World exclusive For 31 years, she was married to one of the world’s most powerful men, News

Corp chief Rupert Murdoch. Since their sudden break-up three years ago, Anna
Murdoch Mann has retained a dignified silence. Now, in this exclusive interview,
she speaks to The Weekly for the first time about what really happened to their
marriage and opens up her magnificent home in the Hamptons which she

T
shares with new husband, financier William Mann.

There are a number of ways a woman could

break her silence. She could call a media
conference and then settle the score in
the most public of ways. She could auction
herself to the highest bidder – in this case,
a most unlikely option. She could divulge
her thoughts to a trusted friend and, like the
late Diana, have them leaked to a journalist
of choice. Or she could, three years after the
event, and only after she’s truly recovered
her poise and sense of well-being, agree to
a one-off interview where she could do two
things at once – reveal herself anew and
finally put forward her side of the story.
Anna Murdoch Mann Anna Murdoch aka Anna Murdoch Mann
relaxes beside the aka Anna Mann, has chosen the latter
pool of the house in course. On a golden summer’s afternoon on
the Hamptons, Long Long Island, recently, the former wife of the
Island, which she shares world’s most powerful media figure decided
with her new husband, to speak her mind about the spectacular
William Mann. “He’s break-up of their marriage three years ago.
very different from In so doing, she has, in a manner
Rupert,” she says. both dignified and deadly for its aim,
accused her husband of nearly 31 years
of misrepresenting his relationship with
Wendi Deng, and of dealing with her, the
mother of their three children, in a ruthless
and implacable fashion.
Twenty minutes into our interview,
fixing me with her cool, pale blue eyes, she
declares that as far as she’s concerned it was
Rupert’s infidelity that led to the separation.
“I think that Rupert’s affair with Wendi Deng
– it’s not an original plot – was the end of

ANNA
the marriage. His determination to continue
with that. I thought we had a wonderful,
happy marriage. Obviously we didn’t.”
This claim sits uncomfortably with
the public position taken by Rupert
Murdoch over the past three years

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S T O RY B Y D AV I D L E S E R
PHOTOGRAPHY BY EDDIE SANDERSON

& her kingdom

– that his relationship with the The announcement came in April “Anna’s support has been enormously and good and strong people [on the
Chinese-born Wendi Deng began after 1998, courtesy of Liz Smith, America’s helpful to me in what I must admit is board]. And my children were involved,
his separation from Anna Murdoch pre-eminent gossip columnist and an a demanding and turbulent career,” he too. My son was on the board. Lachlan.
in April 1998. Anna begs to differ. employee of the Murdoch-owned said in the report. “Her contribution to So I thought that it was better to be
“He behaved badly,” Anna says now tabloid daily, the New York Post. News Corporation notably includes, dignified and resign.
without rancour. “However, for my In a three-paragraph news item, but goes far beyond, our three children, “And I spoke at the board the day that
children’s sake I have said nothing ... she assured the world that, after Elisabeth, Lachlan and James, all now I resigned. I explained how I had worked
I’ve waited all this time for him to make 31 years of marriage and three children, working in the company and making for the company since I was about 18
it right again, but he never took the the Murdochs had decided to have an significant contributions.” years old ... and that this was not just the
opportunity.” “amicable separation”, so amicable What Murdoch failed to say was end of my marriage. It was the end of a
that Anna Murdoch would remain a that he’d forced his former wife off the whole life.

I T WAS BILLED AS one of the bust-

ups of the century. Rupert Murdoch,
the Citizen Kane of our times, owner of
non-executive director of the News
Corporation board, on which she had
served since 1990.
board.
“I wasn’t given a choice,” Anna says
now. “I was told.”
“I said I wished News Corp the best
and that ... Rupert’s children were my
children, too, and that I had always tried
newspapers, television stations and film It was humbug. Six months later, How did he put it? to do my best for News Corporation ...
studios across the globe, possessor of in October of that year, Murdoch “You get off the board ...” and that I was very sad to be leaving.” Top left: The sumptuous living room of Anna and William Mann’s house,
unimaginable riches, wielder of almost announced in his 1998 annual report What did you say in reply? (Long pause) With that, Anna Murdoch had walked bought last year from Yasmin Aga Khan. Top: A stylish Anna poses with a
unparalleled power, had separated from that, far from staying on the News “Well, there’s no point being there if from the fourth floor office, accompanied favourite antique chair. She has decorated the house with an eclectic mix.
his closest confidante, the woman who Corporation board, his wife would be you’re of no use and it’s embarrassing to by Lachlan, leaving in her wake her ex- Above: New husband William takes pride of place with son Lachlan and Sarah.
had helped make it all possible. leaving it altogether. everyone else on the board. They’re nice husband and a board room of shaken

