Original subtitles

Larry King: If there is a true legend, it's Ted Turner.

Jane Fonda: An American hero, bigger than life.

speaker 1: He's an erratic genius.

Bono: The man is way more rock-and-roll than I am.

Bold and frequently controversial.

Ted Koppel: They called him "the Mouth from the South."

Ted Turner: Bull [bleep]! If people are doing something

that hurts all the rest of us,

then they shouldn't be doing it!

Christiane Amanpour: He believed way early in saving the climate.

Turner: I'm willing to risk everything.

speaker 2: In a move that drew criticism,

Turner accepted an invitation to go to Cuba.

Diane Sawyer: Can you trust him?

Turner: He trusted me. He gave me a loaded gun.

I could've shot him very easily.

speaker 3: Ted is a guy who would bet the farm.

Turner: You got enough brains to save up

11 million bucks to buy it,

then you oughta be able to have enough brains

to go down there and run it, right?

Ronald Reagan: It's a great honor for me

to be here with you today to open the Goodwill Games.

speaker 4: He's Captain Courageous.

Turner: I said to the crew, I said,

"20 people are gonna die tonight."

(thunder crashes)

Ted Turner, the well-known American yachtsman, is missing.

Turner: Who thought the world needed 24/7 news? I did.

We had no employees, no set, no equipment.

- The satellite blew up. - (explosion blasts)

speaker 5: Clearly, I've never been there,

but it feels like we're in the center of Hell.

(stock market bell ringing)

Morley Safer: His marriage was breaking up.

speaker 6: The pressure was excruciating.

Terry McGuirk: This is the fight of his life.

speaker 7: You know you changed the world?

Turner: Yeah, I know.

- (TV static) - And I didn't know what I was gonna talk about

- until now. - (audience laughter)

(curious music playing)

"Playboy" Magazine called him a bona fide,

larger-than-life character.

Would you please welcome Mr. Ted Turner.

John Malone: Ted was having polls done

that were indicating that, after the Pope,

he was probably the second most popular person in America.

reporter: Turner, by far the most controversial skipper

ever to take part in the Cup competition,

found it difficult to be serious

as he continued to celebrate his victory.

When you're bleeding $10 million a day,

at some point, you just gotta say, "I'm getting outta 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.

I will do whatever is necessary to survive.

I mean, the only way they're gonna get rid of me,

um, is to put a bullet in me.

While I'd never been in business primarily for money,

when I became a billionaire, it did feel good.

I think it'd be tragic to just be remembered

for making a lot of money.

Being around the Cousteaus

made me want to work that much harder,

to use my influence to expose more people

to the important issues facing our planet.

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope

that Captain Planet and the Planeteers can save the planet.

I decided that what would be really exciting to do,

donate a billion dollars to the UN causes, myself.

The UN Foundation's become...

the UN's strategic partner, uh, since that time,

connecting the UN to activists like myself.

Are we gonna make the right choices

that will allow us to exist for another million years

here, on this beautiful paradise of a planet that we're on?

Or are we gonna turn it into a desert

and end up blowing ourselves to kingdom come?

The choice is ours.

He told me, he said, "You've got something that leaders

all over the world need right now."

He said, "I need it. I've gotta have it."

I was named "Time" magazine's Man of the Year.

Malone: Deserved it. CNN did more to pull down

the Iron Curtain, in my opinion, than anything.

Turner: I also made it clear

that if anyone was killed or injured,

I, and I alone, would take full responsibility.

He has single-handedly brought back species,

the most famous of which are the American bison.

Well, I'm raising the bison 'cause I really like 'em,

but when I got up to 42,000,

I had to start doing something with them

- because they keep breeding, so we to... - (Letterman laughing)

- ...we had to eat some of 'em. - (audience laughter)

I did not call him Hitler.

You live by the sword, you die by it.

- Mike Wallace: "Turner veer--" - Yeah.

Wallace: "Veers dangerously toward insanity."

"Insanity." Well...

- Wallace: Oh, you read that? - I read it.

I read it. I mean, I expected it from him.

You're right. I get in more trouble.

I, I wish I didn't say some of the crazy things I've said.

- (TV static) - I'm gonna say some things today

that I have never said in public before.

