The Ted Turner I Knew Bet on What Others Missed |
Ted Turner died Wednesday at 87, and the world feels a little less interesting, a little less imaginative and a little less fun without him in it — but also a lot better off because he was here.
After hearing the news of his passing, one moment came to mind that embodied how he moved through the world: a very drunk Turner giving an interview after winning the America’s Cup in 1977. The yachting world was aghast. How did this uncouth, mouthy Southerner find his way into their patrician club … and win?
He had a way of wandering into spaces he wasn’t invited into and then changing them forever.
I had the pleasure of working for him at Turner Broadcasting System Inc. in the late 1990s. With some frequency, everyone would arrive at work and find a book on their desks — about American history, Native Americans, conservation or the environment — accompanied by a short note from Turner encouraging us to read it.
That was a telling habit. He was brash — in ways that came off as insensitive and earned him the moniker “The Mouth of the South” — but also restless, curious and utterly original. He inherited his father’s billboard company and transformed it into something almost nobody at the time fully understood: a........