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and, in some instances, moist-eyed directors. She then collected herself with a
14 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 15
strong cup of coffee and went off to have
lunch with William Mann, the Wall Street
financier who had already lost two wives
to cancer and whom she would end up
marrying one year later.
“I knew it was going to be a shitty
day,” she says now, “and that I needed
something nice ... I just sort of knew
there was something there that I really
liked [about Bill] and, in fact, we had
lunch together [with a friend]. It was all
very proper ... So one door closes and
another door opens. Sometimes you
just have to open the door.”

A NNA MURDOCH MANN was born

Anna Torv in Glasgow in 1944,
the first of four children of a Scottish
drycleaner, Sylvia Braida, and Estonian-
born merchant seaman, Jacob Torv. Torv
was on the look-out for a better life and,
just before World War II, had arrived in the
United Kingdom and fallen in love with
the young Sylvia through the window of
her parents’ dry-cleaning shop.
In 1953, he decided to chance his arm
by moving the family to Australia. Anna
has said previously that the sea voyage
which took them to the Antipodes via
the Suez Canal was the first time in her
life she had felt warm.
And yet Australia proved no Promised
Land. In an attempt to break out of the
dry-cleaning business which
had sustained them in
Scotland, Jacob and Sylvia
tried to establish a picnic park outside
Sydney. It went bankrupt and the family
ended up moving into a high-rise in
Sydney’s outer-west.
Not long afterwards, Anna’s mother
walked out on the family. Today, she lives
in a nursing home in rural NSW, suffering
from Alzheimer’s.
“She didn’t mean to hurt anybody,”
her daughter says now. “I think she
was rather a lost soul. I think she
always thought the grass was greener
somewhere else and, of course, it
wasn’t.
“The sad thing is that afterwards
she would say to us that perhaps she
shouldn’t have done it, that she should
have stayed with Dad. It didn’t work out
to be the lovely bed of roses she thought
that it would be.”
(Anna’s father died in 1989 at Cavan,
the Murdoch farm near Canberra, where
he had come to live 15 years earlier. He
was 77 years old, and in his memory
Anna planted 77 yellow box gum trees
near where his ashes were scattered. Opposite: Anna bought this Mexican painting of Archangel Gabriel in Santa
She told The Weekly she was grateful her Fe and brought it from her ranch in Carmel, California. Top: In the dining
father was not alive to see her marriage room, a primitive-style painting by Mexican artist Esau. Above: The former
collapse. “I took comfort in the fact he journalist and author’s light-filled sunroom looks out to the pool and garden.
wasn’t there because he would have

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THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 17
 Above: A formal parterre garden of clipped hedges leads to the entrance of
the Manns’ lavish Hamptons home. Right: Anna on the patio, the outdoor area
where Bill celebrated his 75th birthday in June. The open-air living area is
unusual for its large open fireplace and a bust of Neptune made from seashells.

