As a tall, freckle-faced youth of 16, he was kidnapped by a gang of Italian petty criminals who blindfolded him and chained him to a stake for five months. Eventually they cut off his right ear as evidence of their willingness to kill him unless a ransom was paid.
As a young man, when drink and drugs began to take their toll
Eight years later, and by then addicted to a cocktail of alcohol and hard drugs including heroin and cocaine, Getty was the victim of a near-fatal stroke that left him a quadriplegic, almost blind, and confined to a wheelchair. For the rest of his life, unable even to enunciate his own name, he had to be spoon-fed, dressed, bathed and cared for around the clock by his mother, Gail, and a team of carers.
