J. Paul Getty (December 15, 1892 - June 6, 1976) was an American industrialist and founder of the Getty Oil Company. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, into a family already in the petroleum business, he was one of the first people in the world with a fortune of over $1 billion U.S. dollars. He was an avid collector of art and antiquities, and his collection forms the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.
He enrolled at the University of Southern California, then at Berkeley before graduating in 1914 from Magdalen College, Oxford with degrees in economics and political science. He worked during the summers on his father's oil fields in Oklahoma. Running his own oil company in Tulsa, he made his first million by 1916. However, in 1917, he announced that he was retiring to become a Los Angeles-based playboy. Although he eventually returned to business, Getty had lost his father's respect. Just before George Franklin Getty died in 1930, he believed that Jean Paul would destroy the family company, and told him so.
He moved to England in the 1950s, where he lived and worked at his 16th-century Tudor estate, Sutton Place near Guildford, until his death.
