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Getty Was the kidnap really a stunt?
The severed ear, the refusal to pay the ransom, the Mafia – we all think we know about the notorious abduction of a billionaire’s grandson, but a gripping new TV drama asks...
The setting is Sutton Place, the sprawling Tudor manor in Surrey, where oil tycoon John Paul Getty, the richest man in the world, lives surrounded by glamorous women and a pet lion.
Into this scene in 1973 strolls his grandson John Paul Getty III, a wildhaired 16-year- old newly arrived from Rome where he’s studying art. Once he’s come to terms with his grandson’s unkempt appearance, the older Getty welcomes him. But John Paul III has an agenda: a request for cash to cover drug and gambling debts he’s run up in the Italian capital. The old man refuses. Disappointed, the teenager returns to Rome.
When a message arrives almost immediately at Sutton Place saying that John Paul III has been kidnapped and demanding a ransom of $17 million (equivalent to £ 65.6 million today), a drop in the ocean that is the immense Getty fortune, the billionaire – who’s so tight-fisted that guests at his home must use a payphone to make calls – refuses to pay it. Until, that is, a grisly package containing the teenager’s severed ear and threats of further mutilation turn up and he is shamed into parting with his money.
This is Trust, a new ten-part BBC2 series starring Donald Sutherland and Hilary Swank – the second time this bizarre tale has been committed to film recently. Earlier this year Ridley Scott’s film All The Money In The World , with Christopher Plummer as Getty and Michelle Williams as John Paul III’s mother Gail Harris, won respectful reviews that were overshadowed by original star, Kevin Spacey, being replaced by Plummer at the last minute after he was accused of sexually assaulting young men. Trust comes with no such baggage, and features a sharply differing story from the movie. In the series, the kidnapping is presented as a stunt set up by the young John Paul to wring money from his grandfather, one that went horrifically wrong.
But the series, which aired in the US in March, has caused controversy. John Paul III is no longer around to speak for himself – he died in 2011, aged just 54, after spending years in a wheelchair following a near-fatal drug overdose in 1981. His mother Gail Harris Getty, now 83, has remained discreetly silent. However, John Paul III’s sister, Ariadne Getty, released a statement through her lawyer threatening legal action, describing the series as a ‘wildly sensationalised false portrayal’ of her family, and suggesting it should be called Mistrust instead. But director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy are standing their ground. ‘It was clear, reading between the lines, that John Paul III kidnapped himself,’ said Beaufoy of his research. ‘It was a hoax gone wrong. He ran up a large debt he couldn’t repay.’
Whatever the truth, says Donald Sutherland, who plays the older Getty, the tale is gripping. ‘It’s about power, money, and a family. The struggle in families is fascinating – we all know it on some level, it’s fascinating and desperate. Why do people stop when they see an accident on the side of the road? I don’t know, but they do. The Getty family was an accident on the side of the road.’
Joh n Paul Getty III (played here by Harris Dickinson) was brought up in Rome where his father John Paul Getty Jnr was r unning the family’s oil business. His parents separated when he was eight and his father moved to England, but John Paul remained in Rome with his mother. Before going missing, John Paul had apparently joked about faking his own kidnapping when he needed money, so members of his family initially took the ransom note to be a scam sent by him. According to this story, that’s true – John Paul III had agreed with his drug dealer to organise a fake kidnapping. But he was then ‘sold’ to the Mafia and the kidnapping became real. He is said to have spent five months in captivity, mainly in a cave, and when his ear was severed the wound became infected and he caught pneumonia as winter set in. He was found at a petrol station after the ransom – or $2.2 million (£8.5 million today) of it – was finally paid, and two members of a Calabrian Mafia organisation were later jailed for the crime.
Having spent much of his time in the early 1970s working in Europe, Donald Sutherland was aware of the story. ‘I didn’t go to Sutton Place, but a lot of my friends did and they all talked about the payphone! I remember the kidnapping but it was mixed up with everything else happening in Rome. There was a lot of kidnapping going on then. When I was making Fellini’s Casanova, which came out in 1976, there was so much of it that the producer, Alberto Grimaldi, had to buy insurance for me. I only found out later because in order to buy kidnapping insurance, you couldn’t tell the person who might be kidnapped that they were being insured. I do remember when I was driven to and from the studio I had to wear a white bag over my head so people couldn’t see who I was. Kidnapping was a problem people took very seriously.’
