Arianna Huffington

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Greek-American web entrepreneur, syndicated columnist, author of seven books, lecturer, TV and radio guest also known as a debater, and socialite who charmed her way into high societies in London and the U.S. She married and divorced Texas businessman millionaire Michael Huffington. Criticized for her New Age associations and for writing biographies that some considered gossip, her concerns include contemporary spirituality and criticism of Democrats. One of her central political causes has been replacing welfare with individual charity. Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington grew up in Greece as a book-lover. Her father, a journalist and management consultant, and her mother separated when she was about ten years old and in the following years, she and her younger sister were raised by her mother. When she was 16, the family moved to England, and in 1966 she enrolled at Cambridge University. Fluent in English, Italian and French as well as Greek, she studied economics and joined the Cambridge Union, the university’s debating club. In her final year at college, she was voted president of the debating society. In one televised Cambridge Union debate, Huffington came out against the feminist movement’s disdain for traditional female roles. Urged on by a publisher who saw the debate, she wrote "The Female Woman," in 1974, which became a bestseller in England and was translated into 11 languages. Drawn to spiritual studies, she began a somewhat controversial association with John-Roger, leader of the Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness, thought of by some as a cult. She met John-Roger in 1974 - the same year she earned a master’s degree in economics - and followed his teachings until the mid-1980s. A number of her books have focused on spirituality, such as her second, "After Reason," published in 1978, "The Gods of Greece," in 1983 and "The Fourth Instinct" in 1994. She also wrote two best-selling biographies. She was commissioned to write the biography of the famous opera singer, "Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend," 1981. She was also hired to write a biography of Picasso, entitled, "Picasso: Creator and Destroyer," 1988. The film, "Surviving Picasso," 1996, is based on this book. While writing the books, Huffington was making inroads into the social circles of the rich and famous, causing her to be called "the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus." In 1981, she had moved from London to New York, and in 1984, moved to Los Angeles. In 1986, she married Michael Huffington, heir to the Huffco oil and gas fortune. They moved to Washington, D.C. when he was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy in 1987. She hosted a weekly television show, "Critical Mass" from 1993-1994 on the conservative cable network National Empowerment Television. In 1992, Michael Huffington was elected as a congressman from California, having declared his residency the year before. He had spent $5.4 million of his own money on the campaign. Two years later, he launched a bid for election to the U.S. Senate, prompted, many suspected, by Arianna’s ambitions, though they both denied this. He spent a record $30 million on the campaign, winning the Republican primary, but losing to Dianne Feinstein in the general election. Arianna continued to appear on various radio and television programs after the election defeat, and headed the Center for Effective Compassion , created in 1994. Since 3/19/1996, she has been writing a syndicated political column that now appears twice a week in around a hundred papers. She has begun to increasingly criticize Republicans as well as Democrats. She published "Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom" in 1998. Her latest book is "How to Overthrow the Government," a challenge to the average American to seize back the government from special interest groups, the idle rich and Wall Street's galloping bulls. She serves on the advisory board of the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. She divorced Michael Huffington in 1997. In late 1998, Michael revealed that he was homosexual. Arianna and their children, Isabella and Christina, live in Los Angeles and Washington, D. C. She declared her candidacy for the position of Governor of California on August 6, 2003, running against Arnold Schwarzenegger and Larry Flynt, amont others. In 2005, she became co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. In 2011 she sold The Huffington Post to AOL for 315 million US$, remaining editor-in-chief. Link to Wikipedia biography