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Then, in 1972, Clyde split from the family and its business, going to live in California until his death in 2001, and, in 1974, Sir Frank himself died of heart failure. Both brothers then joined the family business, Consolidated Press: Clyde was clearly the favourite of their tyrannical father, and went on to become managing director of Channel Nine meanwhile, Kerry, who was referred to as a 'boofhead' by his father, was not taken seriously. Once back at school, he was a lonely child who suffered from dyslexia and had an undistinguished academic career. From the age of five until nine, Kerry saw his mother Gretel perhaps half a dozen times, though some of this dislocation was admittedly due to a bout of polio that meant nine months in an iron lung and two years in Canberra with a private nurse. Raised by a nanny, they were sent to a boarding school just down the road from the family mansion. Kerry and his brother Clyde were born into financial and social privilege, but their family life left much to be desired. His father, Sir Frank Packer, was a former boxer and goldminer who built up a publishing empire in the knockabout Sydney of the 1930s. His charitable gifts were usually as generous as they were anonymous, and the episode gave rise to the most quoted of his rare public remarks, when he told an interviewer: 'Son, I've been to the other side, and let me tell you, there's nothing there.'

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Typically, he went on to buy portable defibrillators - which quickly became known as Packerwhackers - for every ambulance in New South Wales. He was clinically dead for six minutes before being revived by ambulance officers. But in October 1990 he had suffered a near-fatal heart attack during the Australian Open polo championships in Sydney. Packer, the unrepentant smoker, was said to have been annoyed at the rumours.

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The Big Man, as he was known at his TV network Channel Nine, was in fact alive and well and living in London's Savoy hotel, where he regularly spent the polo season. In June 1998, rumours of his death swept world markets and the share price of his listed media company, Publishing and Broadcasting, fell. In 2004, Business Review Weekly magazine estimated his fortune at A$6.5bn (£2.75bn), and financial markets were always keenly interested in his state of health. On all counts Kerry was no exception, and was aware he was living on borrowed time. His biographer Paul Barry said males in the Packer dynasty loved a bet, hated paying tax, were excessively secretive and tended to die young with heart trouble. Yet Packer's one weakness was his health. Tales of tips to hostesses and waitresses of £50,000 also abounded.

He reportedly lost £8m playing blackjack in London in 1987, then won £10m at the same game in Las Vegas eight years later. He also liked to win, especially at gaming tables around the world, where tales of his successes, losses and extraordinary tips are legendary. 'Come gentlemen,' he said, 'there is a little bit of the whore in all of us name your price.'

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In 1976, before he pulled off perhaps his greatest coup in establishing World Series Cricket, he was stuck in talks with the Australian Cricket Board about television rights to Test matches. Packer believed that people could be bought. While in office, Hawke signed off a testimonial video for his mate with the words 'Good on yer, Kerry, you've been true blue. With wealth came power, and Pack- er's close connections with politicians, especially the former Labour prime minister Bob Hawke, ensured that the Canberra government's media policy often went his way. But his burning desire was to make even more money his fortune grew more than five times after he supposedly gave up business in 1987, and a ferocious sense of privacy set him well apart from most of his readers and viewers. In some ways the magnate's 'ocker' tastes were the secret of his success, with a populist magazine empire and television network that frequently outperformed their rivals.

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