The Do-It-Yourself Tycoon (See Cover)
In Paris' fashionable George V Hotel, no accommodation is cheaper, none less fashionable than the two shabbily genteel, Y.M.C.A.-sized rooms of Suite 801. Last week, as it has been for weeks, 801 was registered only under the name of "Monsieur Paul." Inside it might have passed for a bookie's office or a convention caucus room. Dozens of papers were scattered over the floor. In the entrance hall, piles of string-tied boxes and suitcases teetered perilously. Around the rooms, in wild disarray, stood an unmade day bed, the cold remains of a meager meal, a collection of half-filled rum and Coca-Cola bottles. Amid it all sat a tall, heavy-shouldered man whose massive head, topped by long, reddish-brown hair, gave him the appearance of an aging lion. Contented as a man in the plushest executive suite, American Oil Billionaire Jean Paul Getty, 65, probably the world's richest private citizen, went calmly about his work.
Again and again the phone rang. Getty answered with a clear but tentative voice —as if he expected the call to bring him some annoyance. He spoke with a Swedish importer who wanted 20,000 tons of fuel oil a month from Getty's Middle East fields. He turned down an invitation to lunch. He took a call from a shipbuilder in Tokyo about details of a new Getty supertanker. Turning to a pile of cables, he read a report on his new, 18-in. Mideast pipeline, fired off an answer to a Turkish importer's request for a large quantity of crude oil. In midafternoon Getty received a distinguished visitor: John D. Rockefeller III, 51, scion of an older oil dynasty, who came to ask his financial support for a $75 million art center in Manhattan. Getty expressed interest, made no commitment. Swiftly he worked through his business mail, answering the letters by scribbling a notation in the margins, then popping them into envelopes to mail back. Shortly after dark he left the hotel and mailed his letters, trusting no one else to perform this important job. Then he set out on his daily two-mile walk through Paris (he carries a pedometer to make sure he goes just the right distance), pondering along his way the problems of the world—his world.
J. Paul Getty's world is Getty Oil Co., the core of one of the most complex corporate structures ever built. As Getty Oil's president and chief stockholder, he owns or controls some 40 companies, ranging from Tidewater Oil Co. to firms that make trailers, own hotels, sell life insurance. Wherever Getty happens to be, there is centered the world of Getty Oil and its satellites. In an age of teamwork, J. Paul Getty is the last of a vanishing breed: an autocratic tycoon who runs his own show, has nothing but contempt for the modern, hemmed-in executive and the committee concept of running a business. "Most of the people in the top management of American business," says Lone Wolf Getty, "are promoted clerks, engineers and salesmen. I like Benjamin Franklin's advice: if you want it done correctly, do it yourself. I do it all myself. How many others are there like me?"