Media mogul Ted Turner | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Ted Turner, media pioneer who created CNN, won the America's Cup, and became America's largest individual landowner with 2 million acres, reflects on his resilient life marked by early adversity (father's suicide), business triumphs (Time Warner merger) and crashes (losing $7 billion in AOL Time Warner fallout), and three failed marriages including to Jane Fonda. Despite contemplating suicide amid personal and financial lows, he rebounded through therapy, philanthropy ($1 billion UN pledge, bison conservation via 50,000-head herd and Ted's Montana Grill), and restless global wandering at age 70. His mantra: press on without regret, as no fortune buys more time.
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Ted Turner is like Dracula. You have to drive a stake through his heart to stop him. Though many have come close, he's back. Though he's gone from being a really rich man to a mere billionaire, he's maintained the manic energy that drove him to change the landscape of the information age by creating CNN and 24-hour news. The uncompromising competitor who won the America's Cup. The ex-husband of Jane Fonda. The batty billionaire who challenged his archenemy, fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch to a boxing match. Once described as both genius and jackass, he's now decided to reflect on a tumultuous life and more or less tell all in a memoir. Ted Turner is the largest individual landowner in the United States, owning 2 million acres across 12 states. Caught up with him at one of his Montana ranches. This lonesome cowboy who hates his own company.
You hate being alone. I don't like being alone. These are big places to be alone. I tell you, come out here and spend the night by yourself sometimes. You know the coyotes out there howling, it's pretty scary.
Out here at the Snow Crest Ranch, Ted Turner is not alone. He keeps company with bison, horses, and a stream full of Ruby River trout.
MAMA MIA, that's a real nice fish.
Life is good for Ted Turner. He's not your average old-age pensioner. This most restless of men jets round the world promoting good causes, dreaming up new business ventures, and dropping in on his dozens of properties scattered about the hemisphere. And now, as he turns 70, he's written his book. After his morning ride, the man who proudly says he never looks back decided to do just that to let Ted reflect on Ted.
I've had the good fortune to have a much more diverse life than most people with professional sports and television and news and movies and a fairly spectacular private life, too. Well, it's been a lot of fun.
Ted Turner burst on the scene in 1977 when he captained Courageous, the yacht that won the America's Cup. As a blotto Turner celebrated, Captain Outrageous emerged. But it was his groundbreaking creation of CNN that put Turner indelibly on the map. His company's rapid growth and ballooning debt nearly bankrupted him.
I was going to go broke if I didn't get things turned around real fast. But I was able to get it refinanced without government help, I might add, unlike what's going on today. But we made it by the skin on our chinny chin chin.
Two years later, we made a run at CBS. Unsuccessful, but we did take a swing. Instead, Turner went on to create his own broadcasting powerhouse. And when he merged his company with Time Warner in 1996, his status as media visionary was confirmed.
I didn't care how much adversity life threw at me. I intended to get to the top.
The adversity started at infancy, shipped off to boarding school at the age of four, followed by years of military school for discipline. He says his alcoholic father did everything he could to toughen him up.
You had a pretty tough father. So what? You know, lots of people have tough fathers. He beat you up and No, he didn't beat me up. He spanked me. Spanked me with a wire hanger. Yeah, a couple times. But that's pretty traumatic stuff. It was. But he was doing it to make me better. And you think it made you better? I think so.
At age 21, he began working for his father's outdoor advertising business. But shortly after an event that both shaped and shattered Ted Turner, his father's suicide.
Your father's suicide, that would strike me as something that would be awfully difficult for anybody to get over. Sure. Were you out to prove something to him even though he was gone? He wanted me to be a big success and all my life I've tried to be a big success. So that his influence was huge.
That success has plastered all over the walls of his Atlanta office. CNN made Turner into a statesman of sorts, hobnobbing with world leaders. But he may be best remembered for the impolitic things he said, insulting Christianity, fellow billionaires, even the Italians.
The Italians. Imagine the Italians at war. I mean, they'd rather be involved in crime and just making some wine and having a good time.
His utter inability to self-censor earned Turner the nickname the Mouth from the South. But to some, it was evidence of true mental instability. Turner admits he took the drug lithium for a while, but said it had no effect. But that didn't stop his rival, Rupert Murdoch, from questioning his sanity during their legendary war of words.
His newspapers were pretty brutal in attacking you. Oh, all the time. They called you crazy. That's right. Nuts. He had detectives following me around at times. At least I think he did. I never had any proof of it. You once said that Murdoch was the most dangerous man in the world. You still believe that? No. I think George Bush is the most dangerous man in the world. I've made peace with Rupert. We had lunch together a few months ago. Now there's not anybody I don't like, but after this interview's over, I may not like you.
