His nicknames could be rides at a traveling carnival, Captain Outrageous, a whirling Ferris wheel, or Terrible Ted, a frantic roller coaster. But those were given to him in the old days. Lately, the word on the street is he has toned down, mellowed out, has been forced by age and money and marriage troubles into near mild-manneredom. Should Ted Turner's new nickname be Mr. Mellow? You judge for yourself.
Thanks a lot, everybody. Thank you.
I'm ready to play you some more. Tell Hal Hirsch we need it.
And this is the new laid-back leader?
A lot of people got bombs that we didn't even know about. And if I had them, I got it, that's all we needed, you know, was more bombs.
The Russians like Japanese cameras and VCRs just as much as we do. You know, if you don't threaten anybody, you don't need weapons.
The mouth of the South may have mellowed a touch, but no moss is growing in the shadow of Ted Turner. He still paces when standing, talks fast and frantic and free of notes, and still finds a childlike glee in cheating the odds. His first calculated risk came in '76 when he boldly beamed a UHF Atlanta TV signal to the rest of the country. The move was revolutionary for the industry. It was a windfall for Ted Turner.
He programmed the Superstation partly with Atlanta's sports teams. He was to make America's teams. He had rescued the Braves in '76 and Hawks in '77 from the awaiting arms of other cities who wanted them. And that move made him somewhat of a local hero.
Are you an avid sports fan?
Yeah, I'm an sports fan. I'm more avid when we're doing well.
Three years after the team purchases, another brainstorm: 24-hour news.
Broadcasting System, this is the Headline News Network. What drives you? I mean, you have energy just spouting out of you.
Not really. Not really. I mean, that's just the public Ted Turner. I mean, I get tired. I just uh but I but I do have energy. There's no question about it, but...
Some say the energy came from another driven man, his father. Ed Turner committed suicide when his son was 24, leaving Ted with a struggling billboard company he would turn around.
Father and I were very close. And uh but I missed him terribly when he was gone. I miss him today. If I had one wish, if I had one wish, I wish my father could come back and uh see what I've accomplished. Uh that would be my greatest joy to show him around, let him go to a ballgame or two, and uh see this building and see CNN. You know, he would have been really impressed, I think.
But if you believe in an afterlife, he is seeing it all.
Well, I don't know that I do. I mean, if I believed in if if there was that kind of afterlife that I'd like to see, he'd be able to come back and visit, you know. That that would be the kind of afterlife I'd like to see.
If Ed Turner could pay a visit, he'd find his son has the touch of Midas. Everything you've touched has turned to silver and gold.
Okay, so where are your failures?
Well, I wouldn't necessarily call them failures. Why don't you just say they were things that didn't work out? I mean, I even though I won some sailboat races, I lost sailboat races.
But he won the big one, the '77 America's Cup. It's then he earned the title of Captain Outrageous at the Cup press conference.
If Australia had played baseball like the Los Angeles Dodgers...
And that was 11 years ago, so uh why don't you let me forget it? The waves he made at the yacht club were ripples compared to the boat rocking he'd do on Wall Street. Turner attempted but failed to take over the helm of ABC, ESPN, and CBS. His personal life hasn't been all smooth sailing, either.
I've been divorced twice. I'm going to be divorced twice. I mean, you know, marriages, that's that's that's a sign of a of a failing, you know, when a marriage doesn't work out. You can look at it that way. But, of course, happens to a lot of people.
At 49, Ted's now trying to make peace with a family divided by a separation. With two kids from a former wife, 24-year-old Teddy, and 26-year-old Laura, and three from his second wife of 23 years, Janie. There's Beauregard and Rhett, both at The Citadel, and Jennie, now at Woodward Academy. Ted and Janie raised all five children. Now, he's in a new relationship with his ex-pilot, California bred JJ Ebaugh. She's now executive director of his Better World Society.
Can you put a relationship as your first priority versus your business, or will it always be business first?
I don't see why you have to put them in priorities. I mean, there's really really room for both. I mean, you know, a lot of people have a family and a career. So, why should I be any different than that? You know, JJ, who's uh who's living with me now, we she travels with me most of the time. You can't do that when you got small children, but we don't have small children.
Don't plan on having any?
Well, I haven't gotten that far yet.
Somebody told me that basically you're just a good old boy. Would you agree or disagree with that statement?