(glitching, static, clicks)

(typing)

Franklin D. Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is...

fear itself.

Turner: My father, he came up in the Depression.

He didn't finish college

because his father went bankrupt.

He was a farmer in Mississippi.

And he went bankrupt.

He had to drop out of school.

And he never-- He tried to work his way through,

but he never made it through.

And he was in this grinding poverty.

He told his mother when he was about 16,

"I will be a millionaire.

And someday, I will own a yacht and a plantation."

♪

When my father reached Ohio, the arrival of this gregarious

and charming Southerner did not go unnoticed.

Florence Rooney was a bright, beautiful, and elegant woman

with a terrific personality.

My mom accepted his proposal for marriage.

I came along next November 19th, 1938.

The first Turner born north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Another beautiful baby, Mary Jean,

came along in September of 1941

and was the apple of my parents' eye.

(explosions)

(tense music playing)

That date was significant

because when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor

just a few months later,

my father joined the US Navy.

They decided to take their infant daughter, Mary Jean,

but leave me behind to attend the Cincinnati boarding school.

I was 4 years old.

I don't even remember the name of that school,

but I sure do remember that I didn't like it.

A gray gravel courtyard framed by a chain-link fence.

- The place felt like a prison. - (gate rattling, slamming)

(soft music playing)

My greatest fear was to be put in a dungeon

and sit there for the rest of my life.

I missed my parents so much

that I suffered from a case of abandonment.

(kids laughing)

I don't like to be alone.

It was hard for me to understand

why my parents took my sister and left me behind.

My unhappiness at this school must have been obvious

as my parents ultimately decided from afar

that I should spend the following school year

with my Turner grandparents in rural Mississippi.

(teletype clicking)

reporter (on radio): This, ladies and gentlemen,

is the end of the Second World War.

Turner: My father returned from the war the following year,

and our family was finally reunited in Cincinnati.

Dad was a... was a handful.

And he would bring all kinds of wild animals home.

He was doing taxidermy at 9 years old,

stuffing squirrels and bringing snakes and things home,

putting alligators in the bathtub.

It's interesting because his dad

was very tough on him.

- (door slams open) - Turner: My dad was a volatile man

with a quick temper.

When he drank, his temper got worse.

And, his father beat him regularly.

Sometimes with his hand.

Sometimes with coat hangers.

Sometimes with belts.

Turner: My father, I was crazy about him.

He was tough but fair.

He always would say, he said, "The reason

"I'm being so tough on you now while you're little

is because it'll be easier for you when you grow older."

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.

My father moved to Georgia when I was 9 years old.

("Reveille" playing on bugle)

He sent me right away to Georgia Military Academy,

which was a school for-- was like, like a prison school.

And they were so mean! And I was a Yankee,

and they were still fighting the Civil War.

So, they said, "Turner's a Yankee. Kill the Yankee!"

They used to pile on. I remember

hiding in a locker for six hours.

They had a lynch mob with a rope!

They-- you know, they were just playing like they were the Ku Klux Klan!

I was being killed, alright? I mean, it was awful.

Beat up all the time, pounded on, gangs, it was just--

I wasn't sodomized, thank God.

- (audience laughing) - I mean, we were too young for that.

But, everything else.

So, I became-- I learned the Southern accent.

I mean, it took me a couple of years. I final--

I finally got integrated in. I mean, I became a Southerner.

(audience laughing)

- (horns honking) - By this time,

my dad had decided to make his career

in the outdoor advertising business.

He had acquired a small billboard company in Savannah.

One of the things that saved Ted

was his father had a manservant named Jimmy Brown,

who also sailed,

and who looked after the father's boat,

and basically raised Ted.

He used to come down to the boat and visit,

and we used to go fishing and hunting

and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, just hang out,

I mean, he would come out and hang out with me.

("The Three Bells" by The Browns playing)

♪ All the chapel bells were ringing ♪

- ♪ Bom... ♪ - (birds chirping)

- ♪ In the little valley town ♪ - ♪ Bom... ♪

- ♪ Bom... bom... ♪ - ♪ And the song that they were singing ♪

- ♪ Bom... bom... ♪ - ♪ Was for baby Jimmy Brown ♪

Turner: "The Three Bells" was a song I used to sing to Jimmy.

