...Probably.

Since, a youthful, pudgy, unattractively side burned, binge-drinking, cigarette-smoking physical sluggard, he embarked on his first campaign out of Adelaide--to conquer Sydney, amidst derisive cackling from the brutish soldiery of the Packer and Fairfax enterprises--Murdoch has painstakingly remodelled himself physically. His principal residences and most-frequented office buildings have for years contained ornately equipped gymnasiums, in which the first authentic Australian tycoon relentlessly punishes his body for suspected weaknesses.

Since he took to owning country hangouts, Murdoch has added to his grim gym workouts power walking (and in the case of his place in Aspen, Colorado, power skiing) over rugged terrain. In earlier days, when he had time for such frivolities, he often tested prospective employees with breakneck hikes across his country estates. A sugar-loaf protuberance on one of his Australian properties may account for the Sherpa Tensing's absence from Murdoch payrolls.

As near as an innately sensual man can get to such monastic practice, Murdoch treats food and drink as fuel. He has a rather mysterious formula--possibly formulated by him--for periodically reducing his body weight by 3.7762 per cent, or some such neo-Einsteinian micro-calculation.

Murdoch is intensely interested in how his body works, but in the dispassionate manner of an engineer rather than of the narcissist. He broke his leg skiing a few years ago and treasured a video of the surgery which repaired the injuries. While not rivalling the Ancient Mariner by stopping one in three, Murdoch missed few opportunities to show the video to small audiences. Some viewers took more for granted than Rupert the complexity of God's handiwork.

Murdoch also has genetics on his side in meeting the challenge of re-directing the Journal. His mother, Dame Elisabeth (formerly a Miss Green) is a robust ninety-eight. I had the privilege of shepherding Rupert's great-uncle Professor Walter Murdoch through his first television appearance when he was eighty-eight (he lived until ninety-four) and I was forty-two. The interview...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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