Los Angeles homicide detectives are investigating the death of Andrew Getty, a 47-year-old heir to the Getty oil fortune, at his Hollywood Hills home on Tuesday.
Officers were summoned to the property at 2:18 p.m. local time on Tuesday with a report of an unconscious male, said Officer Norma Eisenman, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department.
She said detectives in the robbery-homicide division were investigating. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner was also investigating, according to Lieutenant Larry Dietz.
“The family has requested that members of the media and the public respect its privacy during this extremely difficult time,” Getty’s parents, Ann and Gordon P. Getty, said in a statement confirming his death.
“Further statements will be issued as information becomes available.”
Getty was the grandson of J. Paul Getty, who drilled for oil in Oklahoma and California before taking over his father’s business in 1930 and merging several oil companies into the Getty Oil Co. in 1967, according to Biography.com.
In the 1966 he was named by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s wealthiest private citizen.
Gordon Getty, the music composer and founder of Forward Funds, has a net worth estimated at $3.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Two Los Angeles art museums are named after J. Paul Getty.