Arianna Huffington

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Arianna Huffington

Campaigning for Governor of California, 2003
Born July 15, 1950 (1950-07-15) (age 58)
Athens, Greece
Occupation columnist
Nationality Greek American
Citizenship USA
Genres non-fiction
Subjects politics, spirituality, environment
Spouse(s) Michael Huffington (divorced 1997)
Official website

Arianna Huffington (born Arianna Stassinopoulos, 15 July 1950) is a Greek-American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as founder of The Huffington Post.

In 2003 she ran as an independent candidate in the California recall election.[1]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Huffington was born in Athens, Greece, the daughter of Konstantinos (a journalist and management consultant) and Elli (born Georgiadi) Stassinopoulos, and is the sister of Agapi (an author, speaker and performer). She moved to England at the age of 16 and attended Girton College at Cambridge University where in 1971 she was President of the Cambridge Union Society, the third woman to hold the position, and graduated with a BA (later to become an MA in accordance with Cambridge's practice) in economics in 1972.[citation needed]

Arianna co-wrote the lyrics with Irene Papas for the record album "Odes", in 1978. "Odes" is a Greek New Age album arranged, performed and produced by Vangelis and sung by Irene Papas. It is based on traditional vocal material about (among other things) the Greek resistance to the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 19th Century. It was recorded at Nemo studios London in 1978.[citation needed]

After graduation, she moved to London and lived with the journalist and broadcaster Bernard Levin, whom she had met while the two were panelists on the TV show Face the Music. In 1980 she left Levin and moved to the United States, after he refused to marry her. After Levin's death in 2004, she called him "the big love of my life, […] a mentor as a writer, and a role model as a thinker".[2] During these years and around the time of her involvement with John-Roger's religious group, she was involved with Democratic politician and then-governor (currently Attorney General) of California, Jerry Brown. It was during this time that Huffington (then Stassinopoulos) was first known as a liberal/left-wing/Democrat, the position she returned to once again in the post-90s following the right-wing years of the 1980s to late 1990s.[citation needed]

She met oil millionaire Michael Huffington, a family friend of the Bushes, at a 1985 party hosted by Ann Getty in San Francisco. The couple were married in 1986 at a wedding paid for by Getty, who had declared that she needed to find Arianna a husband. They moved to Washington, D.C., when he was appointed to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. They later established residency in Santa Barbara, California, in order for him to run in 1992 as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he won by a significant margin. He was a political conservative on most issues. Arianna campaigned for her husband, courting religious conservatives, arguing for smaller government and a reduction in welfare. In 1994 he narrowly lost the race for the U.S. Senate seat from California to incumbent Dianne Feinstein.[3] Arianna and Michael have two daughters: Christina and Isabella.

The couple divorced in 1997, and in 1998 Michael Huffington revealed that he was bisexual.[4] A 1999 magazine article claimed that Arianna Huffington "entered the marriage... with full knowledge of Michael Huffington's sexual interests in men".[5] The financial terms of their divorce agreement remain undisclosed, but Huffington gained most of her wealth from her husband. Arianna Huffington chose to retain her former husband's surname, although she had been known as Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington during the period of her marriage.[citation needed]

[edit] Career

In the late 1980s, Huffington wrote several articles for National Review. In 1981, she wrote a biography of Maria Callas, Maria Callas — The Woman Behind the Legend, and in 1996 a biography of Pablo Picasso, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer. In 1996, Huffington and liberal comedian Al Franken participated as "Strange Bedfellows"[6] in Comedy Central's coverage of the 1996 U.S. presidential election. For her work, she and the writing team of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher were nominated for an Emmy, for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program. She has also made a few forays into acting with roles on shows such as Roseanne, The L Word, Help Me Help You, and the film EdTV.[7]

Huffington's politics began changing in the late 1990s. A former "right winger", she moved noticeably to the left and now describes herself as a "progressive populist". During the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Huffington opposed United States intervention in the crisis.

In 2000, she instigated the 'Shadow Conventions', which appeared at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.[8]

Huffington heads The Detroit Project, a public interest group lobbying automakers to start producing cars running on alternative fuels. The project's 2003 TV ads, which equated driving sport utility vehicles to funding terrorism, proved to be particularly controversial, with some stations refusing to run them.

In a 2004 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart she announced her endorsement of John Kerry by saying, "When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling." In recent years, she has been closely associated with the Democratic Party. Huffington was a panel speaker during the 2005 California Democratic Party State Convention, held in Los Angeles. She also spoke at the 2004 College Democrats of America Convention in Boston, which was held in conjunction with the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

[edit] California recall election participation

Huffington was an independent candidate to recall California governor Gray Davis in the 2003 recall election. She described her candidacy against front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger as "the hybrid versus the Hummer," making reference to her ownership of a hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, and Schwarzenegger's Hummer.

