All language subtitles for Call.Me.Ted.S01E01.720p.WEB.H264-JFF

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)