With my dad away at work so much

and my mom spending time with my sister,

Jimmy and I would hang out.

He was like an older brother,

but we behaved more like two good friends.

- Eventually, he became like a second father to me. - (song fades out)

- (pickaxes smacking) - By the time I was 12, during my summers,

my father had me working a 42-and-a-half-hour work week

at his billboard company.

We'd cut the bushes down with sling blades along the swamps,

- along the highway, - (snake rattling)

you know, fighting the snakes and mosquitoes

and Black Widow spiders down there.

- He paid me 10 cents an hour then, too. - (coins jingle)

And that was illegal, too,

because the minimum wage was 85 cents an hour.

I said, "Dad, how can you do this?"

He says, "You're my son."

(siren wailing)

Mary Jean was just 12 years old

when she developed lupus erythematosus,

an autoimmune disease.

She went into a coma,

and when she came out of the coma,

her, her mind was badly affected.

So, she was not the same person at all.

There were days when I would walk up to her,

and she'd say the most simple childish thing like,

"Teddy, you're my brother."

Then walk away and bang her head against the wall.

It was heartbreaking.

The most painful times for us was when she'd scream,

"Please, God, let me die."

Ted was very, uh, traumatized by it,

by her illness. I mean, he thought

maybe he oughta get religion,

and maybe that would help. And I know he told me

he went to several Billy Graham crusades

and found Christianity and the Lord and all of that.

There are thousands of people here tonight

that have burdens that need to be lifted.

Problems that need to be solved.

Sin that needs to be forgiven.

Many of you are searching for a new way of life.

Laura Turner Seydel: Dad was gonna be a missionary.

He had read the Bible cover to cover, twice.

Uh, and then, when he realized his sister

was dying in this long, drawn out,

very painful, uh, way,

he just said, "There, there can't be a God.

"Because if there were a God,

"my sister would not be suffering the way she is

for the number of years, uh, that she did."

And he became a nonbeliever.

Turner: Then, my father decided

I had to go to college in the East.

So now, I'm a Southerner, and guess what? It's 1956.

Emmett Till has just been murdered.

It's the beginning of the civil rights movement.

So, everybody up there thinks I must be some racist, you know?

- (crowd yelling) - So, they said, "You goddamn Southerner, Turner!"

So I'm now, I'm back in the North.

I couldn't shake the Southern,

couldn't get in the right fraternities or anything.

Nobody wanted to be my friend. (laughs)

I've known him since we met freshman week

at, uh, Brown University.

It turned out we'd both been to military schools

for many years, and it was a common bond.

And we were different than most of the other freshman class

because most of the other guys went to

some fancy Eastern prep school.

They knew how to dress.

They knew how to deal with women.

You know, they'd actually dated people.

Things like that that we didn't know anything about.

Turner: My father was, uh,

on the fringe of just about everything.

He had a tremendous influence on me.

I mean, he was basically a good person, but he said,

"You've gotta be honest about everything."

He said, "Of course, it's not lying to lie to your wife.

"Real men aren't faithful to their wives.

Real men run around."

That first summer at school was difficult,

as my parents' marriage ended in divorce.

(soft rock music playing)

I was beginning to show promise as a competitive sailor.

(seagulls cawing)

In the first eight years that I raced sailboats, I never won.

I was second almost all the time,

but I never won once in eight years.

And then, in my ninth year of racing,

I went to college and started racing there.

My first year in college, I won just about all the time.

As a sophomore, I was now in the second year of a bet

my father had made with me

before sending me off to college.

If I didn't drink or smoke before turning 21,

- he'd give me $5,000. - (cash register dings)

My dad was an alcoholic and smoked two packs a day

and didn't want his son to make the same mistakes.

(upbeat music playing)

I mean, I never even kissed a girl till I was 18!

I never made love until I was 19-and-a-half, almost 20.

And it took me 19-and-a-half years! I mean,

to do it the first time. I did it the second time

- 10 minutes later. That's how-- - (audience laughter)

how easy it is to be a fast learner.

- I mean, you know, that's right. - (laughter)

Ted being Ted, being an honorable guy,

he told his father that he had, uh...

had something to drink.

Turner: I lost the bet with my dad.

