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Andrew Getty, grandson of Getty Oil founder, found dead Andrew Getty, grandson of Getty Oil founder, found dead
(about 3 hours later)
Andrew Getty, the grandson of Getty Oil founder J Paul Getty, was found dead on Tuesday at his Los Angeles area home, the Los Angeles Times has reported. Andrew Getty, the grandson of Getty Oil founder J Paul Getty, has been found dead at his home in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.
The cause of death for Andrew Getty, 48, was not immediately clear according to reports that cited a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman. A woman called to report that someone had died and officers went to the gated home on Montcalm Avenue shortly after 2.15pm on Tuesday. They found the body in a bathroom, police spokesman Jack Richter said.
A LAPD spokeswoman told Reuters that detectives were conducting a death investigation at a home in the Hollywood Hills, where a man was found unconscious and not breathing. Police did not identify the man but a statement from Andrew Getty’s parents, Ann and Gordon Getty, confirmed it was him. The cause of death was not released.
The spokeswoman said she could not give the dead man’s identity. Police Commander Andrew Smith said the woman who had called police was co-operating with the investigation. Richter said she was not arrested and he did not know her identity. She was named in some reports as an ex-girlfriend.
Celebrity news website TMZ reported that Getty, the son of Gordon Getty and an heir to his grandfather’s fortune, was found in a bathroom of the home at about 2pm under suspicious circumstances and that a former girlfriend was being detained as a potential witness or suspect. Andrew Getty’s grandfather J Paul Getty was an industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Co and was at one point named the richest living American by Fortune magazine. He had five sons and died in 1976 at age 82.
Getty’s grandfather, J Paul Getty, merged several smaller oil companies into Getty Oil in the 1960s. At one time one of America’s richest men, he was also an avid art collector who established the trust that funds the J Paul Getty Museum and several other institutions. J Paul Getty was an avid collector of art and antiquities, and the Getty name is best known in the Los Angeles area for the museum that houses much of it, along with many other high-priced artworks bought since his death.
Another Getty grandson, J Paul Getty III, lost an ear in a kidnapping in Rome when he was a teenager. The family reportedly stalled on paying a ransom and the kidnappers cut off part of his ear, sending it to a newspaper to prove they had taken him captive.
The oil heir, then 16, was freed after five months in captivity and a payment of US$2.7m. He died in 2011 at age 54.
Andrew Getty’s father is Gordon Getty, a San Francisco multibillionaire who is among the richest men in the United States.
The family statement provided no further details on the death, requested privacy and said further statements would be issued when information became available.
Coroner’s vans and news trucks were parked outside the century-old luxury home on one of the winding roads in the hills that are home to many of the film industry’s rich set.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report