Rupert Murdoch’s distaste for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has often spilled out onto the pages of the New York Post, and into broadcasts on Fox News, both of which he owns.
But it would be a mistake to see daughter Elisabeth’s decision to host a London fundraiser for Barack Obama later this month as Daddy’s doing.
Sure, she may want to run her father’s billion-dollar empire some day. But it is likely that Obama’s story has particular resonance for Elisabeth Murdoch, whose first husband, Elkin Kwesi Pianim, is Ghanian, and with whom she has two children.
Since leaving her father’s employ to form her own television production company, Elisabeth Murdoch has established a reputation as a shrewd and strong-willed businesswoman in her own right, winning the sobriquet, Britain’s “Most Powerful Blond” from Tatler Magazine. Her company, Shine Ltd., has made a name for itself by adapting American hits like Project Runway for British audiences. Last month, the company clinched a deal to buy Los Angeles-based Reveille, another independent television production company behind the hit shows The Office and Ugly Betty.
A citizen of both the U.S. and Britain, Murdoch grew up primarily in New York City, where she attended the exclusive Brearley School and then Vassar College, and she continues to maintain close ties to the U.S.
She and her current husband, public relations guru Matthew Freud, the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, are part of the international glitterati scene in London, which includes a number of wealthy American expatriates, some of whom signed on as co-sponsors of the Notting Hill fundraiser.
That list includes actress Gwyneth Paltrow, David Blood, who runs an investment fund with former Vice President Al Gore, Warner Brothers UK chief Josh Berger and Swedish heiress Cristina M. Stenbeck, a vice president of Investment AB Kinnevike.
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