His gypsy life in Europe - young beauties plentiful

J. Paul Getty lived most of his adult life in Europe so that hecould be free of his marriage and fatherhood responsibilities in theUnited States. At age 59 he left the United States permanently forthe playgrounds of Western Europe, where, as he put it, "I couldtravel with two or three women at the same time." While Getty wascavorting around Europe with a coterie of international girlfriends,his fifth wife, Teddy, was in the United States nursing theirterribly ill son, Timmy. To build his oil empire in the Middle East Getty decided to locatehimself in his favorite playground - the capitals of Western Europe,halfway between the sands of the neutral zone in Saudi Arabia, wherehe expected to find oil, and Southern California, where hisunderlings were required to carry out the boring details of theday-to-day administration of the company. It was meant to be atemporary arrangement. In fact, his nomadic existence lasted foreight years, from mid-1951 to 1959, from his 60th to his 68th year.

Such a life always had appealed to him. He would be free of theconstraints of married life and fatherhood. His bookkeepers coulddole out the alimony and the child support, as they had done beforeduring his absences. His marriage to his fifth wife, Teddy Lynch,was never a total commitment, and their son, Timmy, was in badhealth. The boy had suffered from eye trouble from birth and, in1952, when he was 6, a tumor the size of an egg formed between hiseyes and "affected his optical nerves and eyesight," said Ware Lynch,Teddy's brother. Timmy would require several operations. Getty'sfriend, Art Buchwald, then a columnist on the Paris Herald Tribune,said Getty "had no use for any of the kids. He never spoke of onewith pride."

As for his business empire, the telephone and telegraph wouldkeep him in touch. He told Dave Staples, a lawyer for George F.Getty Inc., that he "preferred Europe because he could travel withtwo or three women at the same time." He moved from the Ritz inLondon to the George V in Paris to the Flora in Rome, ostensibly todevelop markets for the oil he was producing the Middle East but alsoto acquire new lovers and to add to his art collection.

Getty had an extraordinary magnetism for women.

"Even if he was disagreeble, the women were always sniffingabout," recalled Paul Jr. It was probably the result of a uniquecombination of wealth, power, a well-informed and cultivated mind,impeccable manners, a wry sense of humor and, apparently, tremendoussexual prowess. The proof is that when he left the United States in1951, there were many broken hearts. For years afterward womenfriends sent him letters of distressed love, about the excitement andthe pleasure he had given them, begging him to send them some wordthat he cared about them and pleading for the date of his return.

Their devotion to him is impressive if sad.

"Oh God, to see you once more," wrote one.

"I am worried about your silence," wrote another.

A third, whom he had met in the '30s, was still writing to him20 years later.

The wealthy expatriate added to his U.S. gang of girlfriends anew group of lovers of all nationalities. Although he was in his60s, he could pass for a man several years younger. Erect and wiry,5 feet 11 inches tall, he had the type of looks known as "joli-laid,"with an aura of danger and mystery that women found seductive. Healso had a fluent knowledge of French, German and Italian. Some ofhis friends thought that he passed beautifully as either a Frenchmanor a German. He kept entire wardrobes in the basements of variousEuropean hotels so that he could assume the identity of theappropriate nationality. He liked to brag that his English accentdisguised his U.S. origins when he was at Oxford, although thissounds apocryphal.

He sometimes used the procurement services of a painter friend,who seemed to know the pretty debutantes available to travel with himfor a few favors.

Getty had met this man in a Berlin nightclub in the late 1920sat a time when he was in the diplomatic service. Getty's new friendwas a short, intense raconteur, who sported a mustache and had ataste for young girls. Together the two men lived a demimondeexistence among cafe society. At one point he offered Getty M., "anexceptionally intelligent and well-educated person" whose "charm ismysteriously beautiful." In a letter to Getty the painter suggeststhat Getty should "be generous in every way," since M. does not knowwhat a "woman-rascal" Getty is.

The two men's friendship was a reflection of the bohemian strainin Getty. He was bohemian in the sense that he was easily bored bythe constraints of a home and the company of a single woman.Moreover, none of his women friends seems to have been particularlyinteresting at an intellectual level; none had a college educationor a profession, except for Teddy.

His unconventional personal life would have been unacceptable tohis mother, and the pressure to conform to the social norm wasgreater in the United States in the 1930s and 1950s than in Europe. Whereas everyone in Los Angelesknew who Getty was, he could move about freely in Paris, London,Berlin and Rome. It was much easier to indulge his sexualproclivities on the continent than in the conventional,church-dominated stratum of U.S. society in which his parents lived.

Getty received thousands of love letters but never wrote anyhimself. He never documents his love affairs in his diary, nor doeshe ever describe a single intimate situation. He never referred to awoman's anatomy in public - he was far too reserved and subtle for that.But an attractive, primitive drive kept him constantly on the go,even with his secretaries.

