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“Who walks to work from Beverly Hills?” Candreva said with a laugh. He recalled a morning when he was at Murdoch’s house, checking his security system.
“He said, ‘Hey, sit down and have breakfast with us,’” Candreva said. “He’s just a phenomenal person, he really is. It was him and the bodyguard … and I am sitting there. And, of course, what did he want to discuss? Politics.”
In liberal-leaning Hollywood, there are plenty of detractors who disagree with Murdoch’s politics and resent Fox News’ influence in American politics.
Last summer, Steve Levitan, co-creator of the hit ABC show “Modern Family” (a Fox production), wrote in a Twitter message that he was “disgusted” to be part of a corporate family with Fox News.
“I do not remotely share Rupert’s politics, but he was an excellent boss of a creative operation because creativity involves risk, and Rupert understood risk,” said Tom Rothman, a former Fox movie chief who now is chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group. “And I admire him for that.”
Rothman and other Fox veterans credit Murdoch for encouraging them to take risks. And, they say, his conservative politics didn’t influence programming decisions — unlike at his publications and Fox News.
“Rupert was never a micromanaging boss,” said Chernin, who worked with Murdoch from 1989 to 2009.
His rebellious spirit infused the company’s DNA.
“He was fun, he was wild, and he really wanted to do bold things,” Chernin said. “If you presented him with a plan, Rupert would say, ‘Great, let’s do it.’”
His appreciation for storytelling and controversy was honed as a youth and during his early career when he was a newspaper editor, several people said.
“Fox has always had a pugnacious attitude,” Landgraf said. “And Rupert is not someone who operates out of fear. He really believes in the value of making bets. We are not a box company.”
Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons,” said he’s grateful for Murdoch’s support for his show, the longest-running scripted series in prime time. Other networks wouldn’t have touched such an unorthodox cartoon, he said. The mogul even voiced the animated Rupert Murdoch character, introducing himself in one episode as “the billionaire tyrant.”
“He was a good sport. He liked the show, so that was a help,” Groening said. (Disney will own “The Simpsons,” but the show will continue to air on Fox.)
Murdoch shrugged off problems that might have rattled others. When the budget for James Cameron’s epic “Titanic” was ballooning, Murdoch told Chernin: “Don’t let it overwhelm you. Keep your head down and keep going.”
He had strong opinions, and he made them known. At the 2002 Super Bowl in New Orleans, Murdoch was frustrated that Fox network programmers hadn’t ordered a TV show that his daughter in London, Elisabeth, had recommended. “What’s going on with that show?” Murdoch demanded. He ordered his lieutenants to buy the rights and told them not to change the format. It became Fox’s biggest hit, “American Idol.”
Murdoch didn’t hide his disdain for the film business.
“Murdoch was always railing against Hollywood in our weekly meetings with all the heads of the company,” said Bill Mechanic, who ran the Fox movie studio in the mid-1990s. “He’d attack me or the movie business. He said, ‘You guys never take any chances.’ That was crazy, considering the movies I was making.”
Bob Greenblatt, who is now chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment, worked at Fox in the early 1990s when he was a young TV executive.
“He would come in and talk about what shows he liked, or what shows he didn’t like,” Greenblatt said. One particular show, “Party of Five,” about five siblings trying to make it after their parents were killed by a drunk driver, didn’t escape Murdoch’s critique.
“He would be like, ‘Let’s get rid of it; the ratings are terrible,’” Greenblatt recalled. “But everyone else was so fervent about keeping the show. Rupert never stood in the way of decisions like that. He let us do our jobs.”
Murdoch’s career began unexpectedly in 1952 upon the death of his father, a respected Australian newspaper editor. Sir Keith Murdoch controlled two newspapers, but one was sold — over Rupert’s objections — to satisfy tax obligations. (Rupert’s mother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, was 103 when she died in 2012.)
Murdoch, then 22, returned from Oxford University (where he kept a bust of Lenin in his room to cultivate a rebel image) to run the Adelaide News, earning the nickname “boy publisher.” He would thunder around town in a bulky American car with a Great Dane named Webster.
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