Ted Turner, the media tycoon who based CNN and led an empire that additionally included cable channels TBS, TNT and Turner Traditional Motion pictures in addition to the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks, has died, CNN reported Wednesday, citing an announcement from his firm, Turner Enterprises. He was 87.
Turner was by no means a person to shrink back from a problem — on land or sea.
He was the skipper who introduced the America’s Cup yachting trophy again to the U.S. in 1977. He devoted lots of of hundreds of acres of land to save lots of the American bison. He owned the Atlanta Hawks for 19 years and the Atlanta Braves for 20, throughout which era the Braves received the 1995 World Sequence. And in 1980, he modified the best way all of us consumed information with the launch of CNN, the primary 24-hour cable information community.
“I am a whole lot of completely different individuals, if you do not know that by now,” Turner informed CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 1979. “I am a multifaceted particular person. I’ve obtained a whole lot of completely different personalities. You should see me at midnight on a full moon.”
Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Pictures
He was a hard-drinking, cigar-smoking adventurer — with deep pockets.
“I get hundreds, tens of millions and billions combined up,” Turner mentioned throughout a 2008 “60 Minutes” interview. He was debating with Morley Safer whether or not he had misplaced almost 1,000,000 {dollars} a day or $10 million a day for 2 and a half years as the most important particular person shareholder of AOL Time Warner. (It was the latter.) Then the company mother or father of what had been Turner’s empire, the media big was hit exhausting when the dot-com bubble burst within the early 2000s.
Turner was additionally identified for making off-color remarks, incomes him quite a few nicknames, together with the Mouth From The South and Captain Outrageous. He was, for some, as unlikable as he was invincible.
However in 2018, he disclosed to “CBS Sunday Morning” senior contributor Ted Koppel he was combating Lewy physique dementia, a progressive mind dysfunction.
“It is a gentle case of what individuals have as Alzheimer’s,” Turner informed Koppel. “It is much like that, however not almost as dangerous.”
Turner married 3 times, together with his decadelong marriage to actor and activist Jane Fonda from 1991 to 2001. In 2012, Turner informed CNN that Fonda was in all probability the good love of his life, he hadn’t gotten over her and he doubted he ever would.
“While you love any individual, and you actually love ’em, you by no means cease loving ’em,” he mentioned.
Turner’s legacy will all the time be paired with CNN, and but the reward he appeared most pleased with was the pure habitats he saved by shopping for and defending extra wild acreage than virtually anybody within the U.S.
It is tempting to name him a grasp of his area, however he’d favor caretaker. We do not personal something, he mentioned, we simply borrow it for some time.
