ANN RORK : J. PAUL GETTY'S MISTRESS TURNED INTO 4th WIFE

According to Russel Miller's book, The House of Getty, Paul Getty was 31 and living with his parents when he announced that he had married. The lucky first bride was Jeanette Dumond, an 18 year old of Polish Catholic heritage who he married in October of 1923 in Ventura, California (which is just north of Los Angeles). Within weeks of the marriage Jeanette was pregnant and Paul was back to proving to his father that he could make it in the oil business without working for him.  He kept an extreme work schedule, again hands-on, and was barely home which was the pattern that would fail his personal life.  His son George Franklin Getty II was born, and Jeanette left Paul soon after.  Their divorce was granted in February of 1925.  (Marriage #1)

Then he befriended two rich girls he met in Mexico, Allene and Belene Ashby, who were studying at the National University in Mexico City. From the looks of things it seemed he was romancing both, or friends guessed he'd marry Belene.  His summer romance ended with a marriage to Allene there but within weeks he went back to Los Angeles and she went home to Texas. They agreed to keep the marriage and divorce a secret from family but Paul's dad George had already decided to put most of his estate and control of the business into his wife, Sarah's, hands, and this is important because it is Sarah Getty's trust that endured and became the key to the family's enduring wealth.  (Marriage #2)


In 1928 in Vienna, Paul met Adolphine Helmle, called Fini, and just 18 years old.  Her father was a doctor and her family from Germany was vacationing.  Paul was 38.  Once again he charmed and there was a sneaky element to the relationship.  His divorce from Allene wasn't done and he said nothing to Fini about it.  She found out he was a divorced man in December 1928 when she was about to marry him.  They moved in 1929 to Los Angeles and he moved her with his parents,  The idea was for Sarah to introduce her around and keep her company and Sara truly liked Fini. The pattern included a pregnancy, the birth of a son, Paul's workaholism preventing him from actually having a relationship, the wife feeling neglected and abandoned.  In this case it was also Fini's father, always opposed to the marriage, that wanted his daughter home.  (Marriage #3)

Paul had become a shareholder in his father's company, which had been performing poorly, and hoped he could prove himself by turning it around.  By 1926 he was also the general manager of his father's oil companies, the original Minnehoma, and the Getty. 

Fini took their son, Ronnie, and went back to Germany, allowing her father to negotiate a divorce with Paul. When Paul Getty finally admitted to his mother that he was divorcing Fini and marrying Ann, she wept. 

In the chapter called, "He Should Dress You In Sable," after his father's death, Paul finds out that he was left a half million dollars but his mother has 90% of the estate and control over the companies.  Author Russel Miller tells us that while Paul was still not done with Fini, it was well known in Los Angeles that Paul was in a relationship with an actress named ANN RORK.  Rork's father was the manager of "It Girl" Clara Bow, who was our Mistress of the Month previously, as well as a film producer, and Paul had met the father and daughter when Ann was fourteen.  At 17 Ann was doing small parts in the new Hollywood films with sound, the "talkies."   Paul escorted her around town and the couple were photographed, so it wasn't just a secret kept by close personal friends.  (And Fini may have known too...)

In New York City, while still negotiating with Fini's father, Paul Getty and ANN RORK made vows to each other in a ceremony so simple there was no minister.  (If there had been, Paul Getty would've been a bigamist.)  They pledged to each other that they were married in a hotel room. Then he started calling her "Mrs. Getty," when he introduced her around.  She was already pregnant when they got married, having waited out the divorce from Fini.  They married when Paul was 40, Ann was 20, and Eugene Paul Getty was born soon after.

Once again Getty went back to work leaving a wife alone.  Ann lived in Santa Monica near the beach in a twelve room house full of visiting friends (a bit like Hearst's Mistress Marion Davies did, though her "cottage" was massive in comparison).  Ann became pregnant a second time, giving birth to son Gordon Peter Getty.  Then she too wanted out of her lonely existence.  (Marriage #4)

Using the e-book version, and read on Overdrive,  on pages 60 and 61 of this chapter, I'm excerpting this telling passage:

"The fourth Mrs. Getty was privy to none of these negotiations (business), but did not care. Abandoned at the beach house in Santa Monica while Paul devoted himself to business, Ann began to despair of ever making her marriage work.  She hated playing second fiddle to Getty, Inc, hated everything to do with the oil industry.  She often compared herself to the long suffering heroine of J.M. Barrie's play, "The Twelve Pound Look," about the neglected wife of an overworked businessman who decides to pull out all the stops to save her marriage."

Paul came home late, as usual, she insisted he sit down while she played (acted) the climatic scene...A few days later Ann told him she was suffocating in her "gilded cage" and wanted a divorce.  Paul raised no objection..."

Reading to this point, I was aware that Paul Getty was getting more unconventional about relationships with women, especially for his times, as he got older.  Perhaps the pressure to marry was some of that.  Perhaps if he had been born later he might have had affairs with women rather than marry them.  Certainly he was aware that promising a woman marriage was seduction too, for if he had not been able to divorce Fini, he would have found himself in a society scandal.

In the chapter called "My First Thought Was This is THE girl," we learn that NEXT DOOR to Paul and Ann's Santa Monica beach house was the comparatively massive "cottage" that Hearst had built for his Mistress Marion Davies. The cottage had at least a hundred rooms.  Paul was friendly with the couple and in my opinion was inspired by their collections.

In 1934 Ann Rork filed for divorce and said that Paul's interest in her began when she was 15.  Then they went through "a form of marriage" in a rented apartment in New York.
To me this emphasizes Ann's mistresshood.

Reading pages 38- 39 of this chapter on e-book, "In court Ann painted an extraordinary picture of life with Getty. She complained of being "forced" to live in a "dismal apartment" in Paris; her husband refused to take her out because she was pregnant and her "only companion: was a little scotch terrier called Sophie." 

Her complaints included being "forced" to pay $200 a month rent out of her $600 allowance, being called a "gold-digger," and other allegations of Paul's cheapness and other women.  She eventually settled for $2500 a month for herself and $1000 a month for their 2 sons.

After that, J. Paul Getty VOLUNTARILY increased payments to Jeanette and Fini.


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