Ted Turner, father of five, founder of Turner Networks, CNN, husband, ex-husband and lifelong partner of Jane Fonda, and lifelong pro wrestling fan, died at the age of 87 on Wednesday after a decade-long battle with Lewy Body Dementia.
Turner’s last public appearance was in 2023 at his 85th birthday party. Despite their 2001 divorce, Turner and Fonda remained partners until his death. She later played a media and cable mogul on the HBO series The Newsroom.
Turner was born in Cincinnati in 1938. His father, the owner of a large advertising business, moved the family to Georgia when Turner was 9 years old. Turner’s father died by suicide in 1963.
His children, in a CNN documentary about their father, stated he was often cold and harsh, especially during holidays and get-togethers, caused by fallout from a difficult relationship with his parents growing up. They claimed Fonda’s influence as a warm and caring motherly figure and wife changed his family life around.
A sale of his father’s billboard and advertising business funded the purchase of a UHF TV station in 1970. Originally airing reruns of movies and popular 50s and 60s TV shows and Warner Bros. Looney Tunes, the station, WJRJ-TV Ch. 17 was renamed WTCG for Turner Communications Group. It began airing Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves games in 1972. Turner would later purchase both teams.
Turner petitioned the FCC to put WTCG on satellite in 1976. This led to the station becoming an early channel on cable systems around the country. He later bought the call letters for WTBS and changed the name to Turner Broadcasting System. By 1980, he started CNN, with the promise it would stay on the air “until the end of the world.”
When Turner purchased the station, he also purchased the rights to air Georgia Championship Wrestling. A fan of the sport who recognized the popularity of pro wrestling in the Southeast, he later moved GCW to the Saturday 6:05 p.m. time slot, where it became a national staple for decades. Years later, GCW renamed the show World Championship Wrestling.
In 1983, a storyline featuring Roddy Piper saving veteran announcer Gordon Solie launched the show and the network into national attention. Highlights of the angle aired on local news across the country and was featured on the Entertainment Tonight syndicated TV show. The incident is considered the greatest babyface turn in wrestling history and brought about some of the highest ratings for wrestling ever on television.
GCW aired on WTBS until the infamous Black Saturday incident on July 14, 1984. After buying a controlling interest in the promotion from promoter Jim Barnett and brothers Jack and Gerry Briscoe, Vince McMahon began airing World Wrestling Federation content in the time slot.
McMahon tried buying the GCW time slot prior to his purchase of the promotion, but was rejected by Turner. After the GCW purchase, McMahon attempted to assuage an angry Turner by promising to air original programming in the slot, but instead aired clips from house shows and other WWF programming instead.
A ratings failure, angry fans began calling and writing the station wanting a return of the old product. Turner would later enter into agreements with Bill Watts to air Mid-South Wrestling and Ole Anderson, who began another Georgia wrestling territory, putting three wrestling promotions on the network at the same time. The Mid-South and Georgia programs were far more successful in the ratings than the WWF.
Losing money, McMahon approached Barnett a year later, who brokered a deal with Jim Crockett Promotions, who ran Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, to buy the time slot. At the time, Crockett was working to unify the NWA in an attempt to compete with McMahon’s monopolization of the market.
WTBS continued to grow through the 1980s as cable subscribers skyrocketed by 10s of millions per year. The growth was seen by Crockett Promotions, whose Saturday night two-hour show was one of the most popular in the country.
Fans of the station and World Championship Wrestling crossed all walks of life. Following the death of President George H.W. Bush, an aide to former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms recalled an urgent call from the White House when the show was at its peak. He was urged to make sure then NWA World Champion Ric Flair was at the airport to greet George and Barbara Bush at the airport. The aide contacted David Crockett, whose simple response was, “He will be there.”
The President was ushered off the airport tarmac to a waiting Nature Boy, who rode with the President and First Lady to the event, according to the aide. He spent the afternoon entertaining “mega fan” Barbara Bush. While in line for food at the event, one of the President’s aides asked him where the First Lady was. The President said, “She had run off with someone named the Nature Boy.”
Crockett Promotions would later be purchased by Turner to continue airing on WTBS under the World Championship Wrestling name, which continued airing regularly on the station until 1995, when WCW Monday Nitro was launched on TNT as a direct competitor to the WWF.
Turner began having less day-to-day interaction with WCW and Turner networks after the company was purchased by Time Warner in 1996. Originally a supporter of AOL’s merger with Time Warner in 2001, Turner soured on it quickly and once blasted AOL’s chairman during a board meeting, leading to his resignation.
Ted Turner’s Life and Legacy
Turner attended Brown University, where he was a member of the school sailing team. He was kicked out of the school for having a female member of the student body in his dorm room. The university later awarded him an honorary doctorate.
A lifelong sailor, he competed in the Olympic trials and joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He was a member of various America’s Cup teams, including the winning 1977 squad, which earned him the cover photo in Sports Illustrated.
As a sports-owner, obituaries credited him with saving professional sports in Atlanta and named him the primary influence in the city becoming one of America’s great metropolitan areas. His name hangs on a banner in the rafters of State Farm Arena.
Turner created the Goodwill Games in the 1980s as an Olympic alternative, but were unsuccessful. The event was considered a bust by critics, despite Turner’s goal of using sports to create better diplomatic relations between countries on differing sides of the Cold War.
An advocate against climate change, Turner pushed for the development of the Captain Planet cartoon to encourage kids to be environmentally friendly. He sponsored the United Nations Foundation with a $1 billion donation, a third of his $3 billion worth, in 1998. He encouraged the hiring of minorities in his companies, including MLB home run king Hank Aaron, who worked with the Atlanta Braves until his death.
He co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the Captain Planet Foundation, the Turner Foundation and worked to increase the U.S. bison population, combat global poverty and increase public interest in lowering the nuclear threat. He created TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, TBS and owned what would become the greatest library in visual media.
He said selling Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner was a mistake he would always regret.
He described his father as “far right,” which influenced him becoming a member of the Young Republicans. He later became a staunch ally of progressive and civil rights causes while spending much of his wealth on fighting poverty and global instability.
He challenged Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch to a fist fight – multiple times – before the two made peace.
He bought thousands of acres of ranch land in the plains to help grow the bison population, then founded a chain of restaurants based on bison meat.
He described his experience with the U.S. Coast Guard as “pretty sweet” while receiving the U.S. Navy Memorial’s Lone Sailor Award.
After hosting a Native American dance display at company headquarters in Atlanta, he remarked that the performance was beautiful but he was afraid he would get scalped.
He once held presidential aspirations around 2016, but only for a few minutes. When he asked Fonda what she thought of him running for President, she said she would immediately leave him.