One night, I went with a bunch of guys to Wheaton College,

a women's school in nearby Massachusetts.

We'd been drinking, and we wound up throwing chairs

- out of the windows of one of the dormitories there. - (siren wailing)

After that, someone called the police,

and we got caught.

And I was suspended from Brown

for the rest of that school year. I figured, well,

I got a year at least before I can get back into school,

so I'll join the Coast Guard Reserve.

And I was 19 at the time,

and, uh, start fulfilling my military obligation.

In those days, we still had a draft.

And then, he came back the next...

semester or the next year,

and we resumed where we had left off.

We were kinda catching up on things, you know?

Women, wine, song.

And, uh, we enjoyed our time there.

(upbeat Greek music playing)

Turner: Things reached a head about six months later

when I declared Classics as my major.

We went deep into ancient Greek history.

Brown didn't offer business courses.

Regardless, my dad was furious

and described his feelings to me

in a long, rambling letter.

narrator (as Ted's father): "I'm appalled, even horrified,

"that you have adopted Classics as a major.

"As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today.

"In my opinion, it won't do much

"to help you learn to get along with people in this world.

"I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass,

"and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere,

"the better it will suit me.

"You are in the hands of the Philistines,

"and dammit, I sent you there.

"I am sorry.

Devotedly, Dad."

Turner: It was clear that my father

would not be supporting me financially.

(upbeat music playing)

I made some spending money

working in the school cafeteria,

but I could never earn enough during school

to make my room and board payments.

I burned the candle at both ends.

I was drinking, chasing women, staying up late,

and hardly going to class at all.

At some point, Ted was caught

with a woman... in his room.

It-- You would get off easier if you killed somebody

than having a woman in your room.

So, he was thrown out again.

(jazz sting)

Turner: My father and I had a complex relationship, but I loved him.

I had a great opportunity in front of me,

and I really did enjoy the billboard business.

I got a call from Ted,

so I went to work for Ed Turner

at Turner Advertising in Charleston, South Carolina.

Turner: At this point, I had not had

any long-term relationships with women.

My thoughts turned to a woman

I had met at a college sailing regatta.

Her name was Judy Nye,

and she was the champion sailor

on Northwestern University's team.

- (phone ringing) - After dating long distance for a while,

I called her up and proposed to her over the phone.

She said yes,

and we began planning for a Chicago wedding in June.

(somber piano music playing)

That December, between our engagement and the wedding,

my sister Mary Jean passed away.

And, of course, the death of their only daughter

was absolutely crushing for Mom and Dad.

Even now, it's painful to think about,

and I've blocked all the memories surrounding her death.

("Bridal Chorus" by Richard Wagner playing)

After that dark winter, our summer wedding

was a welcome respite.

Dad was my best man and very proud of his son that day.

(music fades out)

Turner Advertising was already

one of the larger billboard companies in the South

by the summer of 1962,

when my father put together a deal

that would make it the biggest.

To afford the deal, my father had to finance

nearly all of the purchase price.

As my professional life was humming along,

I was racing on weekends.

And when Judy went into labor on Saturday,

I was sailing and missed the actual birth.

The fall of 1962 was an exciting time.

Dad was elated, the most energized

I'd ever seen him.

(dial tone, phone ringing)

My phone rang, and it was my father

calling from South Carolina.

He said he was calling me to tell me

he was selling a large chunk of the company,

all of the recent acquisitions and major market operations

to a competitor, Bob Naegele.

I couldn't believe it. I was literally stunned.

And then, I tried to talk him out of it.

My shock gave way to anger and I said, "Dad,

"all my life, you taught me to work hard

"and not be a quitter.

"And now, you're the one who's quitting.

What's happened to you? How could you do this?"

Dad remained surprisingly calm and unmoved.

I hung up the phone, dazed and disappointed.

(slams phone, bell echoing)

(line ringing)

Just a few days later,

I got another call from South Carolina.

And this time, it was my stepmother Jane.

After Jimmy Brown served him and Jane a relaxed breakfast,

Dad had walked up to his bathroom,

climbed in the tub...

(gunshot)

...and shot himself.

(siren wailing)

Jimmy Brown was the first to reach my father,

rushing up the stairs after hearing the gunshot.

