, or a career as a supermodel (Jerry Hall), a hotline to God (Ann Lesley Smith) or having a billionaire former son-in-law (Elena Zhukova). Anna Murdoch met and married Rupert when he was her boss and she was a cub reporter in Sydney. But that doesn't mean Anna doesn't have her own extraordinary back story with just as much exotic heritage and extraordinary drama as any of the other Murdoch matrons. Anna, 79, didn't come from a monied background, unlike Rupert (whose father, Sir Keith Murdoch, a Melbourne newspaper proprietor, bequeathed Australian media assets which would serve as a springboard for his global amassment of media holdings). Instead, she was born in Glasgow in 1944. Her Estonian father Jakob Tõrv was a merchant seaman; Sylvia Braida, her Scottish mother, was a dry cleaner. The family emigrated to Australia when Anna – who has three siblings – was a teenager. Once there, Anna attended Our Lady of Mercy College, a single-sex Catholic school for girls in Parramatta, Sydney. But the family dream soured not long after; a failed picnic park venture bankrupted her parents. Her mother, Sylvia, abandoned the family home. At 18, Anna began work as a cadet reporter on Murdoch's Sydney newspapers, first the Daily Mirror, then the Daily Telegraph. Here she met Rupert when asked to interview him. The couple married in 1967, when Anna was 23 and Rupert was 36. Tragedy struck soon after. Two years into the){kind=link}
Rupert has crowned Lachlan as his successor at News Corp, but that could also bring ex-wife Anna back into the fold
When Lachlan Murdoch takes up his role as head of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, his circle of confidants will inevitably shrink. But there is one opinion he will always want to hear, that of his mother, Anna. “We are very close to our mother,” Lachlan has said.
Anna was Rupert Murdoch’s second and longest-serving wife. The couple were together for 32 years and have three children: Elisabeth, 54; Lachlan, 51; and James, 50. And she was, definitely, his last predictable partner.
Not for her a past that included growing up in China (Wendi Deng), or a career as a supermodel (Jerry Hall), a hotline to God (Ann Lesley Smith) or having a billionaire former son-in-law (Elena Zhukova). Anna Murdoch met and married Rupert when he was her boss and she was a cub reporter in Sydney.
But that doesn’t mean Anna doesn’t have her own extraordinary back story with just as much exotic heritage and extraordinary drama as any of the other Murdoch matrons.