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Ann Getty in her San Francisco home, 1977

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Ann Getty was as beautiful as she was philanthropic. Tall, at a statuesque 5ft 9, she was a devoted benefactor of the arts and did not allow her legacy to be dictated by the man she married nor the wealth she married into. A sharp, California farm girl, she grew up driving tractors on her fathers peach and walnut farm before marrying the composer Gordon Getty, the fourth son of oil baron J Paul Getty, then the richest man in the world.

Ann, who became a globe-trotting publisher, author, interior designer and philanthropist, died in September, aged 79. Although she lived a ritzy life, adorned with extravagances like a private Boeing 727 (that the press were quick to nickname Jetty) complete with a bath and two bedrooms, she adeptly managed to resist being cordoned off as a delicate socialite. In the lavish plane, Gordon and Ann would travel to the worlds greatest music and arts festivals, a passion the couple shared.

Effervescent and brilliantly intelligent, she was the perfect hostess for Gettys sumptuous parties in San Francisco, attended by aces of the classical musical world, from Luciano Pavarotti to Plcido Domingo. It was while traversing the globe that she met George Weidenfeld, the eminent publisher, and came to save the publishing house from collapse, buying a nearly quarter-size stake in the company. The next year, she and Weidenfeld teamed up to buy the New York publishing house, Grove Press (for $2 million), which had a roster of avant-garde authors and was famed for its audacity but was in a bad way financially. Ann, while she was the president of Grove Weidenfeld, told the New York Times: Im a publisher because its a cover for my indulgence. I love to read all day. But I come from nice Puritan stock, and I grew up believing that you have to work all day, so I made reading my work.

Ann Getty with her husband, Gordon Getty

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When in the 1980s she hopped over the continent to New York (following the sale of Getty Oil to Texaco for $10 billion), she was wooed to the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and New York University and fast-tracked to the epicentre of the grandest social circles. She had also been a benefactor for the University of California, San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco Opera amongst legions of others.

As for her and Gordon Getty, the story goes that in 1964 she was drinking with some friends in a North Beach Bar when Gordon Getty introduced himself and challenged her to match him shot for shot. She did and the rest is history. They were married that Christmas and J Paul Getty was said to be charmed by his sons choice.

Not just the arts, Ann earned a reputation as a fabulous interior designer and only the true masterpieces would do. In 1995 she founded the interior design firm, Ann Getty & Associates, and the obvious way to showcase her style was by opening up her and her husbands 1913 house designed by Willis Polk, the American architect. Veranda Magazine wrote: The couple have amassed a museum-quality collection of European antiques, Venetian paintings, French textiles and Russian chandeliers. She wrote and published a book, Ann Getty: Interior Style in 2012 which celebrated her love for English and French antiques and Chinese porcelains.

Despite long experience as a society hostess, she was shy and never quite at ease in New York favouring her life in San Francisco. Gordon would reportedly sometimes escape to a sound-proof room in their home to listen to opera, the Times says that she once described him as a perfect monk.

She is survived by her husband and their sons Peter, John and William, and six grandchildren. Ann Getty was born on March 11, 1941. She died of a heart attack on September 14, 2020, aged 79.

Ann Getty, glamorous publisher and devoted arts patron, dies at 79 – Tatler

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