Call Me Ted

by Ted Turner

  Despite how busy his work kept him, and perhaps due to his excitement to finally have me officially under his wing full-time, my father became involved in my private affairs. Not only did he expect a full accounting of my activities on the job, he also wanted to know about and have input into every aspect of my personal life. He wanted to know who I was dating, what family they were from, where we went, what we did—everything. I was accustomed to my father taking an interest in me but this was getting to be too much so I worked up the nerve to talk to him about it. My desk in our Savannah building was in an open area directly outside my father’s office. Late one afternoon, I knocked on his door and said, “Dad, do you mind if we talk for a bit?”

  “Sure son, come on in.”

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “Dad, all these years you’ve said you’re going to leave the business to me and that’s great. You didn’t want me to go to the Naval Academy because you wanted me here right after college. I couldn’t finish Brown so I came here even sooner than we had planned. I’ve been working on and off in this business since I was twelve. It’s not always easy being the boss’s son, but you know I love you to death. I’m glad to be your son and I’m proud and I’m doing everything I can to make you proud of me.”

  Having his full attention, I said something next that he didn’t expect.

  “You always say you’re going to leave your business to me—but have you ever considered the possibility that what you really want to do is leave me to your business?”

  He sat up straight in his chair. To his credit, he listened carefully to what I had to say and rather than respond immediately he said he wanted to think about it overnight. First thing the next morning he called me into his office and told me I was right and that he’d do his best to step back. I thanked him, and feeling a new confidence I said, “Dad, it just gets tough when you’re involved in every aspect of my life. You tell me where I should live, who I should date. I’d just like you to consider letting me be myself a little bit. In my business life I’ll do anything you say, but please try not to bug me so much about my personal life. When I want advice I’ll ask for it, but if not, please let me try to work it out myself.” He said that he understood, and things between us really did get better after that.

  As I worked to become my own person, sailing also helped. The billboard company was my father’s and as long as I worked there I’d be Ed Turner’s son. But sailing was mine, and on a boat I could be Ted Turner and earn a reputation on my own merits. The sport also played an important role in Savannah society and being good at it helped me establish myself there.

  While I was still shy of my twenty-first birthday I decided that now that I was out in the real world, it was time I found a wife and settled down. At this point I’d not had any long-term relationships with women. Attending an all-boys military academy didn’t help matters and during my wilder years at Brown I tended to have dates with several women as opposed to going steady with one. Living in the small town of Savannah I felt that I knew just about everyone there and I concluded that I’d have to look elsewhere to find a mate.

  Given the increasingly important role that sailing was playing in my life, I figured that marrying someone who shared that passion would make a lot of sense. My thoughts turned to a woman I had met at a college sailing regatta. Her name was Judy Nye and she was a champion sailor on Northwestern University’s team. Judy was very bright and fun-loving and so was her father. He was also a champion racer and after inheriting his father’s tool-and-die business, he went on to start his own sailmaking company. I remember the first time I met him was after a Chicago Bears game and he came in wearing a fur coat, a drink in hand, and laughing it up. Recalling these memories I gave Judy a call. We got together once or twice and got along pretty well. Looking back I don’t think we were ever really in love but we were young and impulsive. After dating long distance for a while I called her up and proposed to her over the phone. She said yes, and began planning for a Chicago wedding in June.

  That December, between our engagement and wedding, my sister, Mary Jean, died. She was just seventeen years old and it was a sad ending to a long ordeal for everyone involved. My mother had done all she could to keep Mary Jean stabilized and healthy but for many years it had been a question of when, not if, she would succumb to her illnesses. Since moving back to Cincinnati with my mom, Mary Jean was in many ways already out of my life, but that didn’t make her passing any easier to take. And of course, the death of their only daughter was absolutely crushing for my mom and dad. Even now, it’s painful to think about, and I’ve blocked all memories surrounding her death—how I learned of it, the funeral, the wake, my parents’ behavior—I don’t remember a single detail.

  After that dark winter, our summer wedding was a welcome respite. Judy’s family reserved a private club for our reception and it was spectacular. My father was my best man and very proud of his son that day. With our brief courtship, my sister’s passing, and our June wedding, those months were a whirlwind. Judy and I settled into our first home together—a rented one-room apartment in Savannah—but we were only there for a few months before my father bought a billboard company in Macon and we had to relocate there. We found a nice little apartment but I’m sure that going from Chicago to Savannah to Macon was a tough transition for Judy. Frankly, deep down, I think we both had concerns that rushing into our marriage had been a mistake.

  Even worse, once we got to Macon, I really threw myself into my work. My father had purchased Jones Poster Service earlier that year and their previous owner—Johnny Jones—stayed around for a while to help me out with the transition. He was beloved by everyone in town but he wasn’t the greatest businessman. An elder in the Presbyterian Church, he was a fine, principled man, the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. Unfortunately, his spirit of generosity often caused his business to suffer. When he sold us the company he was beginning a battle with cancer and wanted to get his affairs in order. He had no children to whom he might pass along the business, and was happy to sell to my father, who by now had earned a solid reputation across the industry.