Dad was still clinging to life,

but passed away before an ambulance

could get him to a hospital.

And after rushing to find him in that bathroom,

he'd also been given the grim task of cleaning

that awful mess up after my father was gone.

(somber music playing)

He suffered from manic mood swings

where he'd be real up one day,

and then crash emotionally and be real down the next.

It was a very difficult time for him and for me.

And, you know, my dad has never gotten over that.

"How could my dad have done that

"to me? And hurt me?

Couldn't he have stayed around for me?"

I would imagine that Dad felt some...

guilt for that. You know? You would have to.

Like, "Why didn't I know?

Why didn't he talk to me about it?"

The same thing if you had a child that committed suicide,

that you would blame yourself.

Turner: My memories of the hours and days

after learning of his death are hazy.

I was in shock.

I felt I had lost my best friend.

(light piano music playing)

- (birds chirping) - (stream flowing)

Jimmy loved and respected Dad.

And on top of his grief,

he was now faced with an uncertain future.

After my father, Jimmy was my closest friend in the world.

And without hesitation,

I assured him he'd always have a place in the Turner family.

I think Jimmy was a lot of continuity.

And I think there was a grounding thing for Ted.

And I think there's very few grounding things for Ted

and, and things that really

brought him back to the earth.

And I think Jimmy Brown was probably that one thing.

While I was in the army, uh,

getting close to the end of my term,

which was two years, I got a phone call from Ted.

He said, "Well, my father's killed himself,

"and I am fighting

"to keep ownership of the company,

fighting against Bob Naegele."

So, he just couldn't see himself

walking away from this company

that his father had, uh, had built.

Turner: Truth be told,

I doubt that most people thought

I was up to running the business anyway.

After all, it wasn't long before that

that my father had declined on giving me

even the top job in the Atlanta operation.

He said, "Teddy, you're just not gonna make it."

But, it was, "I really want to show him,

prove to him that I could do it."

For whatever reason, when his dad was around,

he was always a failure.

Turner: Turner Advertising represented my father's life's work.

He loved the company,

and what he'd really want me to do

was to save it.

Naegele made it very clear to me

that while he admired my father and mourned his death,

he had no intention of going back on the deal.

Naegele's acquisition documents neglected to place

non-compete clauses on any of our employees,

so there were no legal issues holding us back.

(multiple phones ringing)

My team and I worked the phones feverishly,

and within a matter of days, we caused significant damage

to the assets Naegele hoped to acquire.

(phones hanging up, ringing stops)

If I agreed to return all the leases and simply go away,

he would pay me $200,000 cash.

My other option, if I wanted to retain

the general outdoor assets,

was to pay $200,000 to Naegele.

I agreed on the spot that I would take the second option.

(typewriter clacking)

Guys like Naegele would've been in a 90% tax bracket,

so taking this cash now would not be much of a deal.

Armed with that knowledge, and short on cash,

we went back and offered to pay them $200,000

in Turner Advertising stock.

They accepted my offer.

(upbeat dramatic music playing)

I had kept the company out of Naegele's hands,

and it didn't cost me a single dollar of cash.

It was beyond my control to save Dad,

but I'd done everything I could to save his company.

I knew he would've been pleased.

He said, "I'd like you to consider coming to work."

He said, "You know, I'd like to have some people around me

that I trust and have confidence in."

So, that's what I did.

Turner: Judy was in Macon taking care of Laura Lee

and preparing to deliver our second child.

I was proud to name my first son Robert Edward Turner IV.

Adding a second child to our family, though,

would not change the dynamics between Judy and me.

Our marriage was simply not going to work.

I had a real difficulty

putting my bachelor lifestyle behind me.

Fonda: The father had many mistresses.

The father told Ted that

women were a dime a dozen.

It's like a bus. If you miss one,

then another one will come along.

And that you weren't really a man

unless you had many mistresses.

- (plane roaring) - (beeping)

Turner: Judy decided to move back to Chicago

to be closer to her family.

And while divorce is never easy,

it was particularly hard for me

to be separated from my two young children.

With Judy and the kids gone,

I found myself needing companionship.

Her name was Jane Smith,

and the attraction was immediate.

