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Rupert Murdoch Bio

Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His father, Sir Keith Murdoch, was a well-known journalist and advisor to Billy Hughes, who was the Prime Minister of Australia during World War I.

Rupert attended Geelong Grammar School, followed by Worcester College at the University of Oxford. His father did not feel Rupert was progressing fast enough and was worried about whether or not Rupert would be able to take over for him after he retired. This caused Rupert to often rebel against his father, although he still wished to follow in his footsteps.

In 1952, Murdoch’s father died suddenly. Rupert moved back to Australia in order to take over his father’s business and ownership of The News. Although Rupert was expecting to receive a considerable inheritance, after death duties and taxes, his inheritance was whittled down considerably. Murdoch then spent the next several years establishing himself as a media mogul, acquiring several daily and suburban newspapers in Australia. In 1972, he acquired The Daily Telegraph, which is a Sydney-based newspaper from Sir Frank Packer. This made him one of the biggest newspaper proprietors in Australia.

By the mid-1960’s Murdoch moved to Britain and began to rapidly acquire newspapers there, including News of the World, The Sun and The Times. The British tabloid The Sun reportedly brings in one million pounds cash every week. His ruthless business sense in the tabloid market has earned him the nickname, “The Dirty Digger.”

Since making his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, Murdoch has become a naturalized citizen. He also purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team in 1998 for $311 million, which he then sold in 2004. He also started the Fox cable news channel, which has given CNN a run for its money. Other Murdoch-owned companies include Myspace.com, which he bought for over $500 million,

Murdoch married his first wife, Patricia Booker in 1956. Together they had one child named Prudence Murdoch McLeod before divorcing in 1967. The same year as he divorced, Murdoch married one of his employees named Anna Torv. Together they had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch (born in 1968), Lachlan Murdoch (born in 1971) and James Murdoch (born in 1972). Anna and Rupert divorced in 1999, with Anna taking home a settlement of $1.7 billion in assets.

His two eldest children with Anna have proven to be the most involved in the business aspects of Murdoch’s empire and will most likely take over the choice portions of their father’s businesses.

Seventeen days following the divorce from his second wife, the 70-year-old Murdoch married 30-year-old Wendi Deng who was the vice-president of STAR TV, suggesting that they had been involved prior to the divorce being finalized. They have two children together: Grace (born in 2001) and Chloe (born in 2003).

There is some controversy with Murdoch’s newspapers. He is blamed of placing cross promotions of products and interests from other Murdoch-owned companies into his newspapers. An example of this would be Murdoch allowing an unusually large number of book reviews in The Times to come from the publishing house, HarperCollins, which is also owned by Murdoch.