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Ted Turner, who passed away at the age of 87, was an American figure who defied simple categorization.
Turner, the mastermind behind CNN, stood as one of the most influential media magnates in history. Yet, his accomplishments extended far beyond media. He was a renowned philanthropist, a passionate environmental advocate, and one of the largest landowners in the United States.
In addition to these roles, Turner also excelled as an international yachtsman, owned both baseball and NBA teams, and was famously married to actress Jane Fonda.
Turner’s vibrant and bold personality earned him a variety of nicknames, including ‘The Mouth of the South,’ ‘Captain Outrageous,’ and ‘Terrible Ted,’ none of which seemed to fully encapsulate his larger-than-life character.
Reflecting on his own persona, Turner once quipped, “If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.”
‘I’m trying to set the all-time record for achievement by one person in one lifetime. And that puts you in pretty big company – Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Gandhi, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Washington, Roosevelt, Churchill.’
In September 2018, Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease. He spent his final years privately, much of it at his 113,000-acre ranch in Montana amid forests and rolling meadows populated by deer, elk, bears and mountain lions.
Turner was worth an estimated $2.6 billion when he died. During his lifetime he made philanthropic history by announcing that he was donating $1 billion to the United Nations, calling it ‘the best investment I’ve ever made.’
In 2010, he promised to donate most of his remaining wealth to good causes when he died.
Ted Turner was married to Jane Fonda in the 1990s
The future creator of CNN was born Robert Edward Turner III on November 19, 1938, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
His father, Robert Jr. was from a cotton-growing family in Mississippi, and had headed for Ohio in the Great Depression, wedding Florence Rooney, whose father owned grocery stores.
His father was an alcoholic who beat him with a leather strap and wire coat hanger, which he would later describe as ‘hurting like the devil.’
When Turner was nine his family moved to Savannah, Georgia, and he was sent to a Christian military boarding school. In the summers, he painted billboards for his father’s advertising business.
In 1956, he went to Brown University in Rhode Island but his father was outraged by his decision to study classics, rather than for a business degree.
His father wrote to him: ‘My dear son, I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a major. I am a practical man, and for the life of me I cannot possibly understand why you should wish to speak Greek. With whom will you communicate in Greek?
‘I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me.’
Ted Turner at the official CNN launch event in Atlanta, Georgia, in June 1980. The station is widely credited with revolutionizing how Americans consume news
Ted Turner holds a bottle and an admirer as he and his crew celebrated their victory in the America’s Cup
According to fellow students Turner was a heavy drinker, was caught with a girlfriend in his room, and failed to graduate. He then joined his billboard company, Turner Outdoor Advertising.
In 1963 his father was in debt as he tried to make it into the biggest billboard company in the southern states, and committed suicide, shooting himself at the family home in Savannah.
It left Ted Turner in charge at age 24.
The business was initially sold to pay debts, but he then repurchased it.
In 1970, he bought a failing Atlanta UHF television station, Channel 17, now called WTBS, for $2.5 million.
After a rocky start, Turner eventually made the station profitable with low-cost 24-hour programming.
In 1976, he made WTBS the first ‘superstation’ by beaming its signal to a satellite, allowing its programming to be picked up by local cable systems across the country.
Turner, who always described himself as more of an ‘adventurer’ than businessman, then indulged his passion for sports.
He bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team, and the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. which provided more content for his superstation.
He appointed himself manager of the Braves, leading to a dispute with Major League Baseball, and lost his only game in charge.
in 1997 Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves, throws the ceremonial first pitch before the first regular season game in the Braves new stadium, Turner Field
Turner also became determined to win the America’s Cup yacht race, and did so in 1977 off Newport, Rhode Island. However, his behavior became notorious.
‘He flirted with every girl in sight, crawled pubs with his crew, got tossed out of chic clubs and restaurants for boozy behavior and turned Newport’s blue bloods positively purple,’ Time magazine reported at the time.
Turning his attention back to his business, Turner decided to start the first 24-hour news TV channel.
While many ridiculed the idea, to Turner it seemed common sense.
‘I worked until 7 pm and, when I got home the news was over,’ he once said. ‘So I missed television news completely, and I figured there were lots of people like me.’
He added: ‘If Alexander the Great could conquer the known world, why couldn’t I start CNN?’
Cable News Network – CNN – began broadcasting from Atlanta on June 1, 1980.
Offering low pay but the lure of adventure, Turner signed up journalists and technical crew.
There were a litany of early mishaps which led to the nickname ‘Chicken Noodle Network,’ and it began losing $2 million a month.
Turner later described how he ‘lived on a couch in my office the first 10 years’ and he was sometimes seen in the newsroom in a bathrobe.
Ted Turner, center, is carried off by his crew following a news conference after his vessel Courageous won the Americas Cup sailing race, Sept. 19, 1977, in Newport, Rhode Island
CNN’s breakout moment came in with the Gulf War in 1990 when it broadcast the whole thing live.
‘I learn more from CNN than I do from the CIA,’ President George H.W. Bush was quoted as saying.
Turner was named Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ in 1991 and declared a ‘televisionary’ for ‘turning viewers in 150 countries into instant witnesses of history.’
Along the way he made numerous controversial remarks, including calling some of his employees ‘Jesus freaks’ because of the Ash Wednesday marks on their foreheads.
He also told a group of Germans that after being on the wrong side of two world wars, they could turn things around just as his losing Braves baseball team had done.
Turner also had an intense rivalry with fellow media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who he once challenged to a fist fight. One of Murdoch’s newspapers asked on its front page if Turner was ‘insane.’
His Turner Foundation gave millions to environmental groups, while he promoted and invested in clean energy.
Turner also became one of the largest private landowners in the United States with more than 1.9 million acres (770,000 hectares) in six states, including Montana, where he spent much of his time.
He owned a herd of some 50,000 bison, which he used to supply a restaurant chain he founded in 2002 called Ted’s Montana Grill.
In 2018 Ted Turner said he rarely watched CNN anymore because it was too focused on politics
Turner’s conservation efforts included owning a herd of 50,000 bison
In 1996 his company Turner Broadcasting System, was bought by Time Warner for $7.5 billion.
Five years later, Time Warner merged with AOL in a $99 billion deal that saw him stripped of his position overseeing the cable networks that he had created.
Ultimately, he lost billions as the value of the company’s stock fell.
In 2003 he quit as vice chairman and three years later stepped down as a Time Warner director.
He battled depression and often spoke of suicide, according to his biographer.
The most high profile of his three marriages was to Jane Fonda in 1991. When they met he was already divorced twice with five adult children. The marriage lasted a decade and they remained friends.
Fonda later said: ‘Given his childhood, he should’ve become a dictator. He should’ve become a not nice person. The miracle is that he became what he is. A man who will go to heaven. He’s a miracle.’
Jane Fonda and Ted Turner at a charity event in 2006
Speaking in 2012, Turner said he was ‘brokenhearted.’
‘I lost Jane. I lost my job here. I lost my fortune, most of it,’ he said. ‘Got a billion or two left. You can get by on that if you economize.’
In 2018, in the middle of President Donald Trump’s stormy first term, Turner said in an interview that he rarely watched CNN any more, saying that it focused too much on politics.
In early 2025, Turner was hospitalized with a mild case of pneumonia before recovering at a rehabilitation facility.
He is survived by his five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.