been devastated.”) the Mirror, it was not difficult to get to blonde, although not as compatible with from her home in Wimbledon, after being an effect on me in the way I felt about the house in Sydney, the farm near
Anna Torv became the replacement know the journalists – for she was both Murdoch as his second wife would prove seen driving the Murdochs’ Rolls-Royce. England.” Canberra and the luxury yacht, Morning
mother to her two brothers and sister. beautiful and ambitious.” to be. (The car had been lent to them while America,ontheotherhand,wasdifferent. Glory. Total value: about $125million.)
She admits it made her bossy. “I had to She was also highly talented. Within Over the next 31 years, as Rupert Anna and Elisabeth were in Australia By 1973, Murdoch had established his During the height of Murdoch’s
take responsibility. I mean [I was] the one a short time she’d become editor of the Murdoch’sdazzlingtrajectorytransformed for Christmas.) first beachhead across the Atlantic by American blitzkrieg, a major newspaper
taking them to places or making sure cadet newspaper and had decided she him from a southern hemisphere media Assuming that the woman in the Rolls- buying three Texas newspapers. Anna headline screamed: “WHAT DOES THIS
they went to the dentist and that kind wanted to interview none other than mogul to arguably the most indomitable Royce was Anna Murdoch and, therefore, was pleased. She liked America, felt MAN WANT?” The answer was simple.
of stuff ... so if they didn’t get out of bed her boss. Murdoch was to say later: “I figure on earth, Anna would become his believing her husband was more than freer there, and over the next 25 years, as The world – especially a world increasingly
in the morning to go to school, it was thought she was a very pretty girl. Her staunchest defender and best friend. well cashed up, the kidnappers her husband proceeded to acquire more defined by the information revolution
[my] responsibility.” writing skills were not going through my In England, where he had become demanded a ransom of a million pounds. newspapers, magazines, a major book and the furthest reaches of global
As a Catholic, Anna had been educated mind.” For her part, the young Anna said a pariah – the “Dirty Digger” they When they discovered their mistake, they publisher, a national television network, communications. After America would
by nuns at the Sister of Mercy School, but she found Rupert Murdoch attractive called him because of his newspaper’s murdered Mrs McKay and reportedly fed a film studio – Twentieth Century-Fox no come Eastern Europe. After Europe,
by the time she was 16 she was hungry from the start. “He was like a whirlwind salacious preoccupations and intrusions her body to farm animals. less – not to mention baseball, basketball China, then India, then perhaps the
for adventure. She dreamt of being an coming into the room. It was very into the private lives of others – Anna Asked now about the ostracism she and hockey teams, she found herself whole Asian sub-continent.
actress or a journalist. seductive.” was forever the loyalist. This, despite felt at the hands of British society, not to spending more time either at their ranch Perhaps no single individual in modern
Within a year, she’d been offered a job In 1967, Anna and Rupert Murdoch her feeling shunned, lonely and, on mention the terror of being a target for at Carmel, their lodge in Aspen (with times had ever had such a long arm. If he
as a clerk in the finance department of were married. It was Murdoch’s second occasion, scared. abduction, Anna says, “It seemed like it the swimming pool in the living room!), wanted the President of the United States
Sydney’s Murdoch-owned Daily Mirror, marriage. Eleven years earlier he had In one well-documented, harrowing happened to someone else. That whole their apartment in Manhattan or their on the line, he could get him, and did.
and, as Murdoch’s biographer, William wed Patricia Booker, a former airline incident, Muriel McKay, the wife of News sort of period was somebody else ... mansion in Beverly Hills. If there were favours to be called in
Shawcross, has pointed out, “once at hostess. She, too, was an attractive Ltd executive Alick McKay, was abducted another lifetime, [but] I’m sure that had (There was also the London apartment, from the British Prime Minister, he

