In 1950 he was drafted to serve in the Korean War, spending the duration working at the American headquarters in Seoul, South Korea.

[5] After he was discharged he met Abigail Harris, the daughter of a prominent San Franciscan federal judge, and the two were married in early 1956.

The following year he approached his brother Gordon, vice-president of the Getty subsidiary Tidewater Petroleum, asking for a job.

His second marriage was to the Dutch actress, model and style icon Talitha Pol, stepdaughter of painter Augustus John's daughter Poppet, on 10 December 1966.

The photo, taken by Patrick Lichfield, shows Talitha Getty crouched down leaning on a wall and her husband in the background in a hooded djellaba and sunglasses.

When Getty Sr., who abhorred taking drugs of any kind, heard of his son's addiction, he insisted on his becoming sober.

[10] After living apart for several years, Talitha, who was sober at the time, asked Paul Jr. for a divorce in early 1971.

When her lawyer advised her that divorce proceedings would be easier if she could show that she had attempted reconciliation with Paul, she left for Rome on 9 July.

The autopsy ruled that she had alcohol and barbiturates in her system, but rumours flared up that she had suffered a heroin relapse while spending time with Getty, who was still embroiled in his addiction.

Neither an arrest warrant nor an extradition request was ever issued since Getty was not a suspect in Talitha's death, but he never returned to Italy for fear of being detained.

Getty's grandson was found alive on 15 December 1973, in a Lauria filling station, in the province of Potenza, shortly after the ransom was paid.

[16] Nine of the kidnappers were apprehended, including Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti, high-ranking members of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia organization in Calabria.

After a stroke brought on by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in 1981, Getty III was rendered speechless, nearly blind and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life.

While there, he received a visit from Margaret Thatcher, who at the time was Prime Minister, to thank him for large donations to the National Gallery.

During a low period in the 1970s, Getty was cheered up by former England cricketer and later president of the MCC, Gubby Allen, having previously been introduced to the game by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.

The litigation judge who allowed the case to go to trial scolded Paul Jr.: "Mr. Getty should be ashamed of himself spending far more money on court obligations than living up to his moral duties.

"[23] Claiming that he doubted the severity of his son's debilitation, Getty sent his lawyer to Los Angeles to confirm it and finally agreed to pay the costs.

[24] During his nine-month stint in The London Clinic, Getty purchased a dilapidated country estate in Buckinghamshire, Wormsley Park, on the advice of his close friend Christopher Gibbs.

This included the creation of a deer park, the reforestation of 1,500 acres of beechwood forest, and the dredging of a man-made four-acre lake with water tapped from an aquifer 400 feet below ground.

He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1987, but as a foreign national could not use the title "Sir".

Getty built an extraordinary library at Wormsley, collecting such treasures as a first edition of Chaucer, Ben Jonson's annotated copy of Spenser, and Shakespeare Folios.

[34] Some of his donations, including contributions toward the purchases of Canova's The Three Graces by The National Galleries of Scotland[35] and the Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael, foiled acquisition efforts by the J. Paul Getty Museum endowed by his father.