At 80, Murdoch is still ace dealmaker

It was 1953, and he was 22 years old. His father's death prompted him to return from Oxford to take charge of the family business.

He became the managing director of News Limited.

And thus started the famed journey of Keith Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-American media magnate and the founder, chairman, and CEO of News Corporation.

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Born on March 11, 1931, Murdoch turns 80 today.

Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp into the United Kingdom, United States and Asia.

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Murdoch was listed three times in the Time 100 as one among the most influential people in the world.

He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes' The World's Most Powerful People list.

Murdoch, is now worth $7.6 billion, instead of the $6.3 billion recorded for the Forbes' 2010 list.

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Murdoch has a history of hosting private meetings with influential politicians.

Both parties describe such meetings as politically insignificant; social events, informal dinners or friendly drinks.

It has however been argued that such meetings are significant because of Murdoch's exceptional influence as an international media magnate.

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In 1956 he married Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne with whom he had his first child, a daughter, Prudence, born in 1958.

Rupert and Patricia Murdoch divorced in 1967.

Murdoch divorced his second wife (and the mother to four of his children) Anna Murdoch in 1998 after more than 30 years of marriage.

He then went on to marry a member of his staff in the Asian operations (Star TV). Wendi Deng is roughly 40 years younger than Murdoch.

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Murdoch has always moved around the world to be near his business interests.

From Britain, he relocated to the United States and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985.

Talking about her son, Murdoch's mother Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, who turned 102 last month, says wealth and influence are not everything to everyone, adding she is proud of his son because he is a good father and a good son.

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Speculation about Murdoch's retirement and succession planning has been rife for years.

But Murdoch is showing no signs of slowing down as he readies to bag one of his life's biggest deals.

Media reports suggest, News Corp is poised to win control of British broadcaster BSkyB with a pound 7.5 billion (about $12.2 billion) bid for the shares it does not already own.