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18 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 19
could call them in, and would. If In despair, Anna
he wanted a government elected Murdoch turned to
or defeated, well, he could see her good friend, the late
about that too. Cardinal John O’Connor, the
And always alongside him was Catholic Church’s then spiritual
Anna, his chief sounding board as leader in New York. He told
well as beautiful, charming foil for her she had little choice but to
those endless working dinners he initiate divorce proceedings.
would have at one of their seven On June 8, 1999, the Murdoch
properties around the world. divorce was finalised. By this time,
Apart from the Rupert Murdoch had become
time in 1990 when the petitioner. “It was important
a bank in Pittsburg to me,” Anna says now, “for no
had the temerity reason except I believe when you
to threaten his entire take a vow to be loyal to someone
global empire – and look after someone all your
they refused to roll life, that you try and stick to that.
over a $10 million You don’t hurt other people for
loan – Rupert Murdoch your own happiness.
was seemingly invincible, “So on the papers ... you would
unstoppable. see that he was the petitioner for
And therein lay the seeds of the divorce, and he was granted
destruction for the Murdoch the divorce, not me.”
marriage. Anna wanted her Seventeen days later, Rupert
husband to slow down. Anna and William Mann on a skiing trip to Vail, Murdoch and Wendi Deng
Rupert couldn’t help but Colorado last year – “I don’t think he’ll let me down.” married in a secret wedding
keep moving. Anna wanted aboard his yacht on New York
to know where home really was.
Rupert didn’t care. Anna wanted their “Anna married the 72-year-old Wall Street financier
three children to be free from huge,
dynastic expectations. Rupert seemed at a surprise ceremony ... the mood was euphoric.”
to revel in creating them. Despite being
a loving father, he spent more time in a impossible – she had carved out an harbour. In October of that year – six
plane or on the phone than he did with independent existence for herself, while months later – Anna Murdoch married
his family. at the same time remaining the loyal, the 72-year-old Wall Street financier
“Is Daddy going deaf?” their younger dutiful spouse. William Mann at a surprise ceremony in
son, James, once asked his mother. “No, But the walls came tumbling down the Lady Chapel of New York’s St Patrick’s
he’s just not listening,” replied Anna. in 1998, when her husband fell for Cathedral. The mood was euphoric.
Anna once said she could have the daughter of a factory director in Today, Anna Mann is loathe to discuss
complained and become a whining Guangzhou, China. At 31, Wendi Deng details of her divorce settlement or
wife. She chose not to, instead turning was less than half Rupert Murdoch’s age. elaborate on claims that the proceedings
his long absences into a positive use of She had joined the Murdoch-owned Star only turned acrimonious after she
her time. TV in Hong Kong in 1996 as an intern. She learned of her husband’s relationship
She began studying the violin was smart, beautiful, fluent in English with Wendi Deng. Until then, she had
and cello, but gave them away and Mandarin and the perfect person to reportedly been prepared to accept as
because she felt she was not talented play the role of unofficial diplomat for part of the property settlement around
enough. She went to university News Corp in China, a country where $US100million as well as several of their
to study literature and mythology, business success and good relations with homes.
eventually getting her degree from government were inexorably linked. This, of course, was almost
New York University. And, of course, By early 1998, she’d begun appearing spare change compared to the
she became a novelist, notwithstanding by Murdoch’s side as his interpreter on $12 billion in assets the couple
her husband’s initially “devastating” his trips to Shanghai and Beijing. By July, was thought to have accumulated
criticisms of her writing. Anna Murdoch had filed for divorce. during their 31 years together – assets
By the time she was 40, she had written Anna reveals now, however, that which, under Californian law, Anna
her first book, In Her Own Image – about although she was the one who initially Murdoch was surely entitled to half of.
women and their need for faith and filed for divorce, it was her former Except for one crucial thing.
courage in a man’s world. A few years husband who, in the end, obtained it. As The Sydney Morning Herald reported
later, her second book, Family Business, She had tried desperately to save the in May 1999, Murdoch owned next
hit the shelves. It was a thinly disguised marriage, but to no avail. “I don’t want to to nothing. He had managed to store
account of her husband’s takeover of the get too personal about all this,” she says his wealth – and his children’s – in an
racy British tabloid News of the World in “... but [he] was extremely hard, ruthless, intricate network of trusts and private
the late 1960s. Then, in 1991, her third and determined that he was going to companies in which, technically and
book, Coming to Terms, was published. go through with this no matter what legally, he had no involvement.
It was loosely based on her father. I wanted or what I was trying to do to All Anna Mann will say of this is,
To the world, it looked as though save the marriage. He had no interest “I’m very comfortable and my children
Anna Murdoch had achieved the near in that whatsoever.” [including Prudence MacLeod,
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THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001 21

