He wore a plastic watch that cost about $15. He flew economy, even on long international flights. He used plastic bags as a briefcase.
In New York, he took cabs or the subway, or he simply walked. He owned no grand house, no fancy car and no Rolex. When he ordered wine, he picked the second-cheapest white.
These were not passing phases. They were habits he kept for decades.
His name was Chuck Feeney. He grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood in New Jersey, where people did not show off their money, and he studied at Cornell University's hotel school.
But Feeney had a great deal of money to show off. In 1960, he and a partner, Robert Miller, founded Duty Free Shoppers, a chain of shops at airports and tourist spots where travelers can buy perfume, liquor and watches without paying the usual taxes. It would grow to more than 420 locations, and it made Feeney a billionaire.
Forbes magazine ranks the richest people in America every year, using company records and public information. In 1988, it put Feeney's fortune at $1.3 billion. On paper, he was one of the richest people in America.
Forbes was wrong. Not by a little, but by more than a billion dollars.
Feeney knew it. But he could not correct the record without giving away a secret he had kept for years. Almost nobody, not even the people who wrote about his money, knew what he had done.