Rupert Murdoch (left) with his "Hollywood whisperer" Barry Diller in 1991. Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment In 1984, less than a year after Warner Bros. bought back his stake in the studio, Rupert Murdoch made a run at 20th Century Fox. The studio was then owned by wildcatter Marvin Davis, a six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound man of Falstaffian appetites. At one board meeting, Davis catered a nine-course lunch and had his secretary place Pepto-Bismol bottles at each seat. Davis and his wife lived in a forty-five-thousand-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion named the Knoll, where they threw Christmas parties featuring the Radio City Rockettes and violinists from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But running a successful studio proved to be more than Davis could stomach. In 1984, Fox lost $36 million and was teetering on bankruptcy. Making matters worse, Davis was locked in a power struggle with his forty-three-year-old studio chief, Barry Diller, whom Davis recruited from Paramount only months earlier. Davis wanted out of Hollywood. He had followed Rupert's pursuit of Warner in the press, so he called Rupert and proposed he invest in Fox. Related Stories Lifestyle We Know How the Black Dahlia Died, But How Did She Live? TV HBO Orders Damon Lindelof Series 'The Chain,' a Thriller Described as "'Jaws for Parents" The two outlined the contours of a deal over lunch at the 21 Club in Manhattan. Davis told Rupert he would only sell a 50 percent stake in Fox. Rupert normally demanded full control of his assets, but he made an exception to get a toehold in Hollywood. On March 21, 1985, Rupert and Davis announced Rupert would buy half of Fox for $250 million. Only in hindsight would the deal's significance become clear: it was the moment Rupert transformed News Corp from a newspaper publisher into a fully integrated global media company. Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family - and the World by Gabriel Sherman Simon & Schuster Rupert had scant experience in the movie business. His biggest foray to date was financing the 1981 Peter Weir war film, Gallipoli, in part to honor his father's legacy. Rupert needed a Hollywood rabbi, someone who could teach him the baroque ways in which the town operated. Diller could fill this role. He was a show business wunderkind, having taken over Paramount at thirty-two and presided over such hits as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Flashdance, and Terms of Endearment. Broad shouldered and balding with a perpetual tan, booming voice, and boundless energy, Diller was a creative impresario and a boardroom killer, a rare combination that made him a once-in-a-generation executive. Over lunch at the Hillcrest Country Club across the street from the Fox lot, Rupert convinced Diller to work for him. "The hot bath of Rupert Murdoch's enthusiasm is something quite extraordinary," Diller recalled. Diller became Rupert's Hollywood whisperer. Rupert complained of inefficiency, but Diller explained that creative output took time to nurture. Diller hosted lunches to introduce Murdoch to the top producers in town like Stephen Cannell, whose hits 21 Jump Street and The A-Team dominated the ratings. Murdoch deferred to Diller, mostly, but at times his patience wore thin. "You're costing me a fortune!" he said. "Then go out and buy your own fucking movies!" Diller brayed. Because Murdoch lacked a show-business background, he allowed Diller far more autonomy than his editors - for the time being. A month after the Fox deal closed, Diller invited Davis and Rupert to a cocktail party for media billionaire John Kluge in Diller's office on the Fox lot. The German-born Kluge stood just over five feet. His rotund frame and bald head gave him the appearance of a human bowling ball. Despite his diminutive size, Kluge was a giant in the broadcasting industry. Kluge had become an American citizen and built his company, Metromedia, into the country's largest operator of independent television stations. Diller had heard Kluge, now in semiretirement, might be ready to cash out. Then seventy, Kluge and his third wife, Patricia, had moved to a forty-five-room Georgian estate Kluge built for her in rural Virginia. As Diller hoped, Kluge admitted he was thinking of selling some stations. Rupert immediately recognized the potential. Metromedia owned stations in major markets, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York. With one investment, Rupert could establish a fourth national broadcast network and smash the liberal monopoly of ABC, CBS, and NBC, the gatekeepers that dictated what Americans watched. "There is no dog with hearing as sharp as Rupert Murdoch's when opportunity calls. It took him less than a second to say, 'Ha! Le