She separated from Zhukov in 1984 when their daughter, Dasha, was three. She later had twins in America, a boy and girl, Yuri and Katya, from a relationship with George Gause.

In a 2010 profile on Dasha published in The New Yorker, Elena described her daughter’s family background as “the usual, normal Moscow intelligentsia” of scientists, linguists and writers.

Zhukova had met her first husband, Alexander, when the two were students in Moscow. They married, had Dasha and divorced three years later. After Mikhail Gorbachev relaxed private enterprise rules, Alexander Zhukov formed an energy-trading company, while in 2016 he was linked by the Panama Papers to a network of offshore companies.

In 1991 Elena Zhukova left the Soviet Union to do research in Houston, taking her 10-year-old daughter with her. Two months later, the Soviet Union collapsed, and she decided to stay in the US.

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Given Murdoch and Zhukova’s ages, it is unlikely his prospective new wife would impact on his much scrutinised inheritance planning with the arrival of a new heir. However, if his next wife outlives him, she could be set for a handsome windfall, given his history of signing prenuptial agreements.

But such payouts have not come easily in the past. An explosive Vanity Fair article last year claimed Hall was watched by security as she packed her belongings after Murdoch’s “brutal” email telling her he wanted a divorce; though she eventually left with a multimillion-dollar property portfolio.

Murdoch may have other ideas about shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon. As a spritely 83-year-old, he revealed a rigorous health regime: “I’ve been to some institute at UCLA. They’ve got me on a morning drink, which is frozen fruit and soya powder, and a chap tortures me for an hour from 6 to 7 every morning.”

His new fiancee was working at UCLA about the same time, specialising in diabetes research, though it is unclear if she met Murdoch when he was visiting.

Last year, Murdoch stepped down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp, transitioning to the role of chairman emeritus of the companies and making his elder son, Lachlan, his chosen heir.

At the time, Murdoch was estimated to be worth $8.26 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

By his side over the years have been a string of glamorous women as he amassed enormous wealth and influence around the world.

His first wife was the glamorous Patricia Booker, a flight attendant and department store model from Melbourne. They married in 1956 when Rupert was just 25. They had one child, Prudence, now 66.

They divorced in 1967. Two years later, aged 9, Prudence persuaded her father to seek custody after her mother married Freddie Maeder, described by Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff as a “bad-news Swiss jetsetter”. Booker died in 1998 and by all accounts sounds like she was far too extroverted for the reserved Murdoch.

Mrs Murdoch No.2 was former Daily Mirror reporter Anna Torv. For decades she looked to be Murdoch’s genetically-blessed perfect fit.

Their 32-year marriage produced three children – Elisabeth, Lachlan and James – but it came to a spectacular end in 1998 as an army of lawyers went into battle over the spoils of the Murdoch fortune. Anna wasn’t going without a fight.

In a 2001 interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Anna broke her silence on their marital demise, saying: “I began to think the Rupert Murdoch that I loved died a long time ago.

“Perhaps I was in love with the idea of still being in love with him. But the Rupert I fell in love with could not have behaved this way.”

She described his actions during their break-up as “extremely hard, ruthless and determined”, hardly the cuddly romantic who so beguiled Chinese beauty Wendi Deng.

She became Mrs Murdoch No.3. They met at a company party in Hong Kong when he was 67 and she was 29. They were married two years later, just 17 days after the ink had dried on his divorce from Anna.

They were married for 14 years, producing two children Grace, 23, and Chloe, 21.

During that marriage, Deng was credited with encouraging Murdoch to dye his hair a suspicious mahogany tint and making him dress in a more youthful manner. She enlisted personal trainers and once reportedly divulged that her husband didn’t need Viagra.

Rupert filed for divorce in June 2013 stating the marriage had “broken down irretrievably”. This followed rumours about Wendi’s close relationship with former British prime minister Tony Blair.

A week before his 85th birthday, Murdoch married Hall at St Bride’s Church in London in 2016.

The entire Murdoch family was there to witness the coronation of Mrs Murdoch No.4. He declared he was “the luckiest AND happiest man in the world”.

He even put up with his wife’s smoking and was spotted at big parties by her side as she joined the nicotine outcasts for a sly puff.

But six years later it was all over, with Murdoch reportedly ending the relationship via email.

Only a year ago, Murdoch’s own New York Post reported he was engaged to Ann Lesley Smith, a twice-divorced widow who told the world they shared the same beliefs and, perhaps most tellingly, “spoke the same language”.

Given their engagement was over a fortnight later, it appears something got lost in the translation, though Smith is understood to have kept the 11-carat diamond ring Murdoch had given her, estimated to be worth more than $3 million.