  At the time of our acquisition, Jones was a small company, with about two hundred billboards and revenues of just $55,000 per year. They operated twenty-four-sheet posters—those smaller billboards you used to see with aluminum trim around them—and his people had not put much effort toward maintenance, leaving many signs tattered and some even in danger of falling down. I inherited a lean staff, just six and a half employees including me. We had two bill posters and a three-man construction crew. The “half” was a secretary who worked mornings only (an answering service covered calls in the afternoon). The office itself was run-down and tiny, out on the edge of town near the railroad tracks. My secretary and I shared a one-room office and we had a cramped little garage at the back where they kept the paste cooker for the billboards and stored all the rolls of paper.

  Despite the company’s poor condition and my relative youth—I was still just twenty-one years old when I took over—I felt like I was in my element and knew exactly what needed to be done. To grow we had to add locations and raise advertising rates across all of our signs. I handled all the leasing and advertising sales. I staked out locations for new signs and went out with the crews to show them exactly how and where I wanted them built. I’d personally go down to City Hall to learn about local zoning rules and to apply for the permits required for new billboard sites. Having trained so many summers with some of the best in the business—including my dad—it all came to me naturally.

  I was active in the Macon community, becoming the youngest member of the local Rotary Club, and joining the board of the Macon Red Cross chapter and the United Way’s publicity committee. Every year we’d donate signs to advertise events like the annual flower show or other charities that could use the space to their advantage. Not only did I enjoy the community involvement, it helped smooth the way for the growth of our business.

  My father ca
me to visit and he was happy with everything he saw. He was an active Rotarian and it pleased him when I brought him to a Macon meeting and several of the older members of the club made a point to let him know how much they thought of me and what good things I was doing in the community. I drove him around and showed him all our new signs and he was impressed by the locations I’d managed to secure and excited to see the improvements that had been made in organizing and managing the small staff. He was really high on the whole operation and when I drove him back to the airport, he said, “Son, you’re starting out where most men finish,” meaning that here I was twenty-one years old and running a business. A few days after he left I got a letter from him telling me what a great job I was doing and how proud he was of me. My father was usually very sparing with his praise, and nothing he ever did before or after that day ever made me feel so good.

  Within my first two years in Macon we increased our number of billboards by 50 percent and doubled our revenue to $110,000 per year. Not only did I feel like I was becoming a strong leader of this small business, I developed a sense that my dad and I were becoming a great team.

  I had no way of knowing at that time just how special and precious our days together would later prove to be.

  5

  Tragedy

  Turner Advertising Company 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.

  Over his years in the business, my father had developed a close relationship with a successful billboard operator in Minnesota named Bob Naegele and together they hatched a deal proposal. They would go in together, purchase General Outdoor, and then split it into two pieces. Based in Atlanta, General Outdoor, Inc. had been one of our greatest competitors. They owned properties not only in the Southeast but across the Midwest and Northeast as well. Naegele’s company would take the properties in the North while my father would own the markets in the South. Together, they made an aggressive offer and General Outdoor accepted.

  While our company had grown large, the cities where we operated—Charleston, South Carolina, Macon, Savannah, and Columbus, Georgia—were relatively small. Not only would this merger quadruple our revenues overnight, it would put us in major, higher-profile markets like Atlanta and Richmond. The sales price was about $4 million, a value roughly equal to what our entire company was worth at the time. To afford the deal, my father had to finance nearly all the purchase price, but successful billboard companies generated a lot of cash, so taking on this debt really didn’t present a problem. When the dust settled on the General Outdoor acquisition, my father moved into our new headquarters in Atlanta as CEO of the biggest outdoor advertising company in the South.

  My father asked me to move as well. He was pleased with my work in Macon and while he didn’t feel I was quite ready to run the much bigger operation in Atlanta, he did think I could do a good job there heading up the leasing department. My father was convinced that General Outdoor had been missing out on growth opportunities and believed that an aggressive leasing effort was in order. Adding new signs had been part of my job in Macon but now it would take up 100 percent of my energy and I was excited about the prospects of tackling a major market like Atlanta.

  But while my professional life was humming along, my marriage was not working. Almost from the very beginning, Judy and I realized that not only had we rushed into things and married too young, we barely even knew each other. My work and sailing schedule made it hard to become better acquainted, and unfortunately, when we did spend time together, our personalities were not compatible. I did plenty of things to make Judy mad and it wasn’t long before we were fighting a lot. I had real difficulty putting my bachelor lifestyle behind me and it didn’t help that from an early age my father taught me by word and example that men are by their nature polygamous—“like roosters in a hen yard,” that “real men run around.” I however had felt the need to settle down and get married, but as soon as I made the commitment I realized I wasn’t ready to fulfill it. Even more, Judy was tough—in addition to sailing at Northwestern she was captain of the varsity field hockey team—and during a few of our fights it was everything I could do to keep her from beating me.