Rupert Murdoch’s daughter by has spoken now is because, as she says
his first marriage] are protected herself, she didn’t want to come across
and that was really what as a victim.
I was most anxious about – that “You’re in such a state of shock ...” she
my children and their inheritance says. “I mean, in a way you’re sort of
would be protected. And that’s mentally ill because you’re not absorbing
what took so long – between the everything. I think it’s a way of nature
separation and the divorce – to get protecting you from it.
that right.” “I think I even began to lose my ability
Asked whether she received with words, which is amazing for me
$A1billion in the settlement, as because I am usually quite good with
some rumours would have it, Mrs words. But I would forget the names of
Mann says politely but firmly, “No things. Other people I have talked to who
comment.” have gone through [divorce] say that’s
Pressed further on the somewhat what happened to them, too. You really
vexed question of a successor to go into a state of shock. I feel now I’m
her former husband, Mrs Mann coming out of a deep mental illness.”
agrees that her main concern was Anna also says she chose to break her
that a successor not come from his silence with an Australian magazine
new family. because of her love for Australia and
So it can’t be Wendi Deng? because of the number of concerned
“Not at all.” inquiries she has had from this country
And it can’t be Wendi’s over the past three years.
children? Rupert Murdoch with third wife Wendi “I’ve had other offers from other
“Not at all, not at all.” Deng in March 2001. They are expecting a places to do interviews and I haven’t
Asked more pointedly for her
thoughts upon learning that her ex-
husband is about to become a father “I’ve got sadness about me, and hurt. But I hope I
for the fifth time, Anna said, “No
comment”. haven’t got bitterness ... there’s no point in that.”
So who of her three children would she
think best suited to take over from her Hamptons. done them,” she says. “I thought, ‘I want
ex-husband? Lachlan, the deputy chief All through the house you can discover to do it for Australia,’ because a lot of
operating officer of News Corporation? choice offerings from her old life as well Australians have written to me and
James, currently chief executive of Star as new: lanterns from Sydney; naive asked, ‘How are you?’ or, ‘What are you
Television in Hong Kong? Or Elisabeth, paintings from South America; Buddhist doing?’ And I thought this was a nice way
mother-of-three and currently running statues from Thailand; carved sea-horses of letting everyone know I’m okay. More
her own independent television from Italy; chairs from Scotland, cherub than okay.”
production house in London? figures from up-state New York. And It would appear so. During the nearly
“Actually I’d like none of them nearly every room filled with light and four hours we spent together, it was
to,” she says. “I think they’re all views across pale fields and orchards impossible not to be struck by the grace
so good that they could do whatever they to the Atlantic. and dignity of this 57-year-old woman; by
wanted really. But I think there’s going to “I’m going to be here for a long time,” the ease and propensity of her laughter
be a lot of heartbreak and hardship with she says with undisguised glee. It is here – deep, infectious waves of laughter that
this [succession]. There’s been such a lot she wants to return to her writing and her filled the air and percolated the space
of pressure that they needn’t have had gardening and the sharing of crosswords, that she now calls her true home.
at their age.” long walks and leisurely lunches with Despite the pointedness of her words,
Under the terms of the divorce her new husband. despite the sometimes long, painful
settlement, Anna Mann would have It is here, too, that she wants her silences and monosyllabic answers
also been entitled to some of the seven children to come and stay and, of course, during our interview, you would never
homes she created and shared with her three grandchildren – Cornelia and come away believing that this was a
Murdoch. Anna from her daughter, Elisabeth’s, bitter woman. Quite the contrary.
She reveals now she walked first marriage to Elkin Pianim – and “I’ve got sadness about me, and hurt,”
away from them all. “It was time to move Charlotte, Elisabeth’s daughter with she admits in a voice that still bears the
on,” she says. “I knew I could create Matthew Freud, great-grandson of lyrical strains of her Glaswegian past.“But
something of beauty again without all psychoanalyst Sigmund. I hope I haven’t got bitterness, because I
the painful memories.” Says Anna laughing: “I thought, think that reacts against yourself. There’s
As she has done, in great style. Her ‘What on earth is this baby going to no point having that.”
house, which she and Bill Mann bought be like with the blood of Rupert Murdoch What she will admit to though is a
from Yasmin Aga Khan last year for a and Sigmund Freud running around in feeling of relief – “a great relief now not
reported $US5million, is a place of beauty its veins,’ [but] Charlotte is the most to have to defend some of those actions
and grandeur, nestled among spruce happy, sanguine child that you could all the time. It’s really lovely, actually. I
and Atlas cedars and cherry trees in that ever imagine.” think, ‘I don’t have to do this any more’ ”
well-known New York refuge for jet- Were you play-acting then? “I don’t
setters, powerbrokers, billionaires,
actors and aristocrats known as the ANNA MANN WAITED three years to
give this interview. The reason she
think it was play-acting.You could publicly
defend certain actions and privately you

22 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – AUGUST 2001

could say, ‘Look, I really think that was
wrong.’ But publicly and as a supportive
wife you would do that.”
When I ask her whether she thinks
that some of the critics might have been
right all along about the man for whom
she helped secure a papal knighthood in
1998, she says, softly, yes, perhaps they
might have been.
“I began to think the Rupert Murdoch
that I loved died a long time ago. Perhaps
I was in love with the idea of still being in
love with him. But the Rupert I fell in love
with could not have behaved this way.”
Was it possible that he might wake up
one morning and realise he’d lost his best
friend? Anna Mann pauses for a moment
and then says with a smile and a shrug,
“Well, perhaps, who knows? The truth
of it though is that, now, I have found a
best friend. I have found a man who loves
the companionship that I offer. And the
comfort. And we do things together. I
don’t always have to find something to
do because I’m lonely. I have been
terribly [lonely], but I’ve been terribly
lucky to find this.
“He’s very different [from Rupert].
He’s a kind, gentle, very spiritual man.
I don’t think he’ll let me down. I think
he’ll be there for me.” W

23 THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN’S WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 2000