RIP, Ted Turner.
Turner died at age 87 while surrounded by his family, according to Turner Enterprises, which oversees his vast businesses and investments. A cause was not released. He was diagnosed in 2018 with Lewy body dementia, a progressive neurological disorder.
A Southerner with outspoken wit, he earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South” during his youthful years.
“If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect,” he once bragged.
Turner was a celebrity in his own right when he married actor Jane Fonda in 1991, just before being named Time magazine’s Man of the Year.
“He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I’ve never been the same,” Fonda wrote Wednesday on Instagram.
Slowed late in life by his illness and long out of the television business, Turner concentrated on philanthropy — donating a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities — and his more than 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of property, including the nation’s largest bison herd.
After his father’s 1963 suicide, Turner took over the Turner Advertising company. In 1970, he bought an independent UHF station with a signal so weak it didn’t even cover Atlanta.
On Dec. 17, 1976, he began transmitting the station to cable systems across the country via satellite. It became TBS Superstation. “It was the start of something bigger than we ever imagined,” Turner said.
TBS’ collection of old movies and “The Andy Griffith Show” reruns was augmented by Turner’s acquisition of baseball’s Atlanta Braves, which slowly attracted fans across the nation and declared themselves “America’s team.”
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Turner transformed how fans experience sports.
In the 1980s, Turner went deeply into debt to buy MGM, another move greeted with skepticism.
But the acquisition gave his company a huge library of vintage movies that eventually launched the TNT and Turner Classic Movies networks. His devotion to older movies earned Turner a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. He was also criticized for adding color to classic movies like “Casablanca,” which he said he did to appeal to a younger audience.
TBS also acquired the Hanna-Barbera animation library, which led to the Cartoon Network.
“He sees the obvious before most people do,” Bob Wright, former president and CEO of NBC, told The New Yorker in 2001. “We all look at the same picture, but Ted sees what you don’t see. And after he sees it, it becomes obvious to everybody.”
Asked to share the secret to his success, Turner said: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”
Of course, he also famously had a one-minute video prepped and readied to go on air at any time, if it meant that the world was about to end. It’s a band playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee”.
I’ve heard the funeral will likely be held at 7:05 pm, and in the case of rain, reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” will air.
Thanks for the memories, Ted, and thanks for the years of free and reliable Braves Baseball. A life well lived.
When Turner first bought the Braves fans could go down the tunnel under Atlanta Fulton County stadium and stand outside the Braves clubhouse to see players leaving after the games. When the Braves won Ted, having consumed plenty of alcohol, would mingle among the accumulated fans and talk shit about the Dodgers or whomever we played. It was just as entertaining as the games.
Now we have professional teams run by boring ass spreadsheet worshipers and being a fan is a lot less fun.
Ted was truly one of a kind.
Turner along with MLK, Andrew Young and Billy Payne transformed Atlanta truly into the capital of the New South.
Thank you for bringing a championship to Atlanta and really to all of Georgia.
RIP.
His autobiography is a pretty interesting read….
Just ordered one yesterday
I never knew for the longest time that Old Dead Ernest, the ghoul who introduced the horror movies WTBS would run, was Ted. Also he should be remembered as the man who gave James Brown his own weekly tv show, Future Shock, which was kind of like Soul Train produced by the Farrely brothers.
Ted used to introduce the movies on his “Academy Award Theater” on channel 17. This was before he was “Ted Turner”. He was just a goofy station owner at the time.
Late night news would occasionally be “read” by a German Shepherd with peanut butter on the roof of his mouth, with the announcer off screen.
And yeah, I watched a lot of Braves games when they were free.
Late Night News Early in the Morning…Jan Hooks also started here
Pitching phenom Andy Messersmith wore No. 17, so Ted had him wear his jersey with nameplate CHANNEL above the 17. It was good for one game. Bowie Kuhn swiftly put the kibosh on it.
There should be a place for Turner on Stone Mountain (the souths Mount Rushmore). A true legend. An icon. I’ve shared stories of Turner with my children and grand children. And surely will do same, God willing, with my great grand children. A southern businessman. A southern gentleman.
“YOU CAN NEVER QUIT. WINNERS NEVER QUIT AND QUITTERS NEVER WIN”.
Saving the buffalo/ bison may be his most important legacy. Only thing on the menu I’ll order at Ted’s Montana Grille to honor his efforts.
Greatness!!
https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/2052088326119719084?s=20
In his prime, Ted Turner was simply a force of nature.
I read a comment on X that said Ted Turner spent 20 years making sure a kid in Montana could watch the Braves, and MLB has spent 20 years making sure a kid in Atlanta can’t.
That’s a sad indictment on modern sports coverage, but it’s true.
Andy Griffith reruns could make up for a rain out.
Grew up loving Channel 17/TBS. Quirky, ahead of its time. Getting the Braves on board for all their games was awesome times. In his prime Ted was a true force of nature. He may have been an eccentric weirdo, but he was OUR eccentric weirdo. He’ll be missed. RIP.
Saw it posted somewhere that it would be appropriate if his funeral started at 5 minutes past the hour. You have to be a certain age to understand that…
“A Southerner with outspoken wit, he earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South” during his youthful years.”
Southerner? Wasn’t he born in Cincinnati?
Moved to Savannah when he was nine.
Three years later Turner’s Dad sent him to The McCallie School in Chattanooga for boarding school. He graduated high school from there too.
The school is literally built on Missionary Ridge. I suspect that anyone who was there in the ’50’s and ’60’s (even boys from overseas) considered themselves Sons of the Confederacy.
While technically a “Northern” city, Cincinnati is often considered to be the “northernmost Southern city” or the “southernmost Northern city” due to its proximity to Kentucky and cultural, industrial, and historical ties.
While we were in high school, a buddy of mine (later my roommate in Russell Hall) met with his guidance counselor to discuss college selection. My buddy wanted to study chemistry at a school in the South so one of the schools the counselor recommended was Univ of Cincinnati. My buddy stopped listening at that point.