions, at Sutton Place in the 1960s
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
THE FIVE WIVES OF J. PAUL GETTY
Jeannette DeMont
Getty Images
Allene Ashby
Institutional Archives, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Adolphine “Fini” Helmle
Getty Images
Ann Rork
Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive Department of Special Collections/Charles E. Young Research Library/UCLA
Louise Dudley “Teddy” Lynch
Getty Images
J. Paul Getty with Robina Lund
Dezo Hoffman/Shutterstock
Sutton Place, southwest of London, was built in the early 1500s and acquired by J. Paul Getty in 1959.
Print Collector/Getty Images
J. Paul Getty with Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, en route to his eightieth birthday party in London, December 1972
Pierre Manevy Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Ronald Getty with his father at Goodwood, England, circa 1970
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images
George Franklin Getty II
Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Christopher Getty and Pia Miller at their wedding in Bali, 1992
Collection of Christopher Getty
Isabel Getty at Royal Ascot, June 2019
David M. Benett/Getty Images/Ascot Racecourse
Paul Jr. and Talitha at Palais de la Zahia, Marrakech, as seen in the January 1970 issue of Vogue
Patrick Lichfield/Vogue/© Condé Nast
Wormsley Manor in Buckinghamshire, England was acquired by Paul Jr. in 1985.
Christopher Simon Sykes © Condé Nast Shutterstock
Sabine Getty and the Talitha
Jason Schmidt/Trunk Archive
Paul III on a forty-foot ketch, embarking for Catalina Island, 1977, photographed by Jonathan Becker
© Jonathan Becker
Tara and Jessica Getty at Wormsley, 2011
© Dafydd Jones
Balthazar, at right, with (from left) wife, Rosetta, and children Grace, Violet, June, and Cassius at the CORE Gala, Los Angeles, January 2020
© Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Paul III and his wife, Gisela, at home in Los Angeles with their children Balthazar and Anna, 1977, photographed by Jonathan Becker
© Jonathan Becker
Julius Getty and his father, Mark, at the opening of the Julius Getty Gallery, London, 2019
Jeff Spicer/Getty Images
Alexander and Tatum Getty, San Francisco, 2012
© Drew Altizer
Sabine and Joseph Getty with daughter, Gene, at home in London, 2019, photographed by Simon Watson
© Simon Watson
Aileen Getty and Christopher Wilding, photographed by Firooz Zahedi
© Firooz Zahedi
Aileen at a Fire Drill Friday, Washington, DC, December 2019
Collection of Aileen Getty
Honoree Aileen at the amfAR Inspiration Gala, Los Angeles, 2013, with her sons Caleb Wilding (at left) and Alexander Wilding with his wife, Alexandra
Jason Kempin/Getty Images/amfAR
Ariadne Getty with her children Nats and August at home in Beverly Hills, 2018
Emily Berl/The New York Times/Redux
Gigi Gorgeous and Nats Getty at their wedding in Montecito, July 12, 2019
Alex Welsh/The New York Times/Redux
Gordon and Ann Getty at the memorial service for his father in San Francisco, 1976, with their sons Peter, Andrew, John, and Billy
Steve Fontanini/Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive/Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
Ann Getty departing her mansion in San Francisco, aided by footman Frank Parkes (left) and butler Francis Bullimore, photographed by Horst for Vogue, 1977
Horst P. Horst/Vogue/© Condé Nast
Gordon and Ann in their Pacific Heights drawing room, 1988, photographed by Jonathan Becker
© Jonathan Becker
Peter and Vanessa Getty, Davis Symphony Hall, San Francisco, 2007
© Drew Altizer
Ivy Getty at the amfAR Cannes Gala, 2019
David Fisher/Shutterstock
Acknowledgments
My Growing Up Getty journey commenced when I visited the Getty Research Institute, in Los Angeles, where I became absorbed in J. Paul Getty’s diaries and correspondence. My acknowledgments begin, then, with sincere thanks to the dedicated and learned GRI staff who helped me access and navigate through this wealth of material.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my research for this book had begun decades before. In my magazine career—at Vanity Fair and W, and as a contributor to Town & Country and Sotheby’s magazine—my travels sometimes took me to such extraordinary places as Outer Broadway in San Francisco and Wormsley Manor in Buckinghamshire. I had the very good fortune to interview a number of Gettys and learn about some of their endeavors and passions. Then there were the many fascinating people in the orbit of this dynasty who I profiled and stayed in touch with (Christopher Gibbs and Gillian Wilson, to name just a couple favorites). Among them, the gravitational pull toward this charismatic and often elusive clan was palpable.
On a visit to Rome, Carlo Scimone and Margherita Rostworowski so graciously welcomed me into their home, where he shared his extraordinary memories and photographs with me.
In the course of my reporting for this book, many of the people I spoke to preferred to remain anonymous. Public as some Gettys are, most of them remain resolutely private. I am especially indebted to the family members who did speak to me and engage with me in various ways for this book.
At Gallery Books, my heartfelt thanks to the miraculous, meticulous, and always supportive editorial director, Aimee Bell. In her office, associate editor Max Meltzer was a tireless force for good sense. Under the same roof (virtual though it was during the making of this book) my gratitude extends from Simon & Schuster president Jonathan Karp to the entire Gallery Books team, including publisher Jennifer Bergstrom, deputy publisher Jennifer Long, director of publicity and marketing Sally Marvin, executive publicist Jennifer Robinson, managing editor Caroline Pallotta, and senior production editor Samantha Hoback.
At Aevitas Creative Management, my sincere thanks go to David Kuhn and Nate Muscato and their team.
In my research, I benefited hugely from the heroic work of Abby Field Gerry. Thanks also to Dale Brauner. When it was time to search for photos, Mark Jacobson and Cole Giordano sorted through myriad Getty images.
Many of the twentieth century’s most celebrated photographers including Slim Aarons and Horst focused their lenses on Gettys; some of their iconic portraits are reproduced in this volume. I am extremely grateful to be able to also publish superb photographs by Jonathan Becker, Simon Watson, Dafydd Jones, and Firooz Zahedi.
While writing in Covid-era Manhattan, communications from far-flung sources enlivened the solitary days. An especially helpful and generous email arrived one morning from Robina Lund, who wrote from her home in Aberdeenshire (after Jenny Morrison, features writer for the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record, graciously helped me locate her). Robina succinctly explained how some of the key myths surrounding the Gettys had been created and perpetuated—payphone included.
About the Author
JAMES REGINATO, a writer-at-large for Vanity Fair and a contributor to Sotheby’s magazine, was formerly features director for W magazine. He is the author of Great Houses, Modern Aristocrats and The Carlyle. A graduate of Columbia University, he lives in New York City.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/James-Reginato
SimonandSchuster.com
@GalleryBooks
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Bibliography
GENERAL REFERENCES
Argyll, Margaret Campbell. Forget Not: The Autobiography of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll. London: W. H. Allen, 1975.
Bedford, Nicole Russell. Nicole Nobody: The Autobiography of the Duchess of Bedford. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975.
