The climate activist
The climate emergency is the new battle of Aileen Getty, granddaughter of American oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. In a column published by the Guardianthe sexagenarian “ clap » them “courageous activists” such as those of the Just Stop Oil collective which multiply spectacular actions targeting famous works (The sunflowers, of Van Gogh, and the wax statue of Charles III, in London, or even The Girl with a Pearl Earring, of Vermeer, The Hague, the Netherlands). This type of action is “an alarm that takes us out of the status quo”, assures the one who says herself “proud” to finance the Climate Emergency Fund. This organization, which she co-founded in 2019, has distributed more than $4 million to movements including Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Aware that her links with the oil industry can be questionable, she declared in 2019: ” I’m trying to figure it all out myself. (…) I want to do what is right and what is right. »
The wealthy heiress
His grandfather, the founder of the Getty Oil Company, was described as the richest man in the world in the 1960s. Married five times and father of five children, the industrialist is at the origin of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, to whom he bequeathed a large part of his property on his death in 1976. His children also inherited a nice capital. Eight years after the death of the patriarch, they turn a page in family history by selling Getty Oil. According to the magazine Forbes, their assets amounted to 5.4 billion dollars in 2015. This made them, at the time, the 56e America’s wealthiest family.
The unknown sister
Aileen Getty has long lived in the shadow of the men in her family. If his younger brother, Mark, is known for having co-founded the Getty Images photography agency, it was his eldest, John Paul Getty III, who hit the headlines in 1973, kidnapped at the age of 16 by the Calabrian mafia. Their grandfather, reputed to be close to his money, would have refused to pay the 17 million dollar ransom. It will be necessary for the kidnappers to revise their ambitions downwards and for an Italian newspaper to receive an ear from the teenager for the ransom to be paid. In 2017, Ridley Scott draws from this news item the material of a film, All the money in the world.
The Committed Survivor
In Growing Up Getty (untranslated, Gallery Books, 2022), dedicated to this dynasty, James Reginato describes Aileen’s childhood in Italy, the swanky boarding school in Britain where she was educated, and the rebellious adolescence that plunged her into alcohol and drugs. In 1981, she married Christopher Wilding, son of Elizabeth Taylor, with whom she had two children and from whom she would divorce. At that time, she was diagnosed with HIV. ” If it hadn’t been for HIV, I would still be a victim, she explained in 1996. Victim of my parents, of my heritage, of life. » Remaining close to her ex-mother-in-law, she engages with AIDS patients and the homeless while struggling to overcome her addictions. Before embarking on the fight for the defense of the planet.