Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, was a complex and controversial figure known for his outrageous antics, womanizing, and philanthropy. He revolutionized news broadcasting with his 24-hour news channel and was a world-class competitive yachtsman. However, his personal life was marked by scandals and controversies, including a long-running feud with Rupert Murdoch.
Everyone who ever met him seems to have an outrageous anecdote about the late CNN founder Ted Turner , but few can match the one recalled this week by the network's former chief news executive, Eason Jordan.
In the first years of the groundbreaking cable channel, set up by the flamboyant media tycoon in 1980, the workaholic Turner wanted to stay so close to his new business that he often slept in a pull-out bed in his office above the newsroom. An early riser, he'd sometimes wander down into the newsroom wearing only a bathrobe to get a coffee.
Jordan, then only an overnight desk assistant, said Turner didn't usually interact with the night staff - until the morning he suddenly came in with company. It was Raquel Welch, the bombshell actress and international sex symbol - and they were both wearing bathrobes.
'Ted was so proud of himself for having such good company that he introduced himself and Raquel Welch to everyone in the newsroom at 4 o'clock in the morning,' Jordan recalled to NPR on Wednesday, the day the irrepressible Turner died aged 87. The cause of death was complications of Lewy body dementia, the debilitating and progressive brain disorder which he revealed to he'd contracted just over a month before his 80th birthday in 2018.
Brash and outspoken, Turner was the source of so many scandalous remarks and stories – many of them about his inveterate and shameless womanizing – that it was sometimes easy to forget that he was also one of the most important media moguls in US history. The maverick and eccentric Atlanta billionaire, who was nicknamed the 'Mouth of the South,' changed news broadcasting forever when he had the idea for a cable channel that broadcasts only news - and for 24 hours a day.
The maverick and eccentric Atlanta billionaire, who was nicknamed the 'Mouth of the South,' changed news broadcasting forever In 1991, he married Hollywood star Jane Fonda and almost changed her forever, too. Devoted to the charismatic but deeply chauvinistic and domineering Republican tycoon, the former feminist, left-wing radical gave up acting to take on the role of his obedient trophy wife.
The marriage was over within a decade – officially because the atheist Turner was appalled by Fonda's adoption of the Baptist Church, but family insiders said Jane was emotionally exhausted by his philandering while she admitted she was tired of having to nanny him. He won Playgirl magazine's Sexiest Man of the Year award in 1980.
However, he was also moody and – especially in his younger days when he drank heavily – could be boorish and confrontational. He admitted that he took the anti-depressant lithium to contain the swings in his mental health. His vast ambition – a biographer once described him as 'probably the most competitive guy you would ever meet in this world' – was, said insiders, another legacy of his abusive father, who left instilled in him a deep insecurity.
The macho businessman described himself as a 'bulldog that won't let go,' although underlings recalled he could be a nasty bully if he was crossed and would have histrionics in meetings. According to a friend, Turner's life was spent wrestling 'three bears' – 'insecurity,' a 'manic, restless nature' and 'lust.
' A relentlessly ambitious and audacious businessman, he was not only a world-class philanderer but also a world-class competitive yachtsman. He skippered the US boat, Courageous, to victory against Australia in the 1977 America's Cup and two years later won the grueling 1979 Fastnet Race. US Sailing, the sport's governing body, named him Yachtsman of the Year four times.
His long-running feud with fellow media baron Rupert Murdoch actually started on the high seas after a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner's boat during a 1983 race off Australia, causing the latter to run aground. The pugnacious Captain Courageous ended up challenging Murdoch to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas Turner was deeply idealistic – a quality that attracted anti-Vietnam War campaigner Fonda – and devoted his later years to philanthropy. Turner died aged 8
Ted Turner CNN Womanizer Philanthropy Yachtsman Rupert Murdoch
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