Ted Turner, American

We Could Use His Spirit Now

Ted Turner was a piece of work. I got to spend a few months with him back in 1986, when we explored the possibility of me ghosting his autobiography. We went hunting together; we went to ballgames; we went to Moscow; we talked about everything, especially peace, politics and the environment—three of his obsessions. Ultimately, the book didn’t work out…but the experience was transformative for me. I learned a lot about the nature of genius…and about the joy of chronic optimism.

The world began anew for Ted every day. Anything was possible. He had mad, exuberant highs—and. I suppose, there were some lows in there, too, but I never saw them. I realized that genius wasn’t necessarily a matter of IQ—his was not a traditional intelligence—but of horizon: Ted saw things before other people did. Most notably, he saw the future of cable TV. He transformed a tiny UHF station—-channel 17 in Atlanta—into a clutch of powerful networks: CNN, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies. I was with him during a down time in his life; he was (relatively) broke; he had just bought the MGM film library and was said to have overpaid for it dramatically—but he knew, before others did, that cable would demand product, lots and lots of it. He bought sports teams even though he didn’t care for team sports all that much, because they fed his TV networks. “Do you like basketball?” He asked as we headed toward front row seats at a Hawks game. I said yes. “Oh right,” he replied. “You’re Jewish.”

And always, the sense of impossible possibility. “Do you think we could rent the Taj Mahal for a night and make love there?” He asked his girlfriend at the time. He was dead serious.

He had a temper and he simply could not hold his liquor—a fact made manifest at the celebration of his America’s Cup victory and later, for me, in Moscow—but he was a genuinely benign presence, an innate progressive. He created the “Better World Society” to advance his social concerns and, later, gave $1 billion to the United Nations. His land conservation in Montana was traansformative. There was a decency to the man that, when matched with his native enthusiasm, was distinctly American. He dashed about Moscow, introducing himself as “Tedski” and expressed a desire to “play gotcha in the dacha” with some of the local talent. The Russians, as dark as Ted could be light, were delighted by him.

He lacked conventional filters, which at times could be embarrassing. But his mistakes were driven by innocence not cynicism. I was with him when he returned to his almost-alma-mater Brown University (he had dropped out) where he gave a splendid speech about the impact of cattle-farming on Africa, though later he told a smaller gathering of students that Africa was overpopulated and needed a massive “die off” which AIDs might provide. Jaws dropped, of course. But Ted wasn’t thinking about the vast, immediate human tragedy; his concern for the long-term health of the planet had momentarily blinkered his better angels.

A few weeks later, Gary Hart dropped out of the presidential race because he was caught having an extramarital affair…ah, the innocent 1980s! We were in Ted’s plane. “Joe,” he asked. “Should I run?”

I laughed. “Ted, you wouldn’t last 15 minutes.”

“Why, because of…” He named his girlfriend.

“No, because you came out in favor of AIDs at Brown. They’ll find the quote and crucify you.”

He nodded; he knew. He might reshape the world of television, and try to rent the Taj Mahal for a night, but the presidency was one thing he couldn’t really consider.

His willingness to consider almost everything else, his exquisite ability to dream, made for a Better World for the rest of us. The temptation might be to compare him to Trump, another billionaire with an untrammeled ego. But Trump is a Death Star, a gloom-seeking missile; he feeds on darkness and prejudice. His sense of “greatness” extends no farther than the tip of his nose. Ted was the opposite, an excess of light and optimism. He was just a great American guy. I was lucky to know him.