J. Paul Getty III, heir of an oil tycoon, dies at 54

J. Paul Getty III, an oil-fortune heir known as the "golden hippie" whose kidnapping in Italy at 16 made international headlines and whose captors severed his ear when his family didn't initially pay his ransom, has died at the age of 54.
He was a grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty Sr., who founded the renowned California museum that bears his name and was once the world's wealthiest man. Young Getty spent much of his childhood in Rome, where he gravitated to the world of artists and left-wing bohemians and where, in July 1973, he disappeared.
His family at first thought it was a hoax. Mr. Getty, who had been expelled from several schools, had been known to joke with friends about staging his own kidnapping to squeeze money from his tightfisted grandfather. In fact, he was being held chained and blindfolded in a series of mountain hideouts.
The media deemed Mr. Getty the "golden hippie" as much for his long reddish-blond locks as his family fortune.
His kidnappers sent word that they wanted $17 million, an amount J. Paul Getty Sr. refused to pay.
When that ransom message arrived, some family members suspected the kidnapping was merely a ploy by the rebellious Paul to get money from his grandfather. A second demand was received, but had been delayed by an Italian postal strike. Jean Paul Getty II asked his father for the money, but was refused. In November 1973, an envelope containing a lock of hair and a human ear was delivered to a daily newspaper, with a threat of further mutilation of Paul unless $3.2 million was paid: "This is Paul's ear. If we don’t get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits." At this point Jean Paul agreed to pay a ransom, with his son repaying the sum at 4% interest. However, the reluctant Getty Sr. negotiated a deal and got his grandson back for about $2.9 million. Getty III was found alive in southern Italy on December 15, 1973, shortly after the ransom was paid. Several of the kidnappers were apprehended. They were a motley group who included a carpenter, a hospital orderly, an ex-con and an olive-oil dealer from Calabria. Most of the ransom money was never recovered.
In 1974 he married German Gisela Zacher; he had known her and her twin sister Jutta before his kidnapping. The two had a son named Balthazar, who is an actor in Hollywood. They divorced in the mid-1980s.
In 1981, taking a cocktail of valium, methadone and alcohol resulted in a stroke which left Getty paralyzed and nearly blind.
In 1999 Getty, along with several other members of his family, became citizens of the Republic of Ireland in return for investments in Ireland of approximately £1 million each, under a law which has since been repealed.
On February 5, 2011, Getty III died at his home in Buckinghamshire, England after a long illness. He had been in poor health since the 1981 drug overdose.