The former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Talk, and the author of 2007's The Diana Chronicles, Brown now presides over the website The Daily Beast, which merged with Newsweek in 2010, making her the editor-in-chief of both publications. She's married to editor Harry Evans.

Brown was something of a wild child growing up in Britain: She was kicked out of boarding school on more than one occasion, and later made a name for herself at Oxford largely thanks to her talent for bedding men who could help her career. Tina was freelancing for various London newspapers when she snagged her biggest catch, Harry Evans, possibly the most famous newspaper editor in England at the time. By the tender age of 25, the precocious Brown was editing upper-class bible Tatler and living with much-older Evans, who'd left his wife and three kids to be with her.

Brown joined the Condé Nast empire in the early 1980s when they purchased the Tatler and was lured to the States to edit Vanity Fair in 1984. She stayed at VF for eight years until 1992, when Condé Nast reassigned her to the New Yorker. They had acquired the publication in 1985 for $168 million but it was still struggling financially, and Nast has high hopes that Brown was the one who could turn it around. And of course, she did. Tina managed to revitalize the dowdy literary mag, adding more Hollywood glam, rich photography, and a handful of writers who would go on to become literary superstars. Yet critics—and there were many—argued that the New Yorker had become too glossy and lost its literary bearings under Brown. In a surprising move, in 1998 Brown departed the safe confines of Condé Nast to launch Talk, with backing from Hearst and Harvey and Bob Weinstein of Miramax. Despite much hype, a famously star-studded launch party on Liberty Island, and $52 million in financing, the mag's prospects withered after September 11th and ultimately folded in 2002.

Since the demise of Talk, Brown wrote the buzzy book about Princess Di, The Diana Chronicles—for which Mort Janklow netted her a $2million advance—returned her to the spotlight she knows and loves. With Diana bringing her back into the public eye, Brown launched, with support from media mogul Barry Diller, The Daily Beast, a pop-news site that caught Newsweek's eye in 2010. Since the merger, Brown has revamped the stogy periodical and gained attention (and newsstand purchases) with her controversial covers of a digitally altered Princess Diana and the crazy-eyed "Queen of Rage," Michele Bachmann.

Brown married Evans—who is 25 years her senior—in 1981 in East Hampton. They have two kids, George and Isabel. [Image via Getty]