famous people

"She doesn't give a shit what people say about her as long as they say it", someone once wrote about the Greek-born author Arianna Huffington.

At the moment, though, she is the one who is doing the talking. Her political blog The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/) set up in May 2005, is one of the most influential in America.

Born Arianna Stassinopoulos on 15 July 1950 in Athens, Huffington says she was a shy youngster. This did not stop her studying in Cambridge, however, even though she spoke little English.

In 1974, Huffington wrote the first of 11 books, The Female Woman, on the role of women in society. Six years later she moved to the US.

Within a few months, using what Vanity Fair calls her "dazzling intelligence", she began calling Henry Kissinger and the Reagans her friends. She later met and married millionaire Michael Huffington (picture left), with whom she has two daughters.

When her husband ran as a Republican for a seat in the US House of Representatives in 1992, she supported him. In the late 1990s, however, she switched her loyalties to the Democrats.

In 2003, she campaigned against Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger for the post of governor in California.