He says that through his research on John Paul Getty Snr, he acquired a surprising respect for the man. ‘He’s a wonderful character, just wonderful. He was incredibly complex. He
‘John Paul III had run up a large debt he couldn’t pay’
was a brilliant man who spoke six languages and he could do extraordinary sums off the top of his head. He was very well-organised and very specific about what he wanted – there was nothing of the playboy about him at all.
‘His money gave him power, but he didn’t use it aggressively – some people are bullies with power but he wasn’t, just very pragmatic. I don’t think he was sinister either – or certainly he didn’t see himself that way. He had an inability to allow himself to love another person – he’d have loved to be able to love, but some- thing somehow always came up that prevented it from happening.’
Getty’s fundamental emotional problem, he says, came from a family tragedy that happened before he was even born. ‘He was burdened all his life by the fact he’d had an older sister who died as an infant, before he came along. Forever afterwards, he could never make up to his mother for the loss of that child. However hard he tried, she always let him know he was small recompense for his sister. So the title of this show, Trust, refers to Getty’s mother’s trust. It was something he longed for all his life.’ Donald believes Getty’s refusal to hand over the ransom money was the only logical response. ‘You must remember he did end up negotiating with the Mafia and handing over money to free his grandson. But look – I’m John Paul Getty and I’ve got 14 grandchildren. What am I supposed to do? He initially refused to pay the ransom for the same reason the US Government doesn’t pay ransoms – if they did, everybody would be taken hostage. It’s an easy way to make a million dollars or two – grab somebody and then wait to be paid.’
Playing his daughter-in-law, John Paul III’s mother Gail, is Hilary Swank who’s won two Best Actress Oscars, for Boys Don’t Cry in 1999 and 2004’s Million Dollar Baby. ‘When Danny Boyle called me to offer the part he said, “She’s the emotional anchor of the story,” and as the series went on, I understood that,’ says Hilary. ‘Gail wasn’t interested in money. She knew what she was marrying into with John Paul Getty Jnr, but the money was not what was captivating to her. In their divorce, she didn’t ask him for anything – she wanted to take care of herself.
‘But she relied on the men in that family to take care of things to an extent, and when her son was kidnapped and she realised the men were taking care of it in a way that maybe wouldn’t bring him back to her, she stepped into her full power and said, “There’s nothing I won’t do to get him back.”
‘Her only concern was her son. They say that when you have a child it’s like a part of your heart is outside and walking around, and I certainly think that for parents there should be nothing more important than their children’s wellbeing. I don’t think there can be a worse nightmare than having your child captured. Not knowing whether they’re still alive or being tortured or who knows what might be happening. It must be hell on earth.’
Born in 1974, a year after the infamous event, Hilary says that before she took the role of Gail she’d known little about the Getty family. ‘I’d heard of them – we all have – but I didn’t know much about them. It was interesting to find out how infatuated John Paul Senior was with money. He was a billionaire who didn’t even know how much he was making every day in interest.
‘This idea of having money is a double-edged sword. People have always been obsessed with it – getting it, having it, and then everything falls apart because of it. People who don’t have it want it, but when they get it, it can bring so much stress that in some ways it’s not worth having. What people are concerned with on their deathbed is family and love. No one dies thinking, “I wish I’d made more money!”’
Ironically in view of the dysfunctional on-screen family she’s part of, Hilary has just taken three years out of Hollywood to care for her father Stephen as he recovered from a lung transplant. ‘They gave him three years to live if he didn’t get a transplant. A lung transplant is one of the hardest operations you can undergo, and it takes a year to see if the new lung will take, so it was a harrowing decision.
‘But I was blessed to be able to take the time off work and be OK. I hadn’t anticipated being off as long as I was but it was touch and go for a while – even after a year there were complications. But I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Dad’s doing great now – he’s still living with me but he’s alive and healthy and it’s been over three years, so he made it past both marks.’
She admits that when she decided to return to her career, she was nervous she might have lost her flair. ‘You’d think that after all these years it’d be like riding a bike. But I did think, “Oh my gosh, it’s been so long!” Yet if anything, being away only gave me a deeper appreciation for that creative collaboration of telling a story. I love it!’
This series of Trust is only the start – the plan is for it to stretch over more seasons and span the 20th century. Hilary’s part is done after this series, and Donald says he’s not sure he’ll be reprising his role. ‘I think the second season goes back to when everyone is younger: I’d love to revisit that time but at my age I think it’s technically impossible. And in season three, I think John Paul dies. I might be able to do that, but I’m 83 now, so they’d have to hurry!’
Trust, Wednesday, 9pm, BBC2.
‘Getty Snr couldn’t let himself love anyone’