Troubled grandson of oil magnate Getty dies aged 54

His son, actor Balthazar Getty, confirmed yesterday that his father died on Saturday surrounded by his family at his mansion in Buckinghamshire. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Born into vast wealth, J. Paul Getty III became known worldwide when he was kidnapped in Rome in 1973. When the family reportedly stalled on paying a ransom, the kidnappers cut off part of his ear, sending it to an Italian newspaper to prove they had taken him captive.

The oil heir, then 16, was freed after five months in captivity and a payment of $2.7m.

He later suffered a stroke while undergoing treatment for alcohol abuse in 1981. It left him paralysed, unable to speak, in a wheelchair and in need of around-the-clock care. Newspaper reports indicated the stroke was drug-related, but details were not released.

Balthazar Getty said in a statement issued by his publicist that the father of two and grandfather of six “never let his handicap keep him from living life to the fullest and he was an inspiration to all of us, showing us how to stand up to all adversity”.

He added: “We will miss him terribly.”

In some ways, the elder Getty’s life captured the turmoil of his time. As the grandson of the late US oil billionaire, J. Paul Getty III he was used as a pawn when he was kidnapped for ransom.

Once he was freed, he embraced the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s and 1970s, throwing himself into a life of drugs and parties. He married Gisella Getty and they had Balthazar.

Pictures from that era show J. Paul Getty III looking like a young rock star, with tight blue jeans and ringlets of hair cascading to his shoulders. Although he made few public pronouncements, the fact that a grandson of one of the world’s richest oilmen had apparently embraced the anti-war flower power ethos did not go unnoticed.

The Getty family history, however, is riddled with drug-related woes. J. Paul III’s father struggled with a well publicised drug addition, and his stepmother died from a drug overdose.

J. Paul III was rarely seen in the public eye after the stroke.