Despite briefly retaining former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley as a campaign advisor and advertising executive Bill Hillsman as her media director, she dropped out of the race on September 30, 2003. "I'm pulling out, and I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall because I realize now that's the only way to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said. Others attributed her exit to her inability to garner support for her candidacy, noting that polls showed that only about two percent of likely California voters planned to vote for her at the time of her withdrawal.[9] Though she failed to stop the recall, Huffington's name still appeared on the ballot and she placed 5th, capturing 0.6 percent of the votes.

[edit] Spirituality

Huffington's book The Fourth Instinct is based on the idea that all humans have an inherent spiritual yearning.[10]

After her attempts to woo the religious right, in 1994, cartoonist Garry Trudeau used his comic Doonesbury to spoof Huffington's spiritual experiences with the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA), a Los Angeles-based spiritual organization founded by John-Roger. The purpose of the MSIA is to teach "soul transcendence," which the MSIA web site says is becoming aware of yourself "as a Soul and as one with God, not as a theory but as a living reality". Huffington said that "I've been involved with John-Roger and the church for many years now."[citation needed] Tax returns show Huffington as an MSIA donor.[citation needed]

Huffington has also courted conservative Christian Republicans[citation needed], commonly referred to as the Religious Right, by advocating a removal of the welfare state, to be replaced by voluntary charitable donation, stating that "big government cheats people out of the spiritual rewards of giving to the needy". "It's time to bring God into the public square," Arianna Huffington declared, while giving a talk on The Fourth Instinct before a Republican women's conference.[citation needed]

More recently, Huffington has criticized the Christians of the Republican party as those "who don't believe in evolution but believe in torture".[citation needed] Her weblog, The Huffington Post, has as contributors three of the world's most prominent atheist writers: Sam Harris (The End of Faith), Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (God is not Great).

[edit] Television, radio and Internet presence

In the 1970s, on the strength of her prominence in the Cambridge Union, Arianna Stassinopoulos was a frequent panelist on the weekly BBC Radio 4 political discussion programme, Any Questions?, and the BBC television the panel games Call My Bluff and Face the Music.

Huffington is co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Center. She was originally introduced by the moderator as occupying the chair "from the right", but is now described as "coming from the fourth dimension of political time and space", or from the "independent-progressive blogosphere".[citation needed] In May 2007, she and Mark J. Green began co-hosting a new radio show on Air America Radio, 7 Days in America.

Huffington also has an Internet presence with her website The Huffington Post, which features blogs and commentary from her and from a number of prominent journalists, public officials, and celebrities. The site also highlights news stories from various sources.

Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.

Huffington was accused of plagiarism for copying material for her book Maria Callas; the claims were settled out of court.[11]

In November 2008, Fox announced Huffington would be joining the voice cast of the upcoming Seth MacFarlane animated series The Cleveland Show, where she will lend her voice to the wife of Tim the Bear.[12]

On November 17, 2008, Huffington substituted for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. Some have put forward the idea that she is in the running for a more permanent role as commentator or anchor at MSNBC. [13]

Huffington was spoofed by actress Michaela Watkins on the November 22, 2008, episode of Saturday Night Live. [14]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Schofield, Jack (August 25, 2008). "Huffington Post: From millionaire's blog to leading liberal newspaper". Guardian News. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/25/huffington.post. Retrieved on 2008-09-18. 
  2. ^ Arianna Huffington on AlterNet: Bernard Levin Remembered. August 17, 2004
  3. ^ http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/1994_general/sov_94_gen_complete.pdf
  4. ^ Michael Huffington in The Huffington Post: My Road to Damascus Led to the Sundance Film Festival. January 16, 2007
  5. ^ GQ magazine: 1999 profile of Michael Huffington
  6. ^ Huff TV: Strange Bedfellows
  7. ^ Arianna Huffington's IMDb page.
  8. ^ Shadow Conventions 2000
  9. ^ CNN.com - Huffington withdraws from recall race - Sep. 30, 2003
  10. ^ Gallagher, Maggie. "The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul" (review). National Review, July 11, 1994. Accessed online June 11, 2006. [1].
  11. ^ Nussbaum, Emily (October 9, 2006) "The Human Blog." New York Magazine.
  12. ^ Fox Seems Keen on 'Cleveland'
  13. ^ http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/exploring_huffingtons_msnbc_guest_hosting_gig_100792.asp
  14. ^ http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-arianna-huffington/848661/

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arianna Huffington
Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Arianna Huffington

[edit] General

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