And after dating for almost a year,

we flew to Las Vegas for a quick wedding,

then settled together in a modest Atlanta apartment.

Before long, we welcomed our first child together.

A boy we named Rhett, after my favorite fictional character,

Rhett Butler.

By this time, Judy had remarried.

When Laura and Teddy, now 7 and 5 years old,

came to Atlanta for a customary Christmas holiday visit,

something was clearly wrong.

You know, it's funny because you don't know

what memories you really have and what you don't have.

I have fleeting memories.

You know, whether they were Laura's memories or my memorie--

But yeah, no, you didn't wanna be with...

Big Pete, is what we call him.

He had a bit of a steroid problem.

He had a bit of a chemical problem, drinking problem.

You know, he had some anger issues,

and, uh, and he took it out a good bit.

I'm sure on my mom as well,

um, but took it out on Laura and I.

But, we moved in with my dad and Janie

because it was a, a horribly abusive situation,

and, uh, and Dad didn't wanna send us back.

And we had Rhett, so we had, you know,

a brother and Christmas trees.

And, you know, it was not an apartment

and definitely was a better situation, for sure.

(gentle music playing)

Turner: In January of 1968,

Janie gave birth to a second boy,

Reed Beauregard Turner, whom we call Beau.

The following February,

when our daughter Sarah Jean was born,

we suddenly had five children under the age of 8

living under our roof.

We had the big basement, and...

and y'all was kinda growing up there.

And Beau was--

Beau hadn't even just started walking,

and, uh, Jennie was a baby then.

I mean, people don't understand,

Jimmy lived with us 24/7.

Literally 24/7.

I couldn't understand why Jimmy, like...

as a kid, it was just normal.

But now I think about it,

and Jimmy had no life but us.

And it was a crazy life.

And Jimmy was this,

you know, kind of stoic Southern gentleman,

(laughs) you know, living in this, uh,

in this kind of, you know, circus.

You know, if Dad was a ringmaster,

Jimmy was a guy that set everything up

and took everything down.

From my first memory, Jimmy's there.

My parents traveled a lot.

And so, that, that's not easy on children.

But, for us it was,

because Jimmy was like a surrogate mother,

a surrogate father, you know, and he loved it.

The w-- The awe and the wonder

and the opportunity came from Ted.

You know, there's no doubt.

Um, but, the grounding came from Jimmy Brown.

He gave up getting married himself,

having children himself.

We were his children.

And so, we were his family.

And he knew we needed him.

(cool jazz music playing)

Turner: I wasn't there as much as I'd wished,

but my children always knew that I loved them.

Meanwhile, the company continued to move at a pace

every bit as hectic as my personal life.

We decided to start our diversification efforts

by going after radio properties.

Regardless of the reasons,

I simply wasn't around as much as I probably should've been.

Take that sheet down, and put it on the deck!

I had found my sport,

and nothing was going to stop me now.

He was doing a lot of sailing,

but not much business because, by now,

we were throwing off a lot of cash.

It, it was very good business.

About that time,

uh, Jack Rice, who owned Rice Broadcasting,

uh...

figured Turner might be an easy touch

to buy his losing deal...

and-- UHF TV station,

and, uh, Ted went for it.

I'm a multifaceted person.

- I've got a lot of different personalities. - speaker: I don't--

You oughta see me at midnight on a full moon.

(laughter)

Here it comes. (growls)

Unfortunately, the more I learned about TV stations,

the more I realized what a disaster we were in.

Bill Tush: We're just a local TV station in Atlanta

that went off the air about three times a day

'cause we didn't have a transmitter that would stay on.

As far as the early days were concerned,

you know, as the joke, as the joke went then, um,

we were number six in a four-station market.

We used to run the same movie twice.

We'd run it in the morning, then run it again

at 11 o'clock at night, but we got rid of that fast

'cause it made us look too poor.

Turner: Our shows were weak,

so I decided to make programming my top priority.

I love movies, and sure enough,

when we put films on in late night,

our ratings improved.

We began airing our best films in Academy Award Theatre,

and I served as the show's host.

- (telegraph beeping) - Peter Dames: I said, "You've never seen 'Citizen Kane'?"

He said, "No." I said, "Believe me,

you're gonna like it."

