Baby name story: Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramaphone

John Paul Getty II and Talitha Pol on their wedding day in Rome (Dec. 1966)
John Paul Getty II and Talitha Pol

Most of us have heard of J. Paul Getty, who was one of the wealthiest people in America during his lifetime. But most of us have probably not heard that one of his grandchildren was named “Gramaphone” (a misspelling of gramophone).

This particular grandchild was the son of Eugene Paul Getty, who later went by John Paul Getty II, and his second wife, Dutch fashion model and socialite Talitha Pol. (They married in late 1966; you can see a corresponding uptick in the usage of the name Talitha the following year.)

The couple were the toast of Europe’s glamour-hippie set, jetting to exotic spots with the likes of Mick Jagger. “J. P. II’s whole young-adult life,” says [family friend Stuart] Evey, “was Marrakech and the Rolling Stones.”

To French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, the pair epitomized “the youthfulness of the sixties”:

Talitha and Paul Getty lying on a starlit terrace in Marrakesh, beautiful and damned, and a whole generation assembled as if for eternity where the curtain of the past seemed to lift before an extraordinary future.

In 1968, Paul and Talitha couple welcomed their only child, a son.

They named him Tara Gabriel Gramaphone Galaxy Getty.

In 1971, Talitha died of a heroin overdose. Her death occurred “in the 12-month period that also saw the deaths of Edie Sedgwick, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin.”

(Tragedy struck John Paul II’s family again in 1973 when his eldest son, John Paul III, was kidnapped by the Calabrian mafia.)

Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramaphone Getty has long since dropped both “Gramaphone” and “Galaxy” from his full name.

Today, he and his wife Jessica live in South Africa on the Phinda Game Reserve. They have three kids named Orlando, Caspar, and Talitha.

Update, Aug. 16th: In 1976, Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones) and model Anita Pallenberg welcomed a son they named Tara in honor of late friend (and Guinness heir) Tara Browne, who’d died in 1966. Paul and Talitha had been part of the same social set during the ’60s…was their son named with Tara Browne in mind as well?

Sources:

Image: Adapted from Wedding of John Paul Getty Jr. and Talitha Pol (Rome, 1966) (public domain)

4 thoughts on “Baby name story: Tara Gabriel Galaxy Gramaphone

  1. All of my name books say that Tara — both the Irish/English version and the Indian version — is a girl name. (I remember blogging about a Tarali, also a girl, a few years ago.)

    But I’m looking into it a bit more now and seeing that usage isn’t always female.

    In fact, the Indian version — which simply means “star” in various languages, like Hindi and Urdu — seems to be traditionally unisex.

    Even the Anglo version, while overwhelmingly used as a female name, isn’t exclusively female. In England I found two male Taras — socialite and counterculture-member Tara Browne (who died in 1966 at age 21) and Keith Richards’ son Tara (born and died in 1976) named in honor of Tara Browne.

    Tara Getty may have been named with Tara Browne in mind as well, who knows.

  2. I hope Tara and his family are enjoying life in Africa. I read the biography of J. Paul Getty years ago and at the time thought of the horrors drugs can do to ANY family. It is too bad most of the original founder’s offspring didn’t work as hard or as cleverly as the founder and his father, George, did to establish continuing business ventures. But receiving a large amount of money from a trust will likely diminish motivation in anyone.

  3. It sounds like they were probably high and thought it would be funny to name their child Galaxy Grandma phone. Just a pretty idiotic drug-induced thing to do.

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