Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old billionaire who owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and The Sun, among other media outlets, is getting married for the fifth time in July. His fiancée is Elena Zhukova, a 67-year-old Russian molecular biologist who was introduced to him by his third ex-wife, Wendi Deng.
But before Murdoch became one of the most powerful and influential media tycoons in the world, he was a young and ambitious journalist from Australia who married his first wife, Patricia Booker, in 1956. Who was Patricia Booker, and what was her relationship with Murdoch like? Here are some facts about the woman who was once married to the media magnate.
Early Life, Birthdate
Patricia Booker was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1934 (age: 66 years, when died in 2000). She worked as a flight attendant for Ansett Airways and also as a department store model. She met Rupert Murdoch in the mid-1950s, when he was a 25-year-old reporter for The Adelaide News, a newspaper owned by his father, Sir Keith Murdoch.
According to The Guardian, Murdoch was attracted to Booker’s beauty and sophistication, and proposed to her after a whirlwind romance. They got married in 1956 in a lavish ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, attended by 700 guests, including the then prime minister, Robert Menzies.
Patricia Booker Wiki/Bio
| Name | Patricia Booker |
|---|---|
| Birth Date | 1934 |
| Birth Place | Melbourne, Australia |
| Occupation | Flight attendant, model |
| Marriage Date | 1956 |
| Divorce Date | 1967 |
| Spouse | Rupert Murdoch (1956-1967), Freddie Maeder (1968-1998) |
| Children | Prudence Murdoch |
| Death Date | 1998 |
| Death Place | Switzerland |
| Cause of Death | Cancer |
She had one daughter with Rupert Murdoch
Patricia Booker and Rupert Murdoch had one child together, a daughter named Prudence, who was born in 1958. Prudence is the eldest of Murdoch’s six children from his four marriages. She is currently a newspaper executive and a board member of News Corp, her father’s media empire.
Prudence was raised by her mother in Sydney, after her parents divorced in 1967. She had a strained relationship with her father for many years, and did not attend his wedding to Wendi Deng in 1999. However, she later reconciled with him and became more involved in his business affairs.
Source
She divorced Rupert Murdoch after 11 years of marriage
Patricia Booker and Rupert Murdoch’s marriage began to crumble in the 1960s, as Murdoch became more obsessed with expanding his media empire. He moved to London in 1964, after buying The News of the World, and later acquired The Sun and The Times. He also started an affair with Anna Maria Torv, a Scottish-born journalist who worked for his newspapers.
Booker filed for divorce in 1967, citing Murdoch’s adultery as the reason. She received a settlement of £100,000, which was considered a large sum at the time. She also got custody of their daughter, Prudence, and a house in Sydney.
She remarried and died in 1998
After divorcing Murdoch, Patricia Booker married Freddie Maeder, a Swiss ski instructor and hotelier, in 1968. They moved to Switzerland and ran a hotel in the Alps. Booker kept a low profile and rarely spoke to the media about her ex-husband or his affairs.
She died in 1998, at the age of 64, after a long battle with cancer. She was survived by her husband, her daughter, and her three grandchildren.
She was the first of Rupert Murdoch’s four ex-wives
Rupert Murdoch married Anna Maria Torv in 1967, just months after his divorce from Patricia Booker was finalized. They had three children together: Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James, who are all involved in their father’s media business. They divorced in 1999, after 32 years of marriage, in what was then the most expensive divorce settlement in history, costing Murdoch £1.2 billion.
Murdoch married Wendi Deng in 1999, just weeks after his divorce from Torv was finalized. Deng was a 30-year-old Chinese-born entrepreneur and movie producer, who met Murdoch in Hong Kong in 1997. They had two daughters together: Grace and Chloe. They divorced in 2013, after 14 years of marriage, amid rumors of Deng’s infidelity and involvement with former British prime minister Tony Blair.
Murdoch married Jerry Hall in 2016, after being introduced by one of his sisters. Hall was a 60-year-old American model and actress, who was previously in a long-term relationship with Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. They had four children together. Murdoch and Hall divorced in 2022, after six years of marriage.
Murdoch is now engaged to Elena Zhukova, who is the mother of Dasha Zhukova, a Russian socialite and art collector, who was formerly married to Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club. They are planning to get married in July 2021, at Murdoch’s California wine estate.
She was a part of Rupert Murdoch’s early life and career
Patricia Booker was the first wife of Rupert Murdoch, who is now one of the most influential and controversial media moguls in the world. She was a part of his early life and career, when he was a young and ambitious journalist from Australia, who inherited his father’s newspaper business and expanded it into a global media empire.
She was also the mother of his eldest daughter, Prudence, who is a key figure in his family and business affairs. She was a beautiful and sophisticated woman, who married Murdoch for love, but divorced him for his infidelity and ambition. She lived a quiet and private life after their divorce, and died in 1998, leaving behind a legacy of her own.
