Rupert Murdoch

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Family

Australian-American entrepreneur who, after journalistic experience in London in 1962, took over the family's small newspaper and parlayed a barely profitable enterprise into several successful papers within two years. In 1981 he paid $27 million for the two-century old London Times, becoming a self-made tycoon. His media holdings include more than 80 publications on three continents and the American FOX television network. By 1998, his News Corp beamed Fox TV and movies worldwide and published an array of newspapers, magazines and books, estimated to be worth $5.3 billion. After living in Australia and England, he became a naturalized American citizen on 9/05/1985. He has been married twice, the first time on 3/01/1956 and the second time, to Anna Torv, on 3/28/1967. Unable to slow his incessant globe-trotting and deal making, and disinterested in the cultural events and domestic life that his wife offered, they separated in May 1988. As she is discreet and private, and a devout Catholic, it was a shock when she filed for divorce two months later. Murdoch has a daughter from his first marriage, Prudence, 40, plus three kids with Anna. Their oldest son, Lachlan, 26, in line to take over the company, now runs the Australian operations and is a promising executive. Elisabeth, 29, is general manager of the British satellite-TV branch and James, 25, is deputy publisher of the New York post. Murdoch was married for the third time in July 1999, just 17 days after his divorce from wife number two, Anna, to his 36-year younger bride, former employee Wendi Dang, aboard his yacht in New York Harbor. In May 2000, Murdoch began a course of radiation treatment for prostate cancer. A year later they announced that Wendi was expecting their first child. A nine pound daughter named Grace Helen was born to the conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 70, and wife Wendi Deng, 33 "the evening of 11/19/2001 at an undisclosed New York hospital." On July 17, 2003, the 72-year-old media mogul and his 35-year-old wife welcomed their second child, Chloe, born in New York City. The media mogul came under fire in July 2011 when news reports erupted of deleterious activities at his flagship English news outfit, News of the World. Employees of the news outlet reportedly had hacked into emails and voice mails of crime and terrorism victims, celebrities and members of the Royal Family. Murdoch canceled an impending merger with another large news outlet and shut down News of the World. Although British police had investigated such activities as far back as 2006, public outcry did not erupt until 2011 upon reports that News of the World employees had hacked into a young murder victim's e-mail, even changing or deleting some messages. Scotland Yard and the FBI are investigating to determine how widespread such hacking activities went, how many Murdoch-owned media entities are involved, how far up the chain of command the activities were authorized and whether criminal charges can be brought. Link to Wikipedia biography