J. Paul Getty – 1892-1976

Getty owned a controlling interest in the Getty Oil Company and in hundreds of other firms. He was celebrated for his eccentricity—an extravagant, irascible, and unsettled character who married and divorced five times—and for his fabulous art collection, which became the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum, built at Malibu in 1953, expanded in 1974, then transformed in 1997 into the spectacular Getty Center, which houses the art collection and other philanthropic activities.