Jean Paul Getty was born in 1892 in Minneapolis，Minnesota. He became a millionaire when he was only 24. His father was wealthy, but he did not help his son. Getty made his millions alone. He made his money from oil. He owned Getty Oil and over 100 other companies. A famous magazine on economy once called Getty "the richest man in the world.
But money ____ ____. He married five times and divorced(离婚) five times. He had five children but spent little time with them. None of Getty's children had very happy lives.
Getty loved to make money and loved to save it. Although he was very rich, he was still very mean. Every evening, he wrote down every cent he spent that day. He even put telephones in the guest' s bedrooms in his house, so he could save money on phone bills.
In 1973, kidnappers (绑匪) took his 16-year-old grandson for a large amount of money. Getty' s son asked his father for money to save his child, but Getty refused. The kidnappers were cruel and Getty' s son made repeated requests for help from his father. Finally, Getty agreed to lend him $1,000,000, but he needed an extra $50,000 more in return.
Getty started a museum at his home Malibu，California. He bought many important and beautiful pieces of art for the museum. When Getty died in 1976, the value of the collection in the museum was $1 billion. He left all his money to the museum. After his death, the museum grew in size. Today it is one of the most important museums in the United States. Getty made a lot of money in his life, but he gave all his money to the art world because he wanted people to learn about art and love it.
