Jean Paul Getty (; December 15, 1892June 6, 1976), known widely as J. Paul Getty, was an American-born British petrol-industrialist, and the patriarch of the Getty family. He founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957, "Fortune" magazine named him the richest living American, while the 1966 "Guinness Book of Records" named him as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approx. $ billion in ). At his death, he was worth more than $6 billion (approximately $ billion in ). A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product.