Ted Turner, the brash sportsman and entrepreneur whose ambition and instincts led to a media empire that included groundbreaking news network CNN, has died, CNN reported on Wednesday citing a press release from Turner Enterprises. He was 87.
No cause of death was given.
In September 2018 Turner revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a degenerative nerve disease.
One nickname was not enough for a personality as roguish and bold as Turner’s. He was known variously as the “Mouth of the South,” “Captain Outrageous,” and “Terrible Ted.”
He became a billionaire by taking over his father’s billboard business, buying a television station in 1970 and parlaying that into what would become a vast ground-breaking television group.
Turner became one of the most powerful figures in U.S. media and entertainment, his networks specializing in news, sports, re-runs, and old movies. But he did not stop there. He added the MGM/UA movie studio to his portfolio before making an even bigger move – merging his Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner in 1996.
Turner headed the new company’s cable networks division and was its leading shareholder, but he had trouble fitting into a corporate system after decades of free-wheeling as his own boss. He eventually lost control of his networks.
Turner also became one of the world’s leading environmentalists, one of the largest land owners in the United States, and a major philanthropist, giving $1 billion to the United Nations.
With a slender mustache, gap-toothed grin, dimpled chin and mischievous glint in his eye, Turner pursued a range of passions. In the 1970s he owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team and the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association and skippered his yacht the Courageous to the America’s Cup. The many women in his life included Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda.
In 1986 he started the Goodwill Games, an Olympic-like competition, and two years later bought a wrestling organization that provided more TV content. His concerns about nuclear war led him to co-found the Nuclear Threat Initiative in 2001.
Forbes estimates Turner’s fortune at $2.8 billion.
“If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect,” he once said.
Reactions
Below are some reactions to the news.
Donald Trump
“Ted Turner, one of the Greats of All Time, just died,” the U.S. president posted on Truth Social. “He founded CNN, sold it, and was personally devastated by the Deal because the new ownership took CNN, his ‘baby,’ and destroyed it. It became woke, and everything that he is not all about. Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory. Regardless, however, one of the Greats of Broadcast History, and a friend of mine. Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!”
Walter Isaacson
Speaking at the Sir Harry Evans Investigative Journalism Summit in London, the former head of CNN called Turner “the most fearless journalist I’ve ever seen”.
“He was fearless when it came to his corporate overlords, when Time Warner bought him; he was fearless when it came to political leaders who tried to push back on him,” Isaacson added.
“I can remember in 2011 (sic), when the Twin Towers get hit, Ted had been kind of banished upstairs at CNN Center because the corporate overlords at Time Warner didn’t want him meddling with it.” Isaacson asked Turner to come down to the newsroom, he recalled. “He brought a Confederate sword he had hanging on his wall, and he rallied us. And he said, journalism is made for times like this.”
Mark Thompson
“He was always and will be the presiding spirit of CNN,” the chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide said in a statement. “Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand.”
