Profile: Teresa Heinz Kerry

Teresa Heinz Kerry: A hit with the Democratic faithful

Teresa Heinz Kerry is no ordinary political wife.

Strong-willed and outspoken, she made headlines a few days before July's Democratic convention when she reportedly told a reporter to "shove it."

She made no apologies for tangling with the journalist from a newspaper she considered hostile to her husband, John Kerry.

And she delivered an equally forceful convention speech.

"My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called 'opinionated' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish," she told delegates.

"And my only hope is that one day soon, women - who have all earned their right to their opinions - instead of being labelled opinionated will be called smart and well informed, just like men."

Her early years may have contributed to her determination to speak out - she was born in 1938 in Portuguese Mozambique, which was then under the dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

Teresa Heinz Kerry studied in South Africa and Switzerland, where she met her first husband, John Heinz.

They married in 1966.

Linguist

With five languages - Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and Italian - under her belt, she worked as a translator at the United Nations.

But as the wife of John Heinz, she need not have worked at all. He was heir to the Heinz ketchup dynasty and went on to be a Republican senator from Pennsylvania.

John on Teresa: 'Sexy, saucy, brilliant'

Heinz was killed in a plane crash in 1991, leaving his widow an estimated $500m and control of the $1.2bn Heinz charities.

The Republican party urged her to take up her late husband's Senate seat, but she declined in order to focus on charity work, backing causes from the environment to education, the arts, and women's and children's rights.

She married another senator four years later - this time a Democrat, John Kerry.

Greens

They had been introduced in 1990 by Heinz and met again after his death at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro two years later.

It won't be the end of my world Teresa Heinz Kerry, on the possibility of her husband losing

Both Catholics with an interest in the environment, they ran into each other at a Washington dinner party a few months after the summit, and Mr Kerry - who was divorced - made his move.

Asked to sum up his wife in three words, Mr Kerry came up with "sexy, saucy, brilliant".

Mrs Kerry once told the New York Post she could not believe she married a second politician. She went on to express astonishment about her entire life:

"I can't believe my family left Africa and came to this country. I can't believe I live in America. I can't believe I ever married an American. And I can't believe we're embarked on this journey."

But she told London's Times newspaper that she would not be crushed if her husband lost: "It won't be the end of my world."

If he wins, she would be only the second First Lady born outside the United States - after London-born Louisa Adams, the wife of the sixth US president, John Quincy Adams.