The Scottish-born journalist was married to Rupert Murdoch for 31 years and was his “active partner” in building the media empire, News Corp.<\/p>\n
Born Anna Torv in 1944 in Glasgow, Scotland, her family emigrated to Australia when she was nine years old.<\/p>\n
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Anna Murdoch worked for the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph in Sydney. (Getty Images: Ken Fraught\/Toronto Star)<\/p>\n
Her parents established a picnic park outside Sydney, which later went bust \u2014 leading to the family’s move to a high-rise in the city’s outer-west.<\/p>\n
Not long after her mother walked out on the family.<\/p>\n
“She didn’t mean to hurt anybody,” Murdoch-Mann later said<\/a>. “I think she was rather a lost soul.”<\/p>\n She was left to raise her two younger brothers and younger sister, before becoming a reporter for the Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Mirror.<\/p>\n Within a short time she’d become the editor of the cadet newspaper and decided she wanted to interview her boss.<\/p>\n Murdoch later said<\/a> “I thought she was a very pretty girl. Her writing skills were not going through my mind.”<\/p>\n The young journalist recalled being drawn to Murdoch from the start, saying he “was like a whirlwind coming into the room. It was very seductive”.<\/p>\n Rupert Murdoch and Anna Torv married in 1967. (Getty Images: Ron Galella)<\/p>\n The couple had three children \u2014 Elisabeth, James and Lachlan, who is now the chair of News Corp.<\/p>\n They separated in 1998 following Murdoch’s affair with Wendi Deng, who he later married.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly,<\/a> Murdoch-Mann spoke candidly on the marriage she had tried to save, saying he was “extremely hard, ruthless and determined he was going to go through with this”.<\/p>\n Despite reports the separation was “amicable” and she would remain a non-executive director on the News Corp board, Murdoch-Mann later said she was forced to leave.<\/p>\n “I wasn’t given a choice. I was told \u2026 ‘you get off the board’,” she said.<\/p>\n Anna and Rupert Murdoch with their sons James (left) and Lachlan (right) in 1987.\u00a0 (Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)<\/p>\n On the day she announced her resignation, she had lunch with Wall Street financier William Mann, who had lost two wives to cancer.<\/p>\n “I knew it was going to be a shitty day \u2026 and that I needed something nice,” the newly-single mother said.<\/p>\n “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].<\/p>\n “So one door closes and another door opens. Sometimes you just have to open the door.”<\/p>\n They wed a year later in 1999, the same year she divorced Murdoch.<\/p>\n At the time she opted to take a relatively small settlement<\/a> of $US200 million, half in cash, the remainder in property. Under California law, she could have taken the media mogul for half his wealth.<\/p>\n Instead, she demanded that control of the business be equally split between her ex-husband and their children.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/7ffc033ae5a9cd3244d61c43cc15d81d.jpeg\")
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