Ted Turner CNN Founder Dead at 87
Media mogul and CNN founder Ted Turner has died after battling dementia.
Turner Enterprises announced Ted died Wednesday morning. Back in 2018, he announced he'd been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. That announcement came shortly after his 80th birthday.
In addition to launching the world's first 24/7 news channel, the Cable News Network, in 1980 ... Ted created a media empire that included TBS Superstation, TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, and at one time, most of MGM Studios' film library.
The billionaire entrepreneur -- who got his media start in advertising -- is credited with shaping cable TV ... and most of the channels he launched remain staples today in your basic cable offerings.
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2/17/13
THE LAST TIME WE SAW HIM
Turner eventually merged his massive media holdings with Time Warner.
Nicknamed the "Mouth of the South," Ted also bought the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks in the early 1970s, and later World Championship Wrestling. He also won the America's Cup yachting race in 1977, which landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated that year.
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He famously married Jane Fonda in 1991, before divorcing 10 years later. He'd been married two times before that -- to Julia Nye and Jane Shirly Smith -- and had 5 children, 14 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
CNN CEO Mark Thompson said, “Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement. He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognize him and his impact on our lives and the world.”
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THROUGH THE YEARS
While he'll certainly be remembered as a media pioneer, Ted cared deeply about conservation, an owned ranches in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Oklahoma and other states. He used the swaths of land to raise more than 50,000 bison, and here's a fun fact -- it's the world's largest privately owned herd.
Turner was known for his philanthropy, and in 2010, became one of the tycoons who joined the Giving Pledge ... promising to donate the majority of his billions to charity when he died.
Turner was 87.
RIP
My Husband Chose His Mistress and a Luxury Yacht Over My Desperate Calls—Fourteen Days Later, Federal Agents Were Waiting at Our Front Door
My Husband Chose His Mistress and a Luxury Yacht Over My Desperate Calls—Fourteen Days Later, Federal Agents Were Waiting at Our Front Door
CHAPTER 1
My husband ignored fifty emergency calls from the ICU because he was too busy drinking champagne on a luxury yacht with his mistress.
Two weeks later, he came home expecting an angry wife.
Instead, he found an empty mansion, armed officers, and one document that destroyed the life he thought he still owned.
“His phone is switched off, Maya. You need to stop calling him,” the funeral director whispered gently.
But his words barely registered.
I stood beneath a black umbrella in the freezing rain at a small cemetery outside Chicago, my hands wrapped around the edge of a tiny white casket.
Inside was my seven-year-old daughter.
Lily.
My beautiful little girl.
And I was burying her alone.
No relatives stood beside me.
No friends held my hand.
And the one person who should have been there most wasn’t delayed by a flight.
He wasn’t trapped in some emergency business meeting.
He wasn’t sick.
My husband, David, was in the Bahamas.
On a luxury yacht.
With his twenty-five-year-old fitness instructor, Julianne.
While our daughter was fighting for her life in the ICU, David was drinking champagne beneath the Caribbean sun with another woman.
Lily had developed a sudden, aggressive case of meningitis.
Everything happened terrifyingly fast.
One moment, she was sick.
The next, doctors were rushing around her hospital bed while machines screamed beside me.
I called David once.
Then again.
Then again.
By the time Lily took her final breath, I had called him fifty times.
Fifty.
Every single call was rejected.
Then, finally, a message appeared on my screen.
Stop suffocating me with your anxiety, Maya. I’m on a digital detox trip for my mental health. Do not contact me for the next two weeks.
I stared at those words while my daughter’s body was still warm beneath my hand.
David thought I was being dramatic.
He thought I was nagging him.
He thought whatever I wanted could wait until his vacation was over.
He had no idea his only child had just died.
And standing there at Lily’s grave, watching wet dirt stain the toes of my black shoes, I made a decision.
I would not tell him.
Not by text.
Not by voicemail.
Not through anyone else.
David had demanded fourteen days of silence.
So I gave him exactly what he wanted.
Fourteen days later, the front door of our four-million-dollar estate swung open.
David walked inside looking like a man returning from paradise.
His skin was deeply tanned.
Expensive sunglasses rested on top of his head.
A bright linen shirt hung loosely over his shoulders.
And he was laughing.
Actually laughing.
Julianne walked in behind him carrying a designer shopping bag that David had almost certainly paid for.
“Maya, we’re back!” he shouted into the house.
His voice echoed strangely.
He didn’t notice.
Not yet.
“Look, I know you’re probably furious, but honestly, the detox was exactly what our marriage needed.”
He glanced back at Julianne and smiled.
“Julianne came along to help me work through our emotional distance, and we’ve decided—”
He stopped.
The smile vanished.
The house was empty.
Completely empty.
No sofas.
No dining table.
No artwork.
No rugs.
No family photographs.
Nothing.
Every room had been stripped bare.
His luggage slipped from his hand and hit the hardwood floor with a heavy thud.
But the empty mansion wasn’t what truly terrified him.
Three people were waiting in the middle of the living room.
Two armed state troopers stood near the windows.
Between them was a grim-faced man in a dark tailored suit holding a thick leather folder against his chest.
David’s golden tan seemed to disappear in seconds.
“Maya?”
His voice cracked.
“What the hell is going on?”
He looked around wildly.
“Who are these people?”
The man in the suit stepped forward.
His expression never changed.
“David Vance?”
David swallowed.
“Yes.”
The man opened the leather folder.
“Mr. Vance, you are hereby placed under emergency executive arrest.”
Julianne immediately pulled her hand away from David’s.
“What?” David whispered.
His eyes darted from the officers to the empty rooms.
Then back toward me.
“Maya, what did you do?”
I said nothing.
Not yet.
Because he still didn’t know why Lily’s bedroom had been emptied.
He still didn’t know what had happened while he was drinking champagne in the Bahamas.
And he had absolutely no idea what was inside the document the man in the suit was about to hand him.
David had spent fourteen days believing he had escaped his family.
Now he was standing inside the ruins of it.
And the luxury vacation was officially over.
CHAPTER 2 in here 👇👇👇
