Who Is Wendi Deng? From Middle-Class China to Yale Grad to the New Mrs. Murdoch

Chinese immigrant, recipient of a Yale MBA, the third Mrs. Murdoch. Call her whatever you want, but Wendi Deng, the third wife of News Corp's Rupert Murdoch, has definitely made headlines, most recently when she blocked a pie of shaving cream from hitting her husband during a Parliamentary committee hearing.

Wendi Deng was born in 1968 in China to a middle class family before attending Yale School of Management and working as an intern at Star TV, the Hong Kong-based satellite of News Corp, where she met Murdoch in 1997. Nearly forty years his junior, the couple married just seventeen days after his second divorce in 1999 when Murdoch was 68 and Deng 30.

Currently, they have two children together, Grace Helen (born in New York in 2001) and Chloe (born in New York in 2003).

Below is a comprehensive professional biography of Wendi Deng gathered from publicly available information:

-Wendi Deng was born Deng Wen Di in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou, the daughter of the director of a machinery factory. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

-Deng is two years younger than Anna Torv, Murdoch's second wife. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng speaks Mandarin and English, but with a strong accent. She has also taught her two children Mandarin, though Rupert does not understand it. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng's father, an engineer, had previously managed 20,000 employees for the Communist government. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng was married before Murdoch to Jake Cherry, whom she met through his wife, Joyce. Deng met the Cherrys in China while Mr. Cherry was building a factory. Deng had asked Joyce to teach her English. As a promising young student, the Cherry family sponsored Deng's application for a student visa and allowed her to stay into their home, sharing a bunk bed with their 5-year-old daughter, while she attended California State University. Soon after, Joyce Cherry had found photo evidence of an affair between Deng and her husband, kicking them both out. The Cherrys divorced and Jake married Deng in 1990. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

-Deng and Cherry split up after almost three years, after Cherry found she was seeing another man. During their marriage, she acquired her green card, allowing her to stay in America permanently. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

-Murdoch and Deng met when she approached Murdoch for a question while in Shanghai as an intern for Star TV. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Murdoch and Deng married on June 25, 1999 on his ship, Morning Glory, only seventeen days after he divorced his previous wife. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng reportedly monitors Murdoch's diet, health and sex life, having reported his Viagra usage in a public appearance. (Source: New York Magazine)

-The couple currently resides in New York in a $7 million Soho loft. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng has worked with News Corp. over the years to expand the empire into China to nearly $45 million. (Source: New York Magazine)

-Deng is the chief of strategy for MySpace China. (Source: New York Magazine)