Ted Turner, “Call Me Ted”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Ted Turner didn’t go so far as to suggest Wednesday night that his former namesake company would be better off if he were still running it
He just let a lot of people listening to him think that way.
“I never embezzled money from anybody and I didn’t sell Senate seats,” Turner joked about his early “troublemaker” years during a book tour stop at the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. Then he set his sly sights on even more recent events. “I never lost a $240 million lawsuit like Turner Broadcasting just did to David McDavid.”
The CNN founder’s spirited appearance came one day after a jury awarded Texas businessman McDavid $281 million in his breach of contract suit over ownership of the Hawks and Thrashers, and a month after Turner’s autobiography was published. “Call Me Ted” will move up from No. 15 to No. 11 on the next New York Times best seller list — much to the author’s chagrin.
“Eleventh — that doesn’t win in baseball,” Turner said to the appreciative chuckles of the capacity crowd of 450 that had already heard him lament his early, lonely years as Atlanta Braves owner. “My family wouldn’t come [to games] with me anymore. They said, ‘Dad, you get a contender and we’ll come.’ I sat there by myself for four years. Me and 200 fans.”
Billed as a Q&A conducted by ex-CNN-er and current Carter Library director of public affairs Tony Clark, the hour-plus event was actually way heavier on the A-ing than the Q-ing. For instance, when Clark gamely tried to get Turner — who won the 1977 America’s Cup as skipper of the yacht Courageous — to discuss the potential dangers of sailing windy seas, he was cut off.
“Life’s a gamble and you’re not going to get out of it alive,” yelped Turner, whose Atlanta home a few blocks from the CNN Center took a direct hit from last March’s tornado “Look at downtown Atlanta, for God’s sake. I had eight windows blown out of my apartment ! Who would ever think that would ever happen on Luckie Street downtown?”
The equation didn’t change much when audience members got their turn at the mic. Asked by one man about the future of the free enterprise system, Turner practically snorted.
“I don’t like what we’re doing,” said Turner who hopes the government doesn’t bail out the auto industry. “We’re subsidizing the losers in our society.”
And somehow, Turner managed to turn a question about finances into an amusing soliloquy on the many honorary degrees he received during the same period he was married to Jane Fonda.
“Jane said, ‘Why are you taking all those dumb degrees ?’ and I said, ‘Jane, it’s very important for the business community to be close to education,” said Turner, who claims to have 42 such degrees and one very good relationship with his ex. “I don’t know how many she’s got. Somebody, give her one…”