Vintage Ted Turner, as was his joy when he agreed to AOL's merger with Time Warner.
I did it with as much or more excitement and enthusiasm as I did on that night when I first made love some 42 years ago.
He was now worth $10 billion. But shortly after the merger, Turner was pushed aside by Time Warner brass, vice chairman of nothing, even though he was the company's largest individual stockholder. Then the internet bubble burst and AOL Time Warner stock went into freefall.
You were losing nearly $10 million a day for two and a half years. A million a day. Wait a minute. That'd be 700 million. You're right. 10 million a day. But when you're bleeding $10 million a day, at some point you just got to say, I'm getting out of this. But my kids were all in the stock. Most of my friends were. So I sat there loyally and went down the drain with everybody else.
To the tune of $7 billion to Turner. It was Apocalypse Now. His marriage to Jane Fonda was breaking up. A grandchild was gravely ill and he was jobless. His five children were worried that like his father, Turner might take his own life.
He contemplated suicide. And I was really worried when Jane left him. And you know, they took away his job the way they did. That was the lowest I'd ever seen. He was really depressed and a lot of other things were happening in our family as well. So, it was a really, really tough time for him. He barreled through it. And he also got help. He got professional help. He went to a shrink. And he said he always left his shrink and he cheered his shrink up. He said he would leave him laughing.
Turner admits he spent more time gallivanting around the globe than he did being a father.
I think he may be the most restless man I've ever met. We never sat down for a meal for more than 15 minutes. I guarantee you he'd also give the monologue. The conversation was his through the whole dinner. The operative word is monologue. He likes to talk at you a little bit. So, how was your day time together? Yeah. After a vacation with dad, you need a vacation.
Recently, Turner says he has become a better father and feels his relationship with his children is his greatest achievement.
If his kids is his greatest achievement, what do you think is his biggest disappointment? I've heard him say his failure of his marriages.
He's been married three times, most famously to actress Jane Fonda, a union that lasted 10 years.
You seemed really happy, you and Jane Fonda, together. We were for a long time. And what went wrong? It's hard to tell. It obviously was a combination of things. Do you wish that the marriage had managed to survive? Well, it didn't. I mean, there's no point in sitting around and crying about spilled milk. Got to move on.
Moving on is Turner's mantra. It also put a hex on his marriage to Jane Fonda.
It's impossible to really be with Ted the way he needs someone to be with him and have any kind of life of your own. He's perfectly aware of it. He said to me, he said, "I hate being alone." He's aware that it makes it hard for the person who's, you know, trying to love him. But what's interesting is the moment he's in one place for a couple of days, he's got to move on to somewhere else. Yeah. When you're chased by demons, you have to keep moving.
Though they've been divorced for eight years, they're in some way inseparable.
You know, if Ted really needed me, I would be there in a blue minute. Yeah, I think he misses you a lot. I think he does.
I'm not getting emotional because I wish I was still living with him. But he touches me deeply, deeply the contradictions that make up Ted Turner.
Turner admits being a husband is not his strong suit.
You have a tough time at monogamy. Correct. It's a lot easier now. Now that you're not married, you mean? Well, at being 70, too. But you still have a lot of girlfriends. I still have some. I'm dating.
Turner now dates several women at once, and they all look remarkably alike. They take turns as traveling companions in his restless wandering, and he's as generous as ever with his philanthropy. He famously pledged $1 billion to the UN and has given another $500 million or so to causes he believes in.
But lest you think Turner has completely withdrawn from business, welcome to Ted's Montana Grill.
Everything okay?
Home of the Bison Burger. Turner started the eco-friendly chain as a way of ensuring the survival of his favorite mammal both on a bun and roaming the prairie.
So, these are bison. Yeah. Don't step in the poop.
His herd of 50,000 roams on only a few of the 27 properties he owns across North and South America. He plans to leave it all to conservation after he's gone.
When our time's up, it's up. And no matter how rich you are, don't matter. That's right. All the money in the world won't buy you one more day. So, you might as well give it away. Might as well.
Portrait of a man temporarily at peace, taking a break from his marathon race with life. Catch and release, just like those billions that slipped away.
Out here, I don't have to worry about the 7 billion I lost. 7 billion. It'll make you stop and think. You know, you can't cry over spilled milk, as I said before. You got to press on, my man. Aha, another nice one.
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