"News on the March" narrator: Its humble beginnings

in this ramshackle building, a dying daily.

Kane's empire in its glory,

held dominion over 37 newspapers,

two syndicates, a radio network,

an empire upon an empire.

And from the moment the movie started,

till it ended, Turner was mesmerized,

absolutely fascinated by the, uh...

the storyline, and the, and the movie itself.

Me and her decided this ain't the place for you to grow up in.

(characters yell)

What that kid needs is a good thrashing.

- That's what you think, is it, Jim? - Yes.

That's why he's going to be brought up where you can't get at him.

Dames: It just seemed like

there were a lot of parallels between Kane and Turner.

One of those old families where the father is worth 10 million,

and then, one day, he shoots himself,

and it turns out there's nothing but debts.

- Still the college boy, aren't you? - Oh, no, Mr. Thatcher,

I was expelled from college. A lot of colleges. You remember.

"News on the March" narrator: The White House seemingly the next easy step

in a lightning political career.

Then, suddenly, less than one week before election,

defeat.

Dames: I knew he'd like it,

but I didn't know he'd be totally captivated by it.

Kane was an unusual guy,

and Turner's certainly an unusual guy.

Mr. Carter, that's one of the things

that's going to have to be changed around here.

- The news goes on for 24 hours a day. - Twenty-four--

- Excuse me. - That's right, Mr. Carter.

- Excuse me! - But, Mr. Kane--

- Excuse me! - It's impossible!

And I was the news director.

I was the whole news department, really,

because we didn't have any staff or any budget.

We had a long-running joke that once we had

to cut our budget in half in the news department,

so we canceled the morning paper.

Not only did he not

know anything about the news,

he wasn't interested in the news,

because, you know, he wanted

to build this entertainment empire.

And that's where Bill Tush came in

with the bag over his head and with the dog.

For more on that story, here's Rex. Rex?

Dames: That was, you know,

a fulfillment of an obligation

that Turner really wished

that he didn't have to have any news.

- (panting) - Thank you, Rex.

We were the only children ever forced to watch television.

Um, we watched a lot of TV.

But, we got smart at the end, and we always made sure

that channels were turned back to 17

when we quit watching something else,

so we could fool him

'cause if he ever turned on the TV,

and it wasn't on 17,

he wouldn't get mad, but he was definitely--

It was an issue.

After Turner bought channel 17, we--

And we were losing $100,000, $200,000 a month.

And somewhere along the line,

someone who owned a TV station in Charlotte,

a UHF station

in Charlotte, North Carolina,

was going down the tubes 'cause he was losing so much money.

And he heard about this guy, Turner, and he thought,

"Well, maybe he'll buy my loser."

Which he did.

Turner: I was convinced that TV

was where I wanted to be.

I renamed the Charlotte station W-R-E-T,

which happened to be my initials,

and quickly discovered

that despite the better-looking physical plant and equipment,

the operation was in poor financial shape.

My first job at the station

was painting a big closet and cleaning it out,

of which I was exemplary.

So, I was still at the bottom. And one day,

Ted walked into the sales office,

and everybody was there. It's about 6 o'clock at night.

He said, "I just bought this station in Charlotte, WRET.

"I'm losing $50,000 a month on it.

"I don't have the money to lose. It could bankrupt all of us.

"It, it would be very smart of one or several of you

to get up there and help me fix this thing. Who's going?"

And I mean, everybody jumped under their desks,

ran to the men's room, did everything that--

I mean, nobody wanted a piece of that.

I was the last guy.

I raised my hand and said, "I'll go."

Um, I was in the car the next day

heading for Charlotte.

Turner: We'd even missed the payroll.

We didn't have enough money for it

in the bank to clear those checks.

I said, "I'm gonna give you the checks,

"but you can't cash 'em.

"You know, gotta hold them till next week

and see if we get a little money coming in."

We were in such bad shape that

I was a year behind on my payments.

They said, "If you don't make a payment,

"we're gonna pull the equipment out,

and you're gonna go dark."

And then, it would've been over.

And then, everything would've gone down

because when Charlotte went and like the dominoes,

Atlanta would've gone, too,

because I was late on my bills there, too.

(smash, dust settling)

(light music playing)

♪

(music fades out)