Profile: Rebekah Brooks, ex-News International chief
15 May 2012 Last updated at 10:25 ET
By Edward Stourton, BBC News
Relatively little is known about Rebekah Brooks's private life
Before resigning as News International chief executive because of the phone-hacking scandal, Rebekah Brooks conquered the macho world of tabloid journalism with astonishing speed. What was behind her rise to power?
Rebekah Brooks - as she became following a second marriage - courted power but avoided publicity.
But the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News International put her on the back foot, and in the public eye.
The commentator Henry Porter, who has written extensively about the power of the Murdoch press, described Mrs Brooks as having been "one of the most powerful people in this country" - essentially because she was Rupert Murdoch's UK proxy, even though "we have very little idea of her as a person".
“Start QuoteShe's been very charming and she's always been able to get what she wants out of people, even if they don't really like her”
Louise Weir, Childhood friend
The sense of mystery he describes certainly applies to Rebekah Brooks's youth. We know she was at school in Cheshire but very little else about her teenage years has been published.
However, someone who was close to her in her youth, childhood friend Louise Weir, describes Rebekah Brooks as more emotionally intelligent than academic.
"She's been very charming and she's always been able to get what she wants out of people, even if they don't really like her.
"She is a typical Gemini; she's got her lovely fluffy side and then her angry side," Louise recalls.
Rebekah Brooks's Who's Who entry mentions time at the Sorbonne, the prestigious Parisian university, but not whether she took a degree.
END