  While we both knew that our marriage was in trouble, we did have some good times together. One of the brightest of these was the birth of our daughter, Laura Lee, in July of 1961. I was racing on weekends back then and when Judy went into labor on a Saturday, I was off sailing and missed the birth. Laura was a beautiful child who brought us a lot of joy, but sleepless nights and the demands of parenthood put even more strain on an already shaky relationship and it was becoming clear to both of us that it wasn’t going to work. We got a quick divorce but it wasn’t long after our separation that Judy realized she was pregnant with our second child. We agreed to get back together and to give our marriage a second chance and almost as soon as we did, I was presented with my new job opportunity in Atlanta. Given all the transitions we had already experienced, Judy and I agreed that it would be best if she and Laura Lee stayed put in Macon while I rented an apartment in Atlanta and came home on weekends.

  With the General Outdoor acquisition in place and being reunited with my father in Atlanta, the fall of 1962 was an exciting time. Dad was elated—the most energized I’d ever seen him. He looked around town for a classier headquarters and traded in his Buick for a Cadillac limousine that Jimmy Brown drove. Unbeknownst to all of us, this upbeat behavior came just as he was approaching the brink of a collapse. He was like an engine that runs at its fastest right before stripping its gears.

  My dad had always had his mood swings, but almost overnight his behavior became significantly more erratic and unpredictable. One day he’d be high as a kite and the next he’d be in a state of abject depression. He’d always been a fairly large man, but now he was putting on more weight and growing a big potbelly. After years of smoking two or three packs of cigarettes a day he had developed a bad case of emphysema that, combined with his drinking and weight gain, took a heavy toll on him physically. I’m sure that Mary Jean’s death had a lasting impact on him as well. Her illness was lengthy and her passing was long anticipated, but it can’t ever be easy to lose a child. I know how devastating it was for me to lose Mary Jean and I can only imagine the grief it created for Dad.

  Despite my father’s obvious ambition, it’s clear to me now that reaching new heights in business and material wealth actually could have undermined his mental state. He told me a memorable story on the subject. He was preparing to enter Duke University just as the Depression hit. His parents lost nearly everything and they struggled to tell him they could no longer afford his tuition. At that young age he consoled his mother, saying, “Don’t worry, Mom. When I grow up, I’m going to work really hard and I’m going to be a success. I’m going to be a millionaire and I’m going to own a plantation and a yacht.” Given their circumstances at the time these were very lofty goals, but by the time he shared this story with me he had achieved all three. He said that having now checked off each of these goals, he was having a really tough time reevaluating things and coming up with a plan for the rest of his life.

  He then told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “Son, you be sure to set your goals so high that you can’t possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you’ll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low and now I’m having a hard time coming up with new ones.”

  In addition to achieving all that he had ever hoped to, this new acquisition seemed to trigger other insecurities in Dad. Seeing his parents lose everything in the Depression created a deep-seated concern about going too far into debt. His post-acquisition interest payments were big and the company needed large capital investments to continue its growth. Still, we were doing well and generating plenty of cash. My father knew the billboard business cold and while most of his advisers assured him that he wouldn’t have trouble meeting his
obligations, an irrational fear of losing everything began to consume him.

  He tried to get his addictions under control by checking into a place called Silver Hills in Connecticut. They managed to curb his drinking and smoking but right around that time he’d also been prescribed a variety of medications. He said they were for “his nerves,” and I’m pretty sure they included Quaaludes and a variety of other uppers and downers. In effect, my dad basically swapped alcohol and tobacco for prescription drugs. Everyone around him was concerned. Jimmy Brown, the one person who probably knew him better than anyone, told me many times that he feared that the drugs were not good for him. I tried to convince my father to take a vacation but he wouldn’t do it.

  Dad was in bad shape and his unpredictable behavior was tough on the company and particularly hard on me. During the first six months or so after the General Outdoor acquisition my weight dropped from 180 pounds to 135. I developed a pre-ulcerative condition and my doctor made me swear off coffee. I’d get so tired and agitated that one of my eyelids developed a twitch. I’d hold one finger over my eye to hold it still but when I did that one of my feet would start to twitch so I’d have to put one foot on top of the other foot just to make it stop. People walking by my desk must have thought I was crazy.

  I was working like mad during the day, visiting Judy and Laura Lee on the weekends, and watching my father unravel right before my eyes. I didn’t know how to help him. I talked to him a few times about getting off the pills but he wouldn’t. After years of grooming me to succeed him, all of a sudden he seemed in a panic about the company’s future, and by March of 1963 I was practically ready for a nervous breakdown myself. Then things got worse.

  It was in the middle of the week and I was in Atlanta working. My phone rang, and it was my father calling from South Carolina. He’d gone there to spend the week with his wife, Jane. I had hoped he was relaxing there but I soon realized he wasn’t. He said he was calling to tell me that he was selling a large chunk of the company—all the recent acquisitions and major market operations—to Bob Naegele.