Barbara Wallace, his secretary for the last 24 years of hislife, who admired and respected him greatly, wryly recalled his offerto go beyond their customary relationship. "We avoided that one," shesaid fondly. "One can always say, `No.' "

Another of his secretaries was not so sage. In the early '50sGetty employed a young, well-bred English girl to accompany him toRome as his secretary. Once there, she met the youthful, dashingson, Paul Jr., and proceeded to have an affair with him. When Gettyfound out he sacked her.

Above all, in his new milieu he enjoyed the company of the mostglamorous, wealthiest and most beautiful society that Europe couldprovide. He wined and dined with Aristotle Onassis, Baron H. H.Thyssen-Bornemisza, heir to the Thyssen steel fortune and owner ofperhaps the greatest collection of old-master paintings in the world,the duke and duchess of Bedford, who owned Woburn Abbey, the duchessof Argyll, an Anglo-U.S. beauty who had become titled by marriage toa Scottish duke.

In Paris he was the guest of his charming fellow-philanderer,Charles Mendl, who had a marriage of convenience with the elegantinterior designer, Elsie Mendl. When he was in London, Getty oftenstayed at the flat of Lady Drogheda; she also allowed him to use hercar. He was photographed in a Paris nightclub with DorothySpreckels, a flame from his New York days. Among his friends werethe Woolworth millionairess Barbara Hutton and her movie starhusband, Cary Grant, known together as "Cash and Cary." Aly Khan wasanother.

In spite of his love of mixing with the rich and famous, Getty'sown living conditions hardly measured up.

True, he had a suite in the fashionable George V Hotel in the16th arrondissement of Paris, where he registered, mysteriously, as"Monsieur Paul." But Suite 801 was hardly a palatial apartment. Onevisitor described its "wild disarray . . . an unmade daybed, the coldremains of a meager meal. . . . It might have passed for a bookie'soffice or a convention caucus room." He seemed to be living out of asuitcase and conducting his business out of shoe boxes.

In 1954 he visited the London art gallery of Robert Abdy. Onthis occasion he did not buy any paintings, but he did meet Abdy'stall, slender assistant, Penelope Kitson. Six feet in height, and aprim, almost prudish, dresser, Kitson was married, unhappily, to aCornish landowner, Robert Kitson. They had three children. Anearlier marriage during the war to a British naval officer also hadfailed.

Penelope joined the Getty payroll.

While he was living it up in Europe, his youngest child, Timmy,was undergoing painful brain surgery in Los Angeles. The tumor,pressing on the optic nerve, was making the child blind, but Gettynever visited this son, whom he professed to love more than theothers.

He kept Teddy on a tight budget and constantly complained aboutthe size of Timmy's hospital bills. Against all the odds, thesurgery appeared to be a success and the boy seemed to be recovering.So, in 1955, after Getty's four-year absence, Teddy took her son tosee his father in London and Paris.

Despite his disfiguring illness, Timmy was a red-haired,freckled Huckleberry Finn. He must have been puzzled by his father'srelationship with other women, for he told his mother that Penelopedid not know how to make a peanut butter sandwich. For her part,Teddy was amazed at the way Penelope dominated Paul.

If there ever had been any hope of reconciliation between Teddyand Getty, it was killed on the trip to London and Paris. Teddy hadhoped that he might come back to the United States, but he refused.He did, however, ask her to stay in Europe "and I will make you asrich as Queen Elizabeth." Teddy refused.

She left with Timmy for the United States after only a short stayin Europe. She was probably aware by now that Getty was unlikelyever to return and that her multimillionaire gypsy husband cared moreabout money than he did about the most priceless thing in the worldto her, her sick son Timmy. He had no emotional ties with any of hisex-wives or their sons, or with Teddy or Timmy, regardless of what heprofessed in his diary. The thought of divorce was already loomingin her mind.

Getty constantly wrote in his diary about returning to sunnyCalifornia, but like so much of his other behavior, the diary entriesseemed only to reflect what he knew others expected of him. Or washe blocked emotionally from fulfilling his own wishes? It would havetaken a psychiatrist years to find out the true answer, and then thelikelihood is that there were several answers.

His inability to return home, like many aspects of his life,gathered its own mythology. Acquaintances tell the story that heconsulted a fortune teller in Europe, who told him that if he crossedthe Atlantic one more time, either by sea or by air, he would die.His close friend, the duchess of Argyll, who also believes in fortunetellers, gives credence to this tale. When the Italian liner AndreaDoria sank in 1956 in Nantucket Sound after a collision, it was saidthat Getty had booked a ticket on the ship but had canceled at thelast minute. From that day onward it was always the same pattern ofevents. He would make a reservation to sail back to the UnitedStates but would always cancel, asserting pressure of work.

He always said he could not enjoy any close male friendshipsbecause men were jealous of his wealth. In reality, he was afraid ofbeing taken for a ride. However, he was able to form a warmattachment for one man at this time, a charming and wealthyFrenchman, who needed nothing from him and, therefore, could betrusted. Rather the reverse. Getty could learn from Paul LouisWeiller, whose love of beautiful women and works of art, probably inthat order, equaled that of Getty.

Weiller found Getty to be "un homme de Balzac," a man from thecountryside, a hick who did not have the sophistication of Weiller'sfriends. Getty advised him to promise no guarantees on the sale ofhis 420 gasoline stations, "a wonderful piece of advice, which helpedus make a great deal," said Weiller. In return, Weiller taught Gettyabout high society.

Each August, Weiller held open house at his summer villa, LaReine Jeanne, near Le Lavandou on the French Riviera, to which allthe beautiful people were invited.

He enjoyed a combination of stimulation and beauty. Often theHollywood set, including the Charles Chaplins and the David Nivens,would rub shoulders with royalty such as Queen Soraya, wife of theshah of Iran, or with politically influential intellectuals such asAndre Malraux, or industrialists like Aristotle Onassis. So valuedwere his tastes and judgment that Onassis brought his prospectivefiancee to Weiller for his personal verdict on whether she was theright woman for him to wed. Claus von Bulow, then a handsome youngbarrister who was to work for Getty and whose own marital troubleswere to hit the headlines many years later, was another visitor at LaReine Jeanne.

It was through Weiller that Getty met a woman who was to play aprovocative role throughout the rest of his life. Sooner or later,even without Weiller, Getty probably would have met the temperamentalRussian aristocratic beauty Mary Teissier, with whom he was to have atorrid affair and come within a hair's breadth of marrying.

From the moment he met her at Weiller's small charmingtownhouse in Neuilly on the outskirts of Paris, Getty fell under herspell. She was a hauntingly thin beauty, who claimed bloodrelationship with the Romanovs. Her marriage to an extraordinarilyhandsome Frenchman, Lucien Teissier, had fallen apart because of hisamorous exploits. The duchess of Bedford once saw a radiant Maryenter a Paris restaurant with light snow on her fur cap and on thetwo borzoi dogs she was leading. "It was the most beautiful aestheticsight I ever saw in my life," the duchess said.

Getty was so bowled over by her beauty, her lively nature andher aristocratic blood that he wanted her to obtain a divorce. Shetold everyone that he was a demon lover. He was ready to make herhis sixth wife, when, Weiller said, she committed "le baiser de lamort," the kiss of death. She began to talk about the money Gettyought to give her. "Elle est une Russe," said Weiller. "She is aRussian, who kills the thing she loves."

Meanwhile, Getty's fifth wife, Teddy, had finally seen thewriting on the wall, and in 1956 she filed for divorce in LosAngeles. The next year Timmy's growth reappeared, and the boyunderwent three terrible operations. The divorce became final on May29, 1958. In the August, Timmy, seemingly cured, went into hospitalfor an operation to reset the bones of his skull. The boy, who hadknown little but physical pain during his short life, died under theanesthetic. Teddy's brother, Ware Lynch, said, "When he died, Timmywas blind and had a misshapen head. I called Paul to announce hisdeath. He had to attend to business."

In fact, Getty learned of his son's death while visiting hisfriend Heinie Thyssen at La Favorita, a splendid villa facing LakeLugano in the foothills of the Italian Alps. There Thyssen, another"life-enhancer," kept perhaps the most magnificent collection ofold-master paintings in private hands in the world. It never enteredGetty's head to return home. He wrote in his diary, as if to excusehimself in the eyes of those who might one day read it: "Had I notbeen assured the operation was a slight one, I would have gone to NewYork to be present but there was no urgency about the operations.Dear Teddy! How brave she is! Darling Timmy! The world is poorerfor your loss and I am desolate."

He used his diary to set the record crooked, not straight, andin it he practiced his own private brand of self-delusion andhypocrisy. He treated his dog, Shaun, better than his son. When thedog was suffering from a tumor, Getty had the best veterinary surgeonflown in and spared no expense. When the dog died, Getty stayed inhis room for three days weeping.

Getty was far too busy in Europe to return for Timmy's funeral.He was negotiating to buy an Italian refinery, and business camefirst. In his autobiography the death of his son is recorded inpassing in 1 1/2 lines, wedged between a passage on what he saw as adangerous political upheaval in France and a report on his businessactivities.

From The Great Getty: The Life and Loves of J. Paul Getty, theRichest Man in the World by Robert Lenzner. Reprinted by permissionof Crown Publishers. Copyright, 1986, by Robert Lenzner.Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.