Wendi Deng Murdoch in Idaho. File picture

London, July 20: For a man who gets a kick out of sledgehammer headlines, Rupert Murdoch has a problem of plenty when it comes to wife Wendi Deng.

Smack Down Sister (probably not a good idea, given the suffix), Crouching Wendy Hidden Dragon (too fiery), Charlie’s Angel (she can pass off as Lucy Liu’s sister) and Tiger Mom (a feisty ambassador for the endangered species?) are some of the titles conferred upon Wendi in the digital world after she walloped the pie-pitcher who attacked her 80-year-old husband yesterday at the UK parliamentary panel hearing.

Some are also calling the 42-year-old Wendi the new Pippa Middleton. Pippa, 27, (or rather her back view) became a favourite with society magazines because of her form-hugging outfit worn at sister Kate’s royal wedding to Prince William in April. No one will be surprised if Wendi becomes the cover girl in magazines across the world now.

Wendi was hitherto widely viewed as something of a gold digger who had clawed her way up various men to own majority shareholding in “old Rup”.

But no longer.

When a man armed with a foam pie took aim at Murdoch yesterday during the Commons grilling over the phone hacking affair, Wendi, a volleyball player during her teens in China, leapt to her feet and biffed the assailant on the head, shoving the white stuff back into his face.

Today, Jonathan May-Bowles, 26, of Edinburgh Gardens, Windsor, a comedian also known as “Jonnie Marbles”, was charged with behaviour causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, Scotland Yard said. He will probably get a year or two in prison but the popular interest was firmly glued to Wendi.

Her husband has been feared but not much loved in Britain. But Wendi is another matter.

The Daily Mail sketch writer, Quentin Letts, noted that Wendi “was sitting behind her husband throughout the hearing, maintaining the elegant poise of a Cathay Pacific stewardess. From side to side did she lean her long hair, lean-necked, devotion in fuchsia.”

Then, “with reactions which would not have disgraced the Chinese secret service, Mrs Murdoch flew to her husband’s defence. Kung fu! Hnawww! She leapt into action, right claw coming down hard in the direction of Matey in the lumberjack shirt. TV footage afterwards showed the bloke nursing his head, spattered by his own pie. He was lucky not to have been karate-chopped in two.”

There have been close-up photographs of Wendi holding her husband’s head afterwards, a wifely gesture which suggests her interest in Murdoch may not be entirely financial.

The Guardian, which broke the phone-hacking story, reported that Wendi has been hailed in her native China where public opinion about her had been mixed. Although she has no official position in her husband’s News Corporation, she has been active, especially given her language skills, in pushing her husband’s business agenda in China.

“I never used to like Deng because I thought she was too materialistic but I like her now,” admitted a blogger under the name Jixunli. “This adds value to the image of Chinese wives,” said another under the name Jihua. “They have previously proved their ability to cook and run a business. Now they can add bodyguard.”

Others said that Wendi “had not just spiked the pie-thrower, she had also lifted the share price of News Corporation”. The company’s stock prices did rise after the hearing, though analysts attributed it to the absence of any new startling revelations.

Wendi is the co-founder and co-CEO of the film production company Big Feet Productions, which has just released a movie, Snow Flower And The Secret Fan. The film, which she took to Cannes, may benefit from the publicity Wendi is receiving.

Wendi’s new-found fame provoked The New York Times to comment: “The Murdoch who may have emerged in the best light from the gruelling question-and-answer session in the British Parliament on Tuesday was not Rupert Murdoch or his son James, but his wife, Wendi.”

“The speed of her reactions left even a police officer trailing as he ambled over to sort out the melee,” the paper marvelled.

Ironically, the most in-depth profile of Wendi appeared 11 years ago in The Wall Street Journal which sent its reporters to Beijing, Singapore and Los Angeles in an effort to dig out “background” on the beautiful Chinese woman who had snaffled the most powerful (and richest) media baron in the world.

Murdoch had the last laugh seven years later when he bought The Wall Street Journal.

The Times, London, which is also owned by Murdoch, did not fight shy of drawing material today from the Journal profile.

The Times pointed out that born the daughter of a factory manager in Xuzhou, eastern China, Wendi got her ticket to the West with the help of a Californian couple, Jake and Joyce Cherry, who had temporarily relocated to China. “Wendi, a 16-year-old student at medical college, got Joyce to help her with her English and later persuaded the couple to sponsor her for a student visa for the US,” the paper added.

The Times then said: “An article in the pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal revealed how, after she had moved back with them to study at California State University, Northridge, Joyce suspected her husband of having an affair with Wendi, who was 30 years her husband’s junior, and threw her out. He followed and they set up home together and married.

“Jake later told how they were together for only four or five months before Wendi had an affair with a man her own age, David Wolf. The marriage only lasted two years and seven months.

“Wendi stayed in the US and after Yale she got a job at STAR TV in Hong Kong, where she met Murdoch in early 1998 while acting as his interpreter in Shanghai and Beijing. By that summer, rumours about a relationship were buzzing around STAR TV.”

Another version is that she worked as his interpreter in Shanghai and Beijing. She was 29 at the time, Murdoch 66. Clearly, in their blossoming romance, nothing was lost in translation.

Murdoch left his second wife, Anna, to whom he had been married for 31 years. Wendi quickly married Murdoch on June 25, 1999, 17 days after his divorce became final. The ceremony took place on Murdoch’s private yacht, Morning Glory, amid tight security. Their first child, Grace, was born in late 2001, and the second, Chloe, in the summer of 2003.

The Times, London, points out that Murdoch’s third marriage has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by his other children, Prudence, Lachlan, Elisabeth and James. They are said to have fought his efforts to amend the family financial trust to include his two young daughters.

Under the terms of Murdoch’s divorce from his second wife, Anna, the trust was limited to the four children from his first two marriages. Murdoch eventually backed off from his proposal to give the girls a say in the future of News Corporation, although they will still reap the financial benefits.

“She has also had a mellowing influence on her husband, who after their marriage took to wearing chinos and black turtlenecks, and would even be seen in the office without a tie, once unthinkable,” the paper said.

In the global media world, Wendi, who is only two inches short of 6ft, now walks tall.