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| There's just something about a man with a cigar . . . Ted Turner, 1977 |
I recollect when he started his first TV station in Atlanta, where I was living at the time. Channel 17 was a low-budget start-up that I chiefly remember because it would play Top 40 songs all morning? / afternoon? on Saturday - producing the first music videos, all done in-house by using special effects with the TV cameras - like mirror images, upside-down dancers, a rain of polka dots, and so forth. Primitive, but fascinating at the time. I watched them on my nifty little Sony TV with a 5-inch screen, which was the last word in cool back then.
He was married three times and had five children. His third wife, from 1991 to 2001, was Jane Fonda, who has written this lovely tribute:
He swept into my life, a gloriously handsome, deeply romantic, swashbuckling pirate and I’ve never been the same. He needed me. No one had ever let me know they needed me, and this wasn’t your average human being that needed me, this was the creator of CNN, and Turner Classic Movies, who had won the America’s Cup as the world’s greatest sailor . . .
He was a good-looking rascal, but straight as a board, and therefore typically boring: not someone I kept track of; I hadn't thought about him in years. But as far as I know, he wasn't hateful or malicious, nor was he a thief or a rapist, as we hear so much about today. And looking over his obituaries, I am struck by all the many good things he did or tried to do for the country and the world. He actually cared about other people - what a concept - and had a big heart.
If you can spare the time to look at some of these retrospectives, you will see that, unlike some other big-mouthed billionaires, he actively promoted world peace, nuclear disarmament, environmental regulation, wildlife protection, responsible journalism, and other noble causes. He put his money where his big mouth was, too - lots of it.
So I have to say, Good on you, Ted. You used your time on earth wisely and well, and your treasure too. Rest in peace.
TCM:
PBS:
WSB (Atlanta, 1988):
And a 52-minute interview with Charlie Rose from 2004 - it's most interesting to hear Turner's condemnation of Bush's invasion of Iraq, and contrast that with the insane, homicidal ravings of the current occupant of the White House:
P. S. -- Turner was no dummy, either. He wanted to major in classics (Latin/Greek literature and history) in college, until his daddy threw a fit and made him choose something else. In one of the videos above, Turner quotes from memory a famous passage from "Horatio at the Bridge" by Macaulay